...but nail polish will never hurt me

Damn, my blogging hiatus really did a number on my creative-title-writing abilities. Sorry bout it.

These nails may not seem that exciting, but they were a huge deal for me. Like, get-home-at-3-am-and-do-your-nails-with-your-new-polish huge deal. Indie nail polish--that is, polish made in small batches by regular old guys & gals and sold on sites like Etsy--has taken the nail world by storm over the last few months. Unfortunately, do to the limited quantity nature of indie polish, it's usually expensive and hard to get. So I mostly just admire from afar, but there was one polish I needed--Ninja Polish Sticks n Stones. Long story short, one of the first indie polish sellers, Lynnderella, made an incredible black & white glitter polish, but her poor business practices resulted in sky-high prices and scarce availability. So the lovely ladies at Ninja Polish decided to pay homage to Lynn's coveted polish, at a much more reasonable price.

However, because there are a frightening number of nail-obsessed people just like me all around the world, Sticks n Stones also proved incredibly hard to get. I kept signing up to be notified when it was back in stock, but was never near a computer when I received that magical email--until a day in July when I was on family vacation. I didn't have my computer, actually, but I needed the polish so desperately I managed to order and pay for it from my BlackBerry. Five days later, when I got home from vacation, it was in my mailbox, and I've never been happier about anything.

Except that one time I saw six pugs all running around a plaza in Madrid. That was maybe the happiest moment of my life.

ANYWAY this nail polish is great and I'm a crazy person aaand onto the photos!

This is two coats of Sticks n Stones over two coats (over white) of China Glaze Shocking Pink. Sticks n Stones is a bit of a stubborn glitter, and the large glitters definitely do need to be placed. As you can see I only managed to get one jumbo hex glitter out of the bottle, and it ended up looking real weird on my pinky.

I got tons of compliments from customers at work on these nails. Well, mostly people were just like, "Wow, those are...bright." So maybe they were just trying to nicely tell me I just gave them a migraine. Oops.

Sticks n Stones is currently out of stock, but you can request to be emailed when they restock. It's worth it.

skull candy

I don't know why I felt the impulse to title this "skull candy," because that is the name of a brand that makes horribly tacky headphones, but in my defense this manicure does feature skulls and it's a skittle manicure and skittles = candy so SKULL CANDY IT IS, overpriced rasta-print headphones aside.

Sometimes I start a manicure simply by being drawn to a color combination. This one, as you can see, was pink, black, white, and grey. I wanted clean patterns that played well with the sweet-yet-tough mix of colors. The pink is OPI Mod About You, which I adore and use incessantly despite its patchy formula; the white is China Glaze White on White, the grey is Essence Got A Secret?, and the black is Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I did these nails while watching the movie Party Girl. I'd like to think Parker Posey's character would approve of them. I freehanded the half-moon on my pinky, used a large dotting tool + nail art brush for the skull, a striper brush for my middle finger, a dotting tool for my index finger, and a makeup sponge for my thumb. And I lied--the black on my thumb is Orly Androgynie, which is shimmery, though it unfortunately doesn't show up in this photo.

I should probsss take the time to apologize for the fiftieth time for being the most inconsistent nail blogger ever. I've been painting and photographing my nails, I just...keep forgetting to post them. Which is silly, because I love blogging and I really want this thing to take off and catapult me into a $200k/year blogging gig (cus those totally exist), so I should probably, you know, post regularly. Feel free to yell at me if I start slacking again.

So once again, I have like five manicures queued up to post...which is good, because in eight days I'm leaving to go back to NUEVA YORK so I won't be able to post much. I am so excited, even though the summer weather will eat me alive (me + humidity = dire enemies). Any suggestions for magnificent back-in-the-New-York-groove nail art? Holla atcha girl.

nude + neon + drips

So like...I don't know if you've heard, cus it's still kind of a big secret and no one's really caught onto it yet, but the super hawt trend for this summer is neons. Now shh! Let's keep it under wraps y'all, we don't want 75% of America running around in their super bright crop tops carrying eye-searing Cambridge satchels.

...wait, what's that you say? You already own eighteen neon things? ...well, okay. Never mind, then. But I'm still going to force you to look at this neon mani I just did because I LIKE IT, okay?

I started with two coats of OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?, a grey-toned nude from their spring 2012 Holland collection. Next, I painted a base for the drips using Sinful Colors Snow Me White, since neons show up much better over white. 

To do the drips, I used my largest dotting tool and made three dots on each  nail, varying in placement. Then I painted a thick french tip and connected the dots to the french tip. If anyone wants a more detailed tutorial, telepathically communicate it to me. Or let me know in the comments. Either works.

Next, I went over the white base of the drips in American Apparel Neon Yellow and China Glaze Shocking Pink. Neons are so damn hard to work with, guys. They're so sheer but dry so slowly. I actually did this mani twice, but the first time it chipped and dented so badly I couldn't even take photos of it, so I had to do it all again the next day. If you're trying drips for the first time, I'd suggest using a very opaque creme polish, because otherwise you might end up tearing all your hair out and collapsing in an exasperated heap on the floor, surrounded by acetone-soaked cotton balls. Or you might just shrug it off. You know, one or the other.

PS--I was serious about the tutorials bit earlier. If you'd like to know in detail how I did any specific manicure, please leave me a comment or send me an email! Pretty please. I want to hear from ALL OF YOU!

blame it on the biebs

You know when you have what you think is a really good idea, and you're so excited to make it reality, and then it turns out kind of...eh? I did that this morning with my daily fried egg sandwich (note: do not mix three different kinds of salsa in one meal...) aaand also a few days ago with this manicure. It was so cute in my head and on my nails it's so boring.

I'm going to blame this lackluster result on the fact that I was watching the Justin Bieber documentary Never Say Never while doing this manicure, and it was quite distracting. Don't judge me, man. The Biebs is so cute. I want to adopt him. Or be him. Not really sure which.

I started with two coats of American Apparel Factory Grey on my index, ring, and pinky nails. It's a dusty lavender-toned grey with a slightly more runny formula than most AA polishes, but it wasn't at all streaky. The polka dots were done using my smallest dotting tool and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I used a base of China Glaze White on White on my middle finger and thumb, and freehanded the black outline using Wet n Wild Black Creme and various nail art brushes.

I kind of wish I had used glitter or some sort of gradient on the heart fingers. Orrr made the heart out of studs, like the appliques Justin Bieber wears on all of his sweet purple hoodies...hmm, now there's an idea!

really really wanna ziggy-zig ahh

I just realized I haven't posted here in...far too long. I'm a terrible blogger. But I've actually been sort of busy (shocker, right?) and then from Sunday afternoon til Monday afternoon, I was without electricity after a transformer in my neighborhood blew, and I couldn't justify driving to Starbucks just for wifi.

Anyway, this is the mani I'm currently sporting and dreading having to take off to do Fourth of July nails. These are just some of the very serious problems I have to deal with on a daily basis, guys. Feel sorry for me.

These nails are inspired by a bathing suit I bought in Spain (for only 13€!) whiiich was definitely a Missoni rip off. If you're not familiar with Missoni, it's an Italian fashion house famous for its colorful zigzag print. 

Aaand here's the bathing suit as the background for a lil comparison. Now are you ready for all the colors I used? From tip to base, they are...


Finger Paints Lemon Sour
Borghese Bellissima Rose
Essie Tart Deco
American Apparel Mannequin
China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise
China Glaze For Audrey
Confetti Green with Envy


...phew.

This pattern was a bit time-consuming, but actually quite easy--with the right equipment. I'd tried zig zags before with my old sad tiny paintbrushes, but they were disastrous. For a smooth line, you really need a sort of striper brush, so the paint can flow off the brush. This time around I used a medium striper brush that was a bit thick, and the zig zags were incredibly easy to make.

The only thing I regret is not doing the pattern on top of a white base, like Essie Marshmallow. That would have helped with the opacity of the zig zags, as well as filled in the tiny inevitable gaps in the pattern.

I'm a little bitter though, because I had a couple people ask me if these were nail wraps. Honey...I don't put no stickers on my nails. 100% hand-done, baby...and I'll have the nail polish fume brain damage someday to prove it!

I have four (!!!) more manis queued up, so brace yo'selves, and have a very merry fourth of July!

the dark side of gradients

I've been seeing (and doing) so many pastel gradients lately, and they're all incredibly lovely, but I decided to turn that on its head and do an intense, dark gradient. Cus, ya know, I'm a rebel. (I also just had Cool Whip on my strawberries with breakfast. Watch out, y'all, I'm outta control!)

I started with two coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, an almost-neon polish with a slight shimmer. Like neons, it dries matte and deceptively quickly; though it might feel dry to the touch almost instantly, you do need to wait as long as you would with a non-matte polish, otherwise you risk pulling or other unfortunate impatient-nail-painters' problems.

Then I sponged on Revlon Royal, a gorgeous blue jelly, and Wet n Wild Black Creme. I used a bit of Sammy's gradient technique and a bit of my own; alternating sponging both colors to get a smooth effect (so sponging Royal over Turned Up Turquoise, then sponging more Turned Up Turquoise over Royal, etc.)

It's not my smoothest gradient, but I love the shock of the black with the neon turquoise. Also, this was a beeeeyotch to clean up--I sponged on the black, which meant it was all over my fingers. It looked kinda rad at first--like spray paint outside of a stencil--but then I was like, "Man, I have to douse my skin in acetone to clean it up now," and then I had dry, stained fingers and it was just real rough. A day in the life of a nail addict, dude. Stuff's intense.

Have you tried gradient nails? What are your fav color combos? Has this post inspired you to join...the dark side? (We have Cool Whip and strawberries. You should totes come.)

seein' stars

Stars are literally the hardest thing to paint with nail polish. Why do they have to be so pointy? Why does nail polish have to be so thick and uncooperative? Why do I think you care about my difficulties in painting stars on my fingernails?

I recently ordered a ton of Essie polishes off of Amazon, because they're too damn expensive in stores and also I LOVE the delayed gratification of ordering things off the internet, even if it means I have to walk a full 200 yards to my mailbox. I think Essie has the best color selection out of any nail polish brand (probably because it's almost entirely cremes, which are my fave), but I'm always underwhelmed with their formulas. But I put up with that because gorgeous pastel cremes. All I need in life, really.

This is Essie Lilacism sponged over two coats of China Glaze White on White. I tried using Sammy's gradient tutorial which I posted about in my last gradient mani post, but Lilacism wasn't opaque enough so I ended up painting it on the tips, then sponging a bit further down. As you can see on my ring finger, this technique was less than perfect. Oh well.

I did the stars using a dotting tool, because my striper brush has seen seriously better days. I ordered a new set of brushes off Amazon but they've been super slow in arriving. So perhaps I lied when I said I like delayed gratification.

Regardless of my sad amorphous stars, I think this is a pretty sweet manicura. That's Spanish for "manicure." Whoda thunk?!

summer mix

I recently required a new (old) car. It's a 1990 Honda Accord and its name is Ron Swanson (aka the Swansonmobile) and up until two days ago, it had no stereo. That meant I was driving around either in awkward silence or using my BlackBerry as speakers...both which were very depressing. However, my very kind and mechanically-minded dad recently installed a new radio so now I can feel slightly less bootleg while driving a car that is older than I am. This is great because I love listening to goofy summery playlists when the weather is nice like this. My latest summer music mix has included Justin Bieber, The Go-Gos, Kid Cudi, Phantogram, and Taking Back Sunday (totally normal grouping of music, right?) So to reflect my summer music mix eclecticness (is that a word? well, now it is), I decided to create a manicure that is equally wacky.

Pinky:
China Glaze Holly-Day
Zoya Tracie
Zoya Kylie 2
Wet n Wild Black Creme


Ring:
China Glaze Shocking Pink
Milani Gold Gems


Middle:
China Glaze White on White
Wet n Wild Black Creme
This nail was inspired by the original Barbie's bathing suit!


Index:
American Apparel American Denim
China Glaze White on White


Thumb:
Wet n Wild Black Creme
Urban Outfitters Purple Glitter

I used a dotting tool for my pinky, index, and thumb, and a striping tool for my middle finger. I really love skittle nails because they're a great way to try out different designs, especially ones that are too time consuming to do on all your nails (like the watermelon design).

Now, we'll see how long this manicure lasts...my nails have been getting super beat from doing dishes at home and at work. What's that you say? Buy some rubber gloves? But that, my friend, would require effort...thanks for the suggestion, though ;)

popsicle gradient

If you guys have never seen The Nailasaurus, you've really been missing out. Sammy does some seriously awesome nails and her gradients are the best out there. I did these using her technique and the effect was really stunning--it looked even better in real life, I think here the colors were just too bright to photograph smoothly.

I started with three coats of Zoya Shelby, which is kind of the exact shade of Pepto Bismol and is pretty streaky buuut I still like it. Then using Sammy's gradient technique, I added on Sally Hansen Sun Kissed.  My friend's mom said these look like popsicles, and a middle-aged dad complimented them when I was at work, so basically Sammy's tutorial is the greatest and orange and pink are the perfect summery colors.

Ignore my weird crooked fingers and focus on dat gradient. Smooth as buttah.


The next day I decided to add some nail art and subconsciously ended up copying this manicure by Chelsea from Get Nailed. Hers is a thousand times better than mine sooo I'm a little embarrassed but whateva whateva I do what I want!

All the art was freehanded using a paintbrush that is badly in need of replacing and a dotting tool using China Glaze White on White. 

It didn't show up too much in the photos, but I also added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust for a lil bling bling. (Do people still say "bling bling"? Or did that die out with Myspace, velour sweatsuits and the popularity of Nelly's music?)

columbia inspired

Who's got two thumbs and is the worst nail blogger ever? (Hint: it's not my cat, because she has zero thumbs. She would be a really dreadful blogger though.) It's ME, because I haven't posted in ages even though I'm on summer vacation. Also, I haven't been crazy about any of the manicures I've done.

Anyway...I'll stop complaining about my silly creative slump and get to the nails, mmk?

My little brother graduates from high school on Thursday and he'll be going to Columbia University in the fall. This manicure was inspired by Columbia's colors--powder blue, black, and white. I used two coats of American Apparel American Denim as the base. I almost got away with just one coat, which was amazing for a pastel. This polish is a little chalky and seems like it will separate over time but for now it looks pretty damn nice. I'm a sucker for any blue nail polish.

I freehanded the stripes using China Glaze White on White and Wet n Wild Black Creme. As you can see, some nails turned out better than others...oh well.

American Denim was one of the four AA polishes I bought in Massachusetts and holy cow, their colors are so lovely and almost all cremes, so uh, naturally I'm hooked.

Sorry, not a lot of silly commentary on this. I've been working a ton lately and I use up all my witty banter there/in my conversations with my cat. So until next time...happy painting!

you can paint your nails lime green, rent yourself a limousine

The other day I was listening to one of my favorite bands in the entire world, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and was immediately inspired after hearing the lyric from "White Shoes": You can paint your nails lime green / rent yourself a limousine. I thought to myself, HEY! I can paint my nails lime green, even though it's the most obnoxious color ever, so I'm GONNA DO IT.

I started with three coats of Essence Lime Up!, which I think is a dupe for OPI Did It On 'Em from the Nicki Minaj collection. The formula for this polish was horrible. It was thick and bubbly and settled unevenly. No bueno.

Then because the lime wasn't eye-searing enough, I decided to freehand stripes in China Glaze Shocking Pink, which is the brightest neon ever. My camera can't capture how bright it is. Just imagine walking into the Barbie aisle at a toy store circa 1996. That bright.

I feel like this pattern could be found on some canvas flip-flops at a really tacky golf course in Miami. Or maybe just a Lacoste trunk show. Maybe I should have put some alligators in there somewhere.

Well, there you have it...the ugliest manicure I've ever done. Sorry your eyes hurt now. Here's a picture of Anderson Cooper holding a really fat cat to make things better:

galaxies, revisited

I first started dabbling in nail art in July 2011. My attempts were...sloppy, to say the least, and everything took me forever. A few days before I left for Spain, I put on Trainspotting and decided to use Cutepolish's tutorial to do galaxy nails. It took me the entire movie--over two hours--to finish the manicure, and it was still pretty messy. I don't even want to go into how messy my cuticles were...but anyway, eight months later, I decided to reattempt the galaxy manicure. I'm happy to report that this time it took me under 45 minutes. Practice makes perfect, you guys :)

Polishes used:
Wet n Wild Black Creme
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
China Glaze Lemon Fizz
China Glaze Fairy Dust
OPI Do You Lilac It?
OPI Dating a Royal

I started out with a base of Black Creme, then using a bit of a makeup sponge held in tweezers, I sponged on Snow Me White to form the basic galaxy shapes. Then I added Dating a Royal around the edges, Lemon Fizz in the center, and Do You Lilac It? in the spots that still looked too white.

Using the small end of a dotting tool, I added star clusters using Snow Me White, and then topped everything off with a coat of Fairy Dust. It's a holographic microglitter that China Glaze actually just discontinued, so if you're interested in it, buy it ASAP before it starts selling for exorbitant prices on eBay! Here's an out-of-focus shot so you can see all the pretty holo goodness in Fairy Dust:

And the best part is, my nails now match the background of my phone AND computer...I downloaded some awesome high-res photos of nebulae from the Hubble telescope's website, so I can always have stars to look at, even in the smoggiest of cities!

girl on fire

I finally got around to ordering a couple polishes from the China Glaze Capital Colours Collection, inspired by the Hunger Games. I wasn't the biggest fan of the collection because I tend to favor bright and light colors over dark, moody ones, but I love the Hunger Games so I had to waste some money on HG-inspired polish.

I fully acknowledge there are about eight million manicures exactly like this floating around the internet, but in my defense I only had about ten minutes to do this manicure and thus couldn't be terribly creative.

I started with two coats of China Glaze Stone Cold, an awesome shimmery matte (!!!) charcoal grey, and then applied China Glaze Electrify to the tips. It's a super bright and shiny mix of gold and red small glitter. Once Electrify dried, I put a coat of Essie Matte About You top coat over just the glitter because I wanted the glitter to match the matte base, but the effect ended up being kind of cloudy and messy-looking. Lesson learned.

So, there you have it! District 12-inspired nails. I'd like to think Cinna would be a fan :)

funky skittle

Here's some nail art lingo for ya: a "skittle" manicure is when every nail is painted something different. I love actual Skittles (especially the Crazy Cores...I could eat those by the pound) and I love skittle manicures just as much. They're great for when you can't decide on just one pattern, or have a few new polishes you want to try out, which was the case in this manicure. I pulled the blue, purple, hot pink, and multi-colored glitter polishes out of my "untrieds" stash for this.

Pinky: base of Essence Lime Up! with polka dots of China Glaze White on White.
Ring: base of an unnamed blue microglitter from Urban Outfitters with the anchor freehanded using white acrylic paint.
Middle: base of China Glaze Shocking Pink topped with Milani Gems FX.
Index: base of China Glaze Lemon Fizz with flowers in Milani Classic, Wet n Wild Dreamy Poppy, and China Glaze Holly-Day.
Thumb: base of unnamed purple microglitter from Urban Outfitters with the basketweave pattern freehanded using white acrylic paint.


Pro tip: when using neon polishes (like Shocking Pink) or yellow polishes (like Lemon Fizz) always start with a base coat of white polish. That way you'll only need two coats of your neon or your yellow for full coverage--without a white base, you'll need at least four or five coats, which is a waste of time and polish!

I speak for the trees!

It's no secret that The Lorax is one of my favorite books. My parents raised me on Dr. Seuss and my love continues til today--I even used to wear a ring with the Lorax on it, and I have a copy of the book on my bookshelf at school, sandwiched between a psychology textbook and Christophrt Hitchens' Letters to a Young Contrarian. Anyway, when I was home for spring break, my mom and I had a movie and dinner date to go see The Lorax movie. I've absolutely hated all other Seuss movies (except the 1960s cartoons, of course), so I was a little nervous, but I LOVED it. I may or may not have cried multiple times...shhhh.

For this manicure I started with a base of Zoya Robyn, the most lovely electric blue with an awesome formula. My thumb is OPI Skull and Glossbones and my ring finger is Sally Hansen Sunkissed. All the nail art was freehanded using a small paintbrush. The yellow is China Glaze Lemon Fizz, the pink is Wet n Wild Dreamy Poppy, and the green is Confetti Green with Envy. Because I forgot to pack a black creme polish, I had to use OPI My Private Jet for the outlines, which wasn't ideal but it got the job done, I suppose.

Anyway, I loved this manicure so much. If you have any recommendations for book (or movie)-themed manicures, let me know in the comments!

coral clouds

Nailside is one of the first nail blogs I ever followed, and she's behind the ever-popular cloud mani. It's so easy to do and has endless color combinations...I'd definitely encourage any newbies to the nail art game to try this out. You can find Nailside's tutorial for this mani here.

For this I used a base of China Glaze Innocence followed by Essence Shiny Godness and Zoya Kylie 2 and applied all polishes using the bottle brushes. Kylie 2 is such a magnificent color--this photo really doesn't do it justice, it's almost neon, minus the horrible sheer application issues you get with neons :)