I did a little nail art inspired by the fletching on arrows. The little things at the back end of the arrow that stabilizes and improves the aerodynamics of the arrow in flight. I've been really into tribal sorts of things recently, and arrows are sort of an extension of that fascination for me right now. I added an ikat nail and also a Swarovski element to one of the "arrow shaft" nails for some interest.
Products used:
- Essie Go Overboard, Greenport
- OPI Skull & Glossbones
- Orly Luxe
- Seche Retain as base coat
- Seche Vite topcoat
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For this manicure I wanted to get the look of antiqued and distressed metal so I used several metallic polishes and sponged them on to make a sort of textured look. The addition of a holographic teal to the tips was an afterthought, but I thought it made it look better. The whole thing was inspired by CND's recent spate of "acid-washed" colors on pointed almond nails with a really deep smile line for the french. I basically went with that theme, but changed up some colors and added texture, which I think makes it look neat. The holo at the tips is subtle but it makes it a bit more interesting.
Products used:
- China Glaze Millenium
- China Glaze 2030
- Orly Luxe
- China Glaze Techno Teal
- Seche Vite Topcoat
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Products used:
- China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
- Illamasqua Muse
- CND Copper Chrome
- Black Striper Polish
- Seche Vite Top Coat
Here is a simple tribal nail design using Illamasqua Muse as a base. I used CND Copper Chrome for a stripe down the middle and then I used a black Striping polish to make the design over the copper. I thought the teal and copper were made for each other!
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Spring has sprung at Vera Bradley, and one of Spring's four new patterns has me yearning for (my husband's gonna kill me so hard) more bags and accessories! Island Blooms is bursting with my favorite colors; citron, teal, white, black and grey. A better color palette there is not, my friends. And the mixture of bold florals and and an accent pattern that would make Frank Lloyd Wright weep with joy are a siren's call to this girl. I decided that I'd pay homage to yet another perfect Vera pattern by replicating it for nails, and it was so much fun!!! I used OPI Did It On 'Em, China Glaze Flyin' High and some striping paints to do this look.
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I tried my hand at the infamous "drip" manicure that is all over the blogosphere. I wasn't crazy happy with the drips themselves, but I think it was alright for my first try. For the purple nails I used Color Club Puccilicious as a base and then used a black striping polish to do the drips. For the checkered Wah-inspired nail, I used Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud as the base, a black Art Deco striper polish for the checks and then for the drips I used Milani Fresh Teal. All-in-all I like it, and I can't wait to try it again with a blood red.
SIDE NOTE: I am so excited about this and I wanted to share it with my blog friends... I am going to be starting nail school on August 30th!!!!!! I am so excited I could explode! It's something I've wanted to do for so many years, even while I was pursuing other paths in college. I've been into nails since elementary school and I feel like this is really right. I will never get tired of it if I haven't yet. I love doing my nails. I love doing the nails of my friends and family. I love the feeling of having beautiful, fresh nails and I want to be able to do that for others. I'm still not stoked about doing acrylics, because I think they can be so damaging unless they're really done right, but I also realize not everyone can grow their own nails and everyone deserves beautiful nails if they want them. I want to concentrate on natural nails and nail art, but I'm actually even looking forward to learning all I can about doing acrylics and gels, etc... so YAY!!!That's my news:D:D:D
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CND Night Factory set - $10 at transdesign.com (not affiliated)
Aside from the fact that this duo is gorgeous, It's teal and has the name has "Oasis" in it, so I had to buy it. These were my first CND polishes since the reformulation and I'm pretty impressed. I've bought two more since and I love those as well. As far as these two polishes go, they're great together; plus Urban Oasis looks great alone and Teal Sparkle looks great over other shades. So for $10 it's a pretty darn good buy, in my opinion.
Urban Oasis is a deep teal creme. It's not quite as deep as RBL Teal for example but it's definitely vampy while still being very visibly teal in all lights. It is basically a one-coater, though I do two because I'm crazy like that. It's rich and pigmented and dries really quickly. I love love love this polish on it's own.
Teal Sparkle is a great effect polish. It's got irregularly shaped flakes of shimmer that goes from translucent to turquoise to blue depending on the light. It lightens Urban Oasis up as well. This is one coat over Urban Oasis.
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Sorry I've been MIA for a few days... I haven't really mentioned it on the blog, but I'm getting married in two weeks! We've been so busy that I haven't had a lot of time for nail-related stuff. Besides there being a million wedding things to do, the whole family has been sick on and off for a few weeks, our kiddo has had lots of soccer stuff going on and there just seems to be tons and tons of stuff to do. I'm also a worrier. Something is wrong if I don't have something to worry about, but luckily there's plenty to be anxious about in the near future... Just for a quick FYI if you're interested, my fiancé and I have been together for almost 9 years (on and off, lol) and we have a 6-year-old little girl, and we're finally ready to tie the knot. It's going to be a lot of fun and I promise to post some photos after I get them. So think about me and wish me luck on 10-10-10!
Anyway, here's a manicure I did tonight because I just felt it was time to some fun nail art after this hellish week. I used an awesome Essence polish from the Surfer Girl collection as the base. It was sent to me in a swap from the lovely Michelle from The Lacquer Files (one of a ton of amazing polishes she sent that I'll be sharing with you over the next couple weeks). Over it I did dot's in varying colors:
From bottom to top:
Color Club Pretty in Platinum ($2.49)
Mix of Color Club Pretty in Platinum and OPI Who The Shrek Are You? ($5.24)
OPI Who the Shrek Are You?
Mix of OPI Who the Shrek Are You? and CND Urban Oasis ($10 as part of Night Factory set)
CND Urban Oasis
Wet n Wild Black ($.99)
I used a small dotting tool and applied the dots diagonally all the way up. It's far from perfect and I think it looks more graduated and pretty in person, but oh well. I love the look of it on grey and how it almost looks textured. I've been wanting to do a gradation manicure, but I figured I'd give this a try first. Honestly I'm really afraid of failure on the straight-up gradation... I'm sort of confused on how to do it to be honest. I've tried it with a sponge and didn't love it. Perhaps I need to use different polishes or try another method. Have you ever tried a gradation on your nails? What's you favorite gradation method?
I really wanted something simple for today's manicure, but something happy, too. I'm currently sick as a dog with pneumonia. I was pretty sick last week, then I started to feel better. Then I went shopping for my wedding gown with my mom (!!! so fun !!!) and I had a bit of a relapse and have been trying to claw my way back out since. I'm stuck at home taking long breaks between short bouts of housework and other stuff. I feel pathetic, haha. So I decided to cover up my naked (except for Perfect Formula Gel Coat) nails (naked? gasp!) with some fun nail art to cheer me up.
Ever since last week's Cupcakes and Zebras manicure, I've been on a candy-colored nail art streak. I loved the nails with two base shades especially in that one so I tried a new color combo and design with today's manicure. I know I've done leopard a lot lately, but it's so fun. I am a child of the 80s and it will never leave me, so I might as well embrace it. For this manicure I used Color Club Pucci-licious, aka my new favorite purple, along with Milani Neon Fresh Teal and one of my favorite hot pinks ever, OPI DC Cherry Blossom. With these polishes along with konad plate m57 and konad special polish in black I did this incredibly simple design. You can also freehand the leopard, but I feel like Konad is easier and more consistent, plus I like getting use out of my Konad set since I've got such an investment in it by this point.
Don't feel you have to have a Konad set to do this, a cheap black nail art pen, or black polish and a toothpick will get the job done just as well. The coolest part of the manicure is that some nails are only purple, or only teal, but some are both. I basically chose the nails randomly but I found afterward that there was a bit of a pattern, so go figure. They still look random to me, and I like it. I just used a dotting tool to add the pink to some of the spots after I added the leopard print. Everything is topped with a coat of my favorite, Seche Vite. As a side note, I used the Perfect Formula Gel Coat in lieu of a base coat and have been using it for a few weeks here, and I'm very impressed, so I'll be reviewing that soon. For now I'll say it makes a great stand-alone treatment as well as base coat.
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OPI Ski Teal We Drop is from the new Swiss Collection that's just come out. This was the only polish of the 12 that screamed out at me, and that's only because I'm a hardcore teal lover. If you love OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, RBL Teal, or Color Club Gossip Column, you'll love this one. It's very similar to RBL Teal but a bit lighter and more blue. I forgot Gossip Column in this comp picture, but I'll do one later and put it up on Twitter or something. Anyway, this is typical OPI application, two coat coverage that's ever so slightly streaky on the first coat. It all evens up beautifully, though and looks great on. The wear is pretty typical of most OPI as well. If you'd like to see a comparison between Ski Teal We Drop, RBL Teal, MAC Blue India and Illamasqua Muse, read on!
Click to see the comp...
Sephora by OPI Havana Nights Mini Collection - $18 at sephora.com
There are some great and not-so-great things about this set I want to share with you. I'm going to start with the bad, just to get it out of the way, then we'll get on to the good stuff. Regular ol' OPI full-size bottles will run you $8.50 retail, and the Sephora by OPI polishes will only set you back an extra fifty cents at $9. No biggie there, right? Well, then you look at the difference in price between this 4-piece mini set versus a 4-piece mini set of the regular OPI. The SOPI set of minis will set you back $18, whereas you can cop a OPI mini collection, with bottles the same size, for a low price ranging online from about $10-12. Why the huge yawning chasm between mini collection price points? I dunno, but it's ridiculous in this girl's humble opinion. At the least, I'd expect to see mini versions of all six polishes from the Havana Nights collection in this box for the extra six or eight bucks, am I right? This frustrates me, but let's move on, shall we?
These four polishes are all very nice in their own right, if not entirely unique. The Sephora by OPI formula is quite nice and these minis are no exception. At just the right balance between thick and thin, and they apply beautifully into the bargain. If you'd like to see the swatches and my thoughts, please check out the jump.
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