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.

stars & stripes

I stole borrowed some paper hole reinforcements from work the other day, so I knew I wanted to do a half-moon manicure. (For those of you who couldn't tell from the photo, a half-moon manicure is when the crescent-shaped base of your nails--where some people naturally have a white arch--is painted a different color from the rest of your nail.) But I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it, so I did something I've never done before: just started painting without a clear plan in mind.

The first full-coverage polish I grabbed was Sinful Colors Snow Me White. When doing a half-moon mani, it's smart to choose a polish that gives good coverage in just one (thick) coat. I didn't feel like waiting for a base color to dry, so I put on my reinforcement stickers and applied Snow Me White. After that was done, I decided pretty quickly I was going to make this nauseatingly American-themed, because why not? So using a small paintbrush I added stripes of OPI Dating a Royal (one of my favorite polishes ever, it's just so gorgeous) over the white, and stars of H&M Berry Love on my bare half-moons.

I'm really happy with how this turned out, and I think it looks cute with my newly rounded nails--I'm usually a square nail type of girl, but they were breaking too easily like that, so...here we are.

Some tips for doing a half-moon manicure:

• Cut your reinforcement stickers in half. They're much more flexible this way; otherwise you might not be able to get it thoroughly pressed down at the edges of your nail.
• Go one finger at a time. I actually used the same two halves of a sticker for all my fingers. Place the sticker, put on a thick layer of polish, and then IMMEDIATELY remove the sticker. If you wait too long, the polish will drag and smear when you take off the sticker.
• Use tweezers to apply and take off the stickers. As you get more nails wet, the more you risk smearing wet polish as you deal with the stickers. An easy solution to this problem is using tweezers--no risk of smudging or denting!

naked moons

I was disappointed with OPI's Holland collection until I read the polish names, and I knew I just had to buy this nude creme--Did You 'ear About van Gogh? I love a good art history joke and also a good nude polish, and it just so happens this one is totally flattering to my skin tone. Hooray!

I had initially wanted to do a needle dragging mani, but apparently that technique is far more difficult than YouTube tutorials make it out to be. It looked like I had dead spiders on my nails...how's that for a delightful visual? Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually.

This is three coats of OPI Did You 'ear About van Gogh? with half-moons of OPI My Private Jet applied using a dotting tool.