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.

¡viva los estados unidos!

Just a short & sweet post today, cus I have veggie burgers and mayonnaise-free potato salad to stuff my face with, y'all. It might be hard to believe, but food takes precedence over nails in my life.

I've been informed that today is a bit of a holiday in the United States. I'm from California, and everyone knows we aren't real Americans (too many electric cars and vegans out here), so once a year I like to break out the red, white, and blue and pretend I like trombone music and sweet pickle relish.

Of course, I had to break out the red, white, and blue on my nails as well. This is three coats of Essie Marshmallow for the white base with American Apparel American Denim for the blue field, H&M Berry Love for the red stripes, and Wet n Wild Stars & Stripes for the stars.

These were inspired by the fabulous Azealia Banks' nails in her music video for Liquorice (nsfw!) I realize these flags are actually backwards. I got them right on my left hand, and my left hand for once looks as good as my right, but I didn't think about that when I was taking pictures and now it's too late so OOPS HERE YOU GO, TOTALLY UNPATRIOTIC BACKWARDS FLAGS.

Don't sick HUAC Mitt Romney on me, please?

HAVE A FABBBB FOURTH, ERRBODY!

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!

floral + pinstripes

Today I stopped at Payless on my way home from work with one simple mission: buy some of those super no-show socks to wear with flats or pumps.

I left with some of those super no-show socks to wear with flats or pumps...and a bottle of nail polish. (Be proud of me, though. They were buy one, get one 50% off and I only bought one!)

I started with three coats of Essie Marshmallow (my new fav polish, if you haven't already noticed) on my pinky, ring, and thumb, and two coats of American Apparel Mannequin on my ring and index fingers. The forumla of Mannequin, like all AA's cremes, is so, so good. Not too thick, not too thin...goes exactly where you want it and isn't remotely streaky. LOVE. Why aren't all polishes like this?

Then, using my new striping brush, I painted stripes on my pinky, ring, and thumb nails using Brash Green Machine. Here is where I will stress the importance of having a proper striper brush. Til now I was using a couple tiny paintbrushes I got at an art supply store. They worked well enough for things like flowers, but were quite hard to work with for anything else. I don't know why I put off buying legit brushes for so long, especially because this set was only $3.95 with free shipping! It comes with 15 different brushes, which is probably more than I'll ever need, but a striper brush at Sally's probably costs at least $3.95 anyway. Long story short: buy real nail art brushes. They'll make your life so much easier.

I used a dotting tool and Essie Lilacism to make the bases of my flowers, then the striper brush and NYC 006 (only found in Spain) for the dark purple shading and Brash Green Machine for the petals.

Lastly, although Green Machine is a lovely color on its own, it was too bright for the pastel vibe I was going for in this, so I added another coat of Marshmallow on my three stripey fingers to mute the green a bit. Another reason why Marshmallow is such an awesome polish: it makes any bright polish a pastel! So uh, you should buy it already. And Essie should pay me for such dedicated promotion already.

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 ;)

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!

nailaholic stripes

This is a public service announcement to alert you all to the best show on television: Workaholics. It's on Comedy Central (and also Netflix because who has cable in this day and age, anyway?) and is like Office Space on nitrous oxide. If you like bear puns, wizard rap battles, and "dropping shrooms," then it's the show for you. ANYWAY, since you're probably wondering why I'm ranting about this show, I'll cut to the chase: in the opening sequence of Workaholics there's a shot of a black and white striped coffee mug (with a plastic frog swimming in it, but that's beside the point). I used to have said mug and I loved it oh so much, but while unpacking in January I dropped it on my foot and it shattered everywhere. So now every time I watch Workaholics, I'm reminded of my poor deceased mug. 

Lil babby 18-year-old me holding said mug. I guess I loved it enough to have a Photobooth sesh with it...

And without further ado, here is a manicure inspired by the mug's irregular stripes!

I started with two coats of OPI Did You 'Ear About van Gogh? and then put on a coat of Seche Vite because, as I've said a zillion times, I'm too impatient to let polish dry naturally. Next I cut three strips of tape, all thin but varying in width. I used the same three strips for all nails, because I am lazy and cutting 15 tape strips sounded hellish.

Going one nail at a time, I applied the tape and painted over the nail with Wet n Wild Black Creme and then immediately pulled of the tape strips. I put on the tape in different orders/patterns on each nail, so the stripes would be irregular.

Also, I should probably thank those of you who read this blog for actually, you know, reading it, despite my tangents about TV shows and broken dishes. So thanks! All the support I've gotten for this silly habit of mine has been really wonderful. Y'all are da best.

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!