opposites attract

Oy. Let's just pretend I haven't blogged for an eternity and a half, why don't we? I started my senior year of college and came down with mono all in the same week, so it's been a bit of a rough several weeks for me. However, now I've got schoolwork under control (okay that's a lie buuut...) and my tonsils are no longer the size of grapefruits so I hereby swear to blog like a NORMAL PERSON. A normal blogging person. Which is to say a lot. So don't leave me, please, I LOVE YOU!

All right all right onto the nails--

I love me some serious skittle action. This one was particularly obnoxious and thus beautiful. The white is Essie Marshmallow; light purple is Essie Lilacism; medium purple is OPI Do You Lilac It?; dark purple is NYC 006; gold is Wet n Wild The Gold & The Beautiful; and orange is Sally Hansen Sun Kissed. 

These photos were a huge triumph for me because they were the first successful set taken in my new apartment! Over the summer I was using the skylight in my bathroom for some lovely diffused natural light, and was panicking over how I would take photos once I moved (because my priorities are totally in order...) Thankfully, my apartment has this weird loft thing that isn't good for much (it doesn't even have electrical outlets...seriously, 1970s architects were rull weird) but it does have three lovely windows that make nail painting a breeeeeeeeze.

I'll have posts queued up every other day for the next couple weeks, and also some reader requests to fill! Just try to contain your excitement...

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.

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!

one time, i met jenny lewis at a farmer's market and she told me my nails were cute

I have an announcement to make, guys. I am retiring from the nail art scene. I'm done. Because I won it. I can't rise any higher. I might only have four followers on this blog and zero comments on any of my posts, but yesterday Jenny Lewis said my nails were cute.


Now, if you know anything about me, you know two things dominate my life: my compulsion for painting my nails and, much longer withstanding, my all-consuming love for the musician Jenny Lewis. You might know her from her now-defunct band Rilo Kiley, or her acting prowess in movies like 1989's The Wizard, as well as several Golden Girls cameos. In any case, she is a perfect human being and her music means an incredible amount to me. I even have some of her lyrics tattooed on my body, that's how much I love her. She played in my town last night so I got to see her for the fourth time. A few hours before the show, I ran into her at a farmer's market. In a fit of adrenaline-induced bravery, I went up to say hi to her. She introduced herself to me and shook my hand and said, "Oh, cute nails!"

(I really was nearly crying. Also shaking so hard it took me a good three minutes to type that status.)

The show was absolutely amazing--her vocals were the best I've ever heard--and I met her yet again after the show and got this photo with her so uhm yeah my life is now complete:

...buuuut enough of my insaneo fangirling and onto what you came here for: the nails! Or should I say...the Jennicure? Get it? Manicure...Jennicure...okay I'll stop now.

These were actually inspired by a pair of heeled saddle shoe oxfords I've seen Jenny wear before (because I am that much of a creeper). This is two coats of OPI Mod About You layered over one coat of Essie Marshmallow to help with opacity, since Mod About You is a slightly streaky, sheer creme.

The black heart shapes are Wet n Wild Black Creme, and freehanded using the bottle brush. I then used a tiny dotting tool to add dot borders of Mod About You and Black Creme.

This is a cute and easy design that would look rad with a lot of different color combinations. The pink and black is very 1950s to me--like some souped-up Cadillac or something--but I think nude and white or two pastels could look pretty too!

...aaaand that's all I have to say about nails. My head is still spinning from the day's events. Also, please tell me you got the Mean Girls reference in the title of this post...)

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.)

sterling cooper draper polish

If you don't watch Mad Men, I don't want to be friends with you. Just kidding, I will still be your friend. But I will feel very sorry for you because that means you don't get to look at these beautiful faces every Sunday evening:

Tonight is the season finale and I am beyond excited to see what happens in the lives of these crazy and gorgeous people. Last week's episode was totally cray so I can't even fathom how ol' Matthew Weiner (pronounced Wine-r... disappointing, I know) will top that with the finale.

So in the spirit of the occasion, I decided to do some simple Mad Men nails!

I used only three colors for this: Wet n Wild Black Creme, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and H&M Berry Love. I used tape to make the nude windows on my middle and pinky fingers, but had some weird problems--the tape kept tearing cleanly down the middle as I lifted it off my nail. I've done a ton of tape manis (using this same tape!) and I've never had this problem before. I'm thinking it might be the base coat I used, which was kind of rough (Revlon Post Trauma Nail Treatment). Any thoughts on this?

So if you couldn't already tell...my ring finger is an interpretation of the ad agency's logo (though I guess I should have left out the P...hmmmmm) and my ring finger is a suit, cus if there's one thing Don Draper and Roger Sterling can do well, it's look goddamn handsome in a suit.

So are you all as excited as I am for the finale tonight? Or have I totally lost you with this manicure? Either way, I will leave you with this gif of Don Draper (aka Jon Hamm) looking like the suave sonofabitch he is:

PS I decided I'm done with square nails for a while. My job is super rough on my hands and my square nails kept tearing at the corners...plus I think oval nails look super classy and feminine. I'm excited to do some sweet stripey manicures with the four (oops) Essie polishes and nail art brushes I just ordered on Amazon...eeeeeep!

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!

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.

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.

what would YOU do if your mother asked you?

Tomorrow is a magical day here at Vassar College. It's Founder's Day, an annual event that celebrates the birthday of the college's founder, Matthew Vassar. He was a really short British dude with a penchant for top hats. Here is a photo of Meryl Streep dressed up as Matty Vass:

Total goddess, amirite?

Anyway, the coolest thing about Matthew Vassar (other than the fact he started a college for women) is that he was a brewer. Yep, that dude made beer for a living. Although most schools would argue that they have beer instead of blood in their veins, at Vassar that's actually quite true. So to continue the legacy of Matthew Vassar, the original party monster, every April we spend a whole day outside riding carnival rides, eating cotton candy, dancing to live music, and getting very sunburned. It is the best day, and every year Founder's Day has a specific theme. This year the theme is Dr. Seuss.

You all know of my unabashed love for Dr. Seuss (I mean, how could I not, with an elementary school educator for a mother?), so naturally I was THRILLED about the theme. I could go on for ages about how excited I am about all this, but you came here for nails and not rants about college histories and German authors with cool pen names, so onto my fingers:

I had grand plans for full-on nail art on every nail, but my grandma-like qualities were in full-force today and I was shaking too badly to do anything fancy, so I settled on a Cat in the Hat accent nail. The blue is OPI Dating a Royal, which is so so pretty but has a tendency towards bald spots, as you can see on my middle and pinky fingers. Booooo.

Then I put H&M Confetti kisses, a mix of large silver hex glitter and silver microglitter, on the tips of my nails. Apparently my flash hates silver glitter because you can barely see it in these photos. Oh well; just imagine all the sparkly goodness, okay?

To make the hat on my ring finger and thumb (and I'm not going to show you my thumb because a corner of the nail ripped yesterday and now it looks awful), I started with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Then I topped it with Seche Vite because I am impatient, waited a few minutes, then used tape to create the red stripes with H&M Berry Love. I used a small paintbrush for the black outlines and my attempt at Dr. Seuss-esque shading, which on my nail kind of just looks like I suck at nail art. Don't worry about it.

Sorry that this post was 99% me blathering about how much I love my school and 1% nails. But hey, it's my blog, right? I DO WHAT I WANT!

"Then he said, 'That is that.' And then he was gone, with the tip of his hat. Then our mother came in and said said to us two, 'Did you have any fun? Tell me. What did you do?' And Sally and I did not know what to say. Should we tell her the things that went on there that day? She we tell her about it? Now, what SHOULD we do? Well...what would YOU do if your mother asked YOU?"

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!