I've had a lot of fun over the last few weeks with clients. A lot of them are really embracing more adventurous nails, and while I still do my most obnoxious and involved stuff on myself, I'm slowly seeing a lot of my clients venture towards that end of the spectrum and I'm so excited. Below I'll show you six clients' nails and tell you what I used.
This month's Nail It! magazine had a really cool spread about this color combo; fluorescent pink, cobalt and white, and I was immediately a fan. The pink isn't just any neon pink, it's that light, bright neon Pepto pink that seems pretty hard to find. I used Essie Punchy Pink, which is one of my favorite neons, though between us, it chips like Hell. I used it along with Zoya Purity and Ulta Whatever Floats Your Moat, a cobalt I recently acquired. You could also use something similar like Revlon Royal, OPI Eurso Euro or even a more vibrant shade like Essie Butler Please. Either way, color blocking with these colors just makes it even more eye-catching. I painted the nails white, then added a pink triangle to the moons, then did an angular, exaggerated french with the blue, then one it was pretty dry, I added a white stripe down the center. Pretty simple, but if you're hand-painting maybe a little time consuming. If I did it again, I'd go find those utterly brilliant chevron-shaped french nail guides and use those. Why do these things always occur to me once they're no longer useful? Sigh...
Color Club Over the Moon was the base color here, and it is pretty insane. I've never used a holo with such a great formula, and like most of you, I've tried plenty. It's not thick, per se, but it's not the anemic, imperfection-magnifying formula holo lovers are used to. It applies and wears like a regular, AWESOME, polish. I wore it alone also, for a few days, and I honestly sort of want to wear it again soon. Again, RARE. The color is a clear-toned blue, and the holo is pretty strong.
Color Club Beyond is a charcoal holo, and while the holo isn't as strong as in OTM, it's better than a lot of charcoal holos out there. The real point that needs made here is, again, the formula. Just excellent.
Recently, CND released five new Shellac shades for Spring, one of which was Limeade. I used it, along with Hotski to Tchotchke, nail foils, additives, and studs to make these two very related Spring Break nail looks.
I was really pleased with both of these, they looked very mermaid-y, and they wore super well. The above ones are actually my nails, and I wore them for nearly two weeks on vacation. The suncreen, sand and salt water would have destroyed my nails and any regular polish, but the Shellac was still shiny when I got home. It was kind of crazy.
I recently decided that even though I had Nails Inc Baker St, and originally thought I could pass on Essie Butler Please, that I in fact did need it. So, now I have it. Fact. I decided to play around with a little art. Lately I haven't had much of a chance to do much of the art I'm used to so I feel like my skills and creativity are slipping. Mainly this is because 99% of the nails I do at work are Shellac, and also I wear Shellac for work most of the time. I've told you guys this before, but it's really come home to me recently that I'm out of practice with polish. So I did this bit, probably subconciously as a form of self-flagellation, but also to simply see how it turned out. Long story short, I like it pretty well, I guess. Mostly the colors are great together, but on this particular hand I'm showing you I really like the index, middle and ring fingers the most. The other hand is just the same designs in a different order, but it's not even close to perfect, I never paint art with my left hand much anymore so I feel sort of awkward still, lol.
Colors used:
The much-talked-about Zoya Gilty Pleasures Box Set and, in a new development, open stock Gilty real 18k Gold topcoat is once again available at Zoya.com after the original run of pre-sales sold out. I had originally planned to wait and see what the OPI Skyfall gold topcoat was like before making my choice and then not only did I hear that the OPI was going to be very hard to get, I also was hearing that others who had purchased both the Zoya and OPI ones favored Zoya Gilty in the end. Once I decided on Gilty, I then realized it was sold out. I was kicking myself until I saw Zoya announce they were re-releasing another run of it. And as I said you can also get Gilty in open stock now. The set comes in a really nice sturdy black box with a molded faux-velvet inner part to hold the polishes securely and since it's a pretty precious item, I like to keep mine inside.
Personally, I feel the box set is a better deal because for $10 more you get Gilty as well as bottles of Raven (Chanel Black Satin dupe) and Purity which is a wonderful opaqe white polish. If you'd like to see Gilty over Raven and Purity, you can see them here on my Instagram Profile! Whether you opt for Gilty alone or with Raven and Purity in the pretty display box, you'll get FREE SHIPPING included with your order!
Zoya Gilty over Zoya Song
This is a week old Shellac manicure, so forgive me that it's a little grown out, but it has lasted beautifully except for the fact that I did lose one little metal stud, which you might not even notice. I've been pretty much wearing CND Shellac exclusively as opposed to regular polish for work, so I've been trying to experiment more and more with art using Shellac so I can keep it crazy yet still have it last. For this manicure I went for a Rock motif, using Union Jacks, edgy darker shades and weird eyeballs. The concept wasn't very sharp, but what it lacks in cohesiveness, I think it makes up for in coolness and color. I used several Shellac shades along with CND Additives (pure color pigments), plus some metal studs.
Products used:
I wanted to wear two of my favorite shades from the new OPI Germany collection at the same time, and a Ruffian-style reverse French seemed like a good idea. The blue is a really pretty teal-toned blue with some pearly shimmer, and the green is a dusty chartreuse with some silver ribbon-candy shimmer. Both are gorgeous in the bottle and on the nail.
Products used:
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