This manicure inspired by 10 Crosby Derek Lam SS12 RTW includes China Glaze Gaga for Green and Aquadelic and the colors are such a perfect match for the ensemble in the picture that it's scary. When I was perusing the Style.com app for inspiration, this is one of the photos that really called out to me. I love the graphic nature of the black and white with pops of geometric colors. I recreated it with those two China Glaze polishes with the addition of a white polish and a black striping polish. Also, in case you didn't notice, I filed my nails into ovals! Big change for me, as I have had sqaure nails just about all my life. They're still short yet, but I want Rihanna nails, and I will have them if it's the last thing I ever do! *Evil laugh*

Products used:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Aquadelic
• China Glaze  Gaga for Green
• Black striping polish
• Seche Vite Topcoat

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Products used:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze First Mate
• China Glaze Life Preserver
• gold studs
• Seche Vite Top Coat

I have been dying to do nautical nails forever but the stripes, the anchors... it's all very daunting. However I womaned up, and just gave it a go. Ok for a first try. My favorite part is the gold studs anchors!!! I'd been lusting after Life Preserver for ages and just never seemed to remember to pick it up, and my mother actually picked it up for me, so this one's dedicated to you, Ma! I adore these studs too, I got a ton of them from Dollarnailart.com, and I think I need to order some silver ones, too!

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China Glaze's new Electro Pop collection is really inspiring. The colors are bright, beautiful and just beg to be used together. I paired up four of them, along with another China Glaze favorite to make this abstract springy floral design.

Electric Beat, a dusky periwinkle, was used as the base, then I used Sweet Hook and Dance Baby to make the flowers. With Gaga for Green and Electric Pineapple from the Island Escape collection for the leaves. Then I used a black striping polish to do really unstructured outlines to just suggest the form of the flowers and leaves. Without the black it literally just looks like blobs of color, and the black just made it pop.

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I've seen a few manicures over the last few weeks with this technique of outlining the nail, and I haven't found a name for it, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it "Vignette" for the sake of titling purposes and convenience. At first I wasn't very fond of the look, but it's really grown on me, so I decided to give it a try myself. This manicure was inspired by this manicure by MadelinePooleNails. I added a little color and some mixed metal action to make it more quirky. For this manicure I used China Glaze Electric Beat and Contrete Catwalk, and OPI Glitzerland, along with black, white and silver striping polish. The technique is pretty simple but definitely makes a statement, in my opinion. Despite the business of the look, the longer I wore it the more elegant it felt to me, which surprised me given the helter skelter nature of the manicure.

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The China Glaze Electro Pop collection is popping up here and there, and I found that my local CosmoProf has them due to hit the shelves on January 1, when their B2G1F promo starts, but I was able to snag four of them today. These are the ones I was looking forward to most! I've got both swatches and comparisons for you in this post. All four shades reminded me of other shades that are high up on my list of favorites, so I was anxious to see how they compared.

To see the swatches and comparisons, read on!

I recently picked up Stone Cold from Orly's new Mineral FX collection and I wanted to use it in some nail art, so I decided to use it in conjunction with Orly Snowcone to do some drips. The soft creme juxtaposed against the rich jeweltone blue glitter was beautiful in person. Stone Cold is an interesting animal; it's not glitter and it's not shimmer, but it's super glittery looking. It almost looks as if it has a texture you could feel, but you can't. And it doesn't come off in particles on your cotton pad, they seem to disintegrate for the most part when you remove it. It's crazy, to be honest. I really like it. It's one of the most vibrant and gorgeous blues I've ever seen. it sort of reminds me a bit of Finger Paint's Surf's Up, which can be found in this post. I highly recommend pickup up Stone Cold if you're a blue nail polish person.  Anyway, drips are a pretty easy way to do nail art, because you don't need special polishes or tools. If you are using a polish with a somewhat narrow brush, you just use what comes in the bottle.

Zoya Cynthia - $8 at zoya.com

You're going to be seeing a few Zoya posts from me this week because of that order I did last week, so just be warned. Today is Zoya Cynthia, which is a very deep peacock color. It appears as a creme in most lights but there is a slight shimmer when you look at it in the sun. This one took three thin coats for opacity but it looks beautiful once you're done.

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The other day when I picked up Jade Dragon at the Cosmetics Company Outlet (CCO), I also grabbed Ming Blue, also from the 2010 Jin Soon Nail Trends collection. This is a very nautical cornflower-tinged blue with beautiful blue and silver shimmer shards. It is significantly more sheer than Jade Dragon was, so that was a bit of a shock. I used three coats to get the coverage to my satisfaction. When it was all done, it was worth the extra coat because it's gorgeous. Plus I was shocked that it lasted through several hours of swimming. Normally any nail polish I use will chip at least a little in the water, but this didn't. Usually MAC chips on me with little encouragement, so that's a definite positive. I strongly suggest visiting your closest CCO if you're on the lookout for any of the polishes from this collection as almost all of them were at my CCO.

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Jade Dragon is from last year's F/W 2010 Jin Soon Nail Trend Collection, but I ran into it this week at the CCO. CCO stands for Cosmetics Company Outlet, and it's a store full of Estee Lauder brands that you may find in your nearest outlet mall. They carry Clinique, MAC, Bobbi Brown and more all at discounted prices. You can usually find some treasures from recently retired collections, so it's always worth a look. Jade Dragon is crazy gorgeous. It is a deep jade green cream with blue shards of shimmer that float on top. It's really interesting to look at and the formula is amazing. It's almost a one-coater, and it applies evenly and is highly pigmented. I loves it lots.

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I mixed up my last manicure with a little bit of leopard. On the blue nails remaining from the last mani, I used China Glaze Shower Together and an Art Deco striping polish for the zebra. On the other nails I used a base of Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models. On the fingers with blue half-leopard, I used China Glaze Shower together and Migi Nail Art pen in black, and the full leopard nails are just the Migi Nail Art pen in black. I thought the nude and blue combination was super cute, and the leopard and zebra worked well together.

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