hey hey ombré

I was holding off on this manicure for that 9-1-1 emergency moment when I realize I haven't posted in five days...whiiich happened way sooner than I'd have liked it to. I need to step up the regular posting game if I'm ever going to rule the nail art blog world. (Jay kay, I'm pretty sure Chalkboard Nails has that covered. You go, girl.)

Anyway, this is a simple but supa pretty gradient I did a couple weeks ago. There's not a whole bunch to say about it other than I wore it to the Gap and the checker called over two of her coworkers and her manager to look at it, so you know it's gotta be good.

The yellow is two coats of Finger Paints Lemon Sour and the teal is Zoya Wednesday. I used the same gradient technique as always: a makeup sponge and careful blending.

I also got a lot of compliments at work on this one, mostly from men. It's funny--you think men don't notice things like hair and makeup, but I get more comments on my nails from dudes than I do from women. I guess they're more visually aware than women give them credit for!

Blammo. Ombré is my go-to manicure because it's just so flippin' easy. I have another non-ombré post queued up for you, but be on the lookout for more two-tone action cus I have a super rad design I've been itching to try...

Happy two-days-after-Bastille-Day, you guys! I hope you all celebrated appropriately (by eating cheese and lighting some large buildings on fire.)

I really need to work on more cohesive blog post conclusions...

california floral

Sometimes I can be a bit of a misanthrope, but sometimes an angel comes along and reminds me that humankind is essentially good. I was in American Apparel and was inevitably drawn to the nail polish display (surprise, surprise!) I was about to buy this shade for its full price ($6), but then the extremely kind cashier directed me to a table behind me, where the exact same shade was on sale for $3 because a bit of the label was scratched off. That cashier is now my new hero and possibly future husband, though I'm pretty sure he is also into dudes.

Even though my last manicure also used a nude base, it was quite loud, so I was in the mood for something light and soft. Hence...floral print! Normally when I do floral prints, I do roses, like this, so I decided to mix it up this time and go for more daisy-looking flowers. (Don't you love my highly accurate botanical vocabulary?)

This is one coat (!!!) of American Apparel California Trooper. I don't own enough one coat polishes. They are so lovely. The blue flower petals are American Apparel American Denim with a dark center thing (more highly accurate botanical vocabulary for y'all) in OPI Dating a Royal. The purple flower petals are OPI Do You Lilac It? with centers of NYC 006. 

It looked a bit plain with just the flowers, so I filled a bit of the empty space with dots of Zoya Wednesday to create the effect of leaves.

I really like this manicure. It's fresh and simple. Other things I like: Channing Tatum's moves in Magic Mike (yes, I saw it; yes, I loved it), eating tapioca pudding for breakfast, this stupid Lana del Rey song, and the fact that today is FREE SLURPEE DAY AT 7-11! What silly simple things have been making you smile lately?

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?)

red hot flakies

I wore this manicure over a month ago, before I moved out of my dorm and my super long nails were torn to shreds (RIP nailz). My physical therapist's assistant said this was her favorite manicure she'd seen on me, so I'm SUPER disappointed that I could not get it to photograph correctly. Stupid flakies. I broke out my SAD lamp for this because my external flash was creating too much glare on the flakies, and still you can't see all the gorgeous gradations from violet to gold in the flakies polish. For those of you unaware, a "flakies" polish is made with strips of mylar (yeah, that weird metallicy stuff balloons are made out of) and the effect is softer and more mottled than standard glitters.

This is three coats of Finger Paints Asylum over two coats of Zoya Kylie 2. 

NONE OF THESE PHOTOS CAPTURE THE BEAUTY!

The flakies are just so duochromey and perfect. So stunning against the bright coral of Kylie 2.

Anyone have advice on how to properly photograph flakies? It's really tearing me apart. Like, really.

neon skittle tips

So...it's finals week. I have about eight bajillion pages to write in way too few days. I am probably going to die. I have absolutely no time to do anything fun or eat or bathe or breathe so naturally, I have been painting my nails instead of, you know, doing homework like a responsible person. (Sorry, Mom.)

Anyway, I really liked this manicure in theory, but next time I will definitely be more patient because as you can see, this turned out really lumpy. This is due in part to using an old bottle of Seche Vite that was super thick and sticky, but also because I was impatient and layered on all the polishes too thickly.

I started with like five coats of OPI Skull & Glossbones. It's such a cool ghostly grey-beige (greige?) but the formula absolutely sucks. I haven't seen any other bloggers complain about it so perhaps I got a screwy bottle, but the formula is very thin and runny and I ended up with a ton of bald patches.

I freehanded the colorful tips because there were so many layers of Skull & Glossbones, I didn't think it would hold up under tape. From left to right, the colors I used for the tips are:

Zoya Kylie 2
Sally Hansen Sunkissed
Zoya Robyn
Confetti Green with Envy
OPI Do You Lilac It?

I really love the combination of neutral + super brights and I guess that's like, totally in this season, or something. What are your favorite obnoxiously bright polish colors? I'm digging anything eye-searing as of late.

I have a few more manicures sitting in my queue but I probably won't get around to them until I'm done with all this damned schoolwork...so stay tuned!

80s film

Last week I got suckered into Zoya's Good Morning America promotion, because apparently I have zero willpower when it comes to nail polish sales. I mean, three bottles from their summer 2012 Surf collection for 50% off?! I added that baby to my cart without even thinking about it. (Oops.)

Anyway, this lovely dusty teal is Zoya Wednesday. It seemed a lot brighter and bluer in other swatches I've seen on the internet, but I still like it a lot. Since I'm in capable of having plain nails, I used tape to create colorblocks using OPI My Private Jet, and a dotting tool to add little dots of Wednesday. I'm not sure how I feel about this; without the dots, it looked totally 80s--too 80s for my taste, and that's saying something. Once I added the dots, it started to look like film strips, so...here we are.

Using tape is an easy way to get crisp lines in a manicure. My tips are pretty much the same as they were for a half-moon manicure:

• Cut your tape strips BEFORE you start painting your nails
• Let your base colo dry completely before applying the tape, otherwise the tape will badly smudge the base polish. It's probably a good idea to use a quick-dry top coat to speed up the process.
• Stick the tape to your hand/arm/leg before putting it on your nail, to make it less sticky.
• Remove the tape immediately after applying your second color.

I've been really into stripes and geometric shapes lately, so perhaps they'll be more tape manicures on here soon!

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 :)