...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.

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!

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.)

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 ;)

stars upon thars

GUUUUYS I'm so sorry for neglecting you all for the past two weeks. I was obscenely busy with finals, and then I was in Massachusetts for five days. I went a whole week without changing my polish, and then I painted them (gasp) one single color (China Glaze Lemon Fizz) and left that on for another week. I'm the sloppiest ever. But I was on Cape Cod with this pretty much in my front yard...so...for once I had more fun things to do than paint my nails:

Someday I will own that house.

So even though I wasn't painting my nails, that doesn't mean I wasn't buying polish, because as we've already established, I have zero self-control. Also, when I was on Cape Cod I ate nothing but marshmallows and fried eggs, so I saved a ton of money on food. Nail polish > food. (Everyone feels that way, right?)

Also, I'm now back at home and I have a CAR (aka the Ron F***ing Swansonmobile) so the other day  and picked up two of the polishes from the new Fourth of July collection by Wet n Wild ($1.99 each, seriously the best). I was most excited about Wet n Wild Stars and Stripes, which has large holographic star glitter and both large and small bar glitter.

I decided to go with a jelly sandwich for this manicure. No, I did not eat a jelly sandwich while painting my nails (I ate pesto pasta instead...mmmmmm). A jelly sandwich is when you layer a sheer or "jelly" finish polish with glitter, so the glitter is sandwiched between layers of the jelly polish.

I started with one coat of Revlon Royal on all fingers except my ring finger. For my ring finger I first used two coats of China Glaze White on White before applying two coats of American Apparel Neon Yellow. Using white as a base coat for neon polishes gives the neon that extra eye-searing factor. You should try it.

Next, I added one coat of Stars and Stripes, and like how it is with all jumbo-glitter polishes, none of the stars went onto my nail when I used the bottle brush. I fished out the star glitters and placed them on my nails using a dotting tool. Then I added another coat of Royal and another coat of Stars and Stripes, and followed it up with literally four coats of Seche Vite cus those star glitters were bumpy as hellllllll.

So blammo! There you have it. This manicure is so ridiculous and I love it. How rad is that neon yellow?! These pictures do not do it justice, it's brighter than a highlighter. Also, I totally dig the jelly sandwich look. It's so cool how muted the first layer of stars are in contrast to the super-shiny top layer of stars. And it's even more awesome-looking in person!

Now I'm going to eat salt water taffy and cry about the fact I'm not in Massachusetts anymore. Hope you all are having a beauuuutiful Tuesday!

PS--I have two more posts queued up, and also now that sk00lz out 4 summr, I have all the time on my hands (jeez I'm so PUNNY) to paint my nails and will be posting allllll the time. Brace yo'selves.