I'm telling you, the best thing I EVER did was shape my nails differently. For my entire life I've had square nails, and I always loved them and could never imagine my nails in another shape, but I got a wild hair and decided I wanted to try it. As they're growing, I refine the shape often trying to coax the tips into soft points, and I'm really enjoying them. There are so many nail designs that suit oval and pointed nails that never look right with squares like half-moons for instance, but now I'm enjoying the experimentation.

Anyway, for this look I used Sparitual Paradigm for the base color. It's a very thin and milky cream color and it makes the nails look perfect, even when underneath they may look like total crap. Ahem. Like my stained little claws, for example. Believe it or not, beneath Sparitual Paradigm and a coat of Color Club Milky White Base Coat, my nails are a disturbing shade of ear wax. This color is awesome, it's like the Spanx of the nail world. Then I used CND Copper Chrome to highlight the very tips and base of the nails. The result is almost like jewelry for the nails. I loved this.

Products used:

• Color Club Milky White base coat
• Sparitual Paradigm
• CND Copper Chrome
• Seche Vite topcoat

Funny thing happens sometimes, you start out with a particular vague idea for a design and the subconcious takes over. I came across this necklace on Pinterest, and decided to do triangle nails. You can see I used a similar motif on several nails. Once I had that vague idea, I started picking out a few colors from what happened to be on my desk and handy and got to work. I was finishing up and beginning to think of what I'd call it, and decided on Angles. Then I realized that the colors I used are basically exactly the same as the cover of one of my favorite band's (The Strokes) albums, called Angles. How crazy is that? See a picture of the album cover after the jump.

Products used:

• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Aquadelic
• China Glaze Purple Panic
• China Glaze Icicle
• Nubar Lemon
• CND Anchor Blue
• Wet n Wild Black Creme

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I've long been a fan of Pucci prints as they're colorful and bold and always interesting, so I decided to try to emulate that style of pattern for a nail design. In the end, I didn't really think it looked very Pucci-esque, it's a little too random, but all-in-all I do like it a lot and the color combination was really cute. All of the design was done with a striping brush and six different nail polishes.

Products used:

• China Glaze Recycle
• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
• China Glaze Aquadelic
• China Glaze Dance Baby
• China Glaze Sweet Hook
• Seche Vite topcoat

A few weeks ago I did swatches and comparisons of some of the other Electro Pop colors, and now I've got a swatch of Aquadelic to put up. It's a very vibrant aqua, almost like an electrified China Glaze For Audrey. The application is excellent, just as the others from the collection, and it's very glossy. This swatch is without topcoat:D I wish I'd have had this when I did my Vera Bradley Island Blooms nails, because Aquadelic is a great match for the base color of the pattern!

This item was provided by the brand for consideration.

I have to tell you, doing this series is so much fun so far. It's a fun challenge for myself. Though there's very little information in the books about some of the districts, which will make it a little challenging, I think it's fun to come up with something for each one. I plan on making my way through the districts in order and then I have some other designs based on The Hunger Games I'll be adding to the series. In the end, the series will hopefully be pretty sizeable. In the meantime, it's a lot of fun. On to the description!

District 4 in The Hunger Games is home to a ocean-based society. They make fish hooks, they use nets and tridents to fish, and overall it's a somewhat wealthy district. To reflect this rich ocean culture I painted the nails with sea greens, coral red for the, um, red coral, and gave it some gilded accents to reflect the fact that this district is a bit more rich.

Products used:

• OPI Thanks a Wind-million
• OPI Red Lights Ahead... Where?
• Sally Hansen Fairy Teal
• China Glaze 2030
• Seche Vite topcoat

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Products used:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze Reggae to Riches
• Sephora by OPI Opening Night
• China Glaze Millenium
• Seche Vite Top Coat

I did this right before I changed my nail shape from square to oval. Man, it feels weird to see them so square, lol. Anyway, I'm really into half-moon manicures right now, and I like the added interest of contrasting colors and a little something extra to deliniate the place where the colors meet. I used China Glaze Reggae to Riches for the base, which is a beautiful bright magenta shimmer with a really, really intense blue flash to it. Then for the rest of the nail, I used the incredibly well-pigmented Opening Night by Sephora by OPI which is a rich sapphire shimmer. For the line of "beads," I used a dotting too and China Glaze Millenium. I'm thinking of trying this same manicure out with black, white and grey soon, I think that would be really elegant. Maybe with some 3D pearl action...

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I've been wanting to do a zebra gradient for a while, and I finally gave it a whirl. I used some polishes from the newest OPI and China Glaze polishes together to make a nice rainbow along with a striping brush. with the flash the deliniation between the colors is really obvious, but in most lights and not so close up it looks like a true gradient, which is cool. Very excited to try this with neons and then over black instead of white.

Products used:

• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Purple Panic
• OPI A Roll in the Hague
• OPI Did It On Em
• China Glaze Aquadelic

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Recently at NYFW, CND did a really cool look they called Flirty Flowers for Rachel Antonoff's runway show. I think it was a real eye-catcher for everyone considering the interesting pattern and the use of bright, bold colors juxtaposed on the small canvas of the nails. I wanted to recreate it, and in fact did start out by using CND Anchor Blue as they did, but I found it was far too dark to get the look in the photos without adding a lot of white to it. I'm probably not using the same technique they did, so maybe they added the Anchor Blue designs while the white was still wet, but either way I ended up using different polishes to acheive this look.

I painted the nails white, added the blue "petals" freehand with a brush, then added the red to the top, using a thin brush to get the red into the angles left behind by the blue.

Products used:

• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Electric Beat
• OPI Red Lights Ahead... Where?
• Seche Vite Topcoat

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Essie Shine of the Times - $8 most drugstores

I have seen Essie Shine of the Times in just about every drugstore and big box store I've visited in the last month or so, so I know it's relatively easy to find at this point. I had been seeing it everywhere on the internet and decided I didn't need it because I have Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, a bunch of Nfu-Ohs, the Finger Paints flakies, and more random flakies and honestly don't use them often, but SotT really impossible to resist in the end because when I finally gave up and just picked the polish up in my hands to examine it, I realized it was different than all the others I mentioned above. The shards of mylar are more finely milled, which does a couple things; 1) there is more variation in color because since these are light reactive to a point, the larger the shard, the less color in the area the shard takes up (therefore the smaller the shard, the more shards per area equaling more color!), 2) the surface appears, and is to a certain extent textured rather than just a bit of interesting color being randomly scattered over the surface making the finish look irregular and sort of gross. So overall, SotT is better than a lot of flakies. SH Hidden Treasure had, to this point, been my favorite overall in the mylar glitter category as it had somewhat small particles and was very dense on application. SotT is the new point to which the bar has been raised, y'all. woot! The only weird thing is that there are some random plummy purple colored specks in the polish. You'll see what I mean below.

I love mylar over dark colors, but because this is so dense and makes such a neat textured looking surface, I decided to use a light, delicate color under it for once; China Glaze White on White.

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For the second installment in my Hunger Games nail art series, I did nails based on District 2. In the books, that district is described as having several principal functions; it is home to stone cutters, it supplies the majority of Peacekeepers, they manufacture weapons, and the snow-capped mountain housing the military nervecenter called "The Nut" by the rebels. So in this nail set you see The Nut, the district number, elements of a Peacekeeper uniform as shown in movie trailers, a stone wall, and a gun silhouette. All elements are hand painted.

Products used:

• China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
• China Glaze Recycle
• China Glaze White on White
• China Glaze Sea Spray
• Wet n Wild Black Creme
• acrylic paints
• Seche Vite Topcoat

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