Warp Zone

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This mani was accidentally inspired by a dress. I had an urge to use a neon coral and deep blue, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I did laundry and found a dress I had worn earlier in the week. Go figure.

I wanted to do something centered around a triangle, but I couldn’t just stripe a triangle on my nails (striping tape needs to reach the end of the nail). So I settled for this!

The plan was to only have one gradient nail, but my 4th finger got ruined doing laundry…as did two others. So they all got the triangles, and my two preserved nails got gradients. I love the color combo, but I think the triangles look much better than the gradients! Although, this saved me from cutting a god-awful amount of striping tape.

The base color is one of my new Juleps, Natasha. She is a bright coral/orange, and is opaque in two coats. I don’t like the color alone on short nails, but she looks really pretty with blue!

Colors

• Coral: Julep – Natasha
• Blue: Sinful Colors – Endless Blue
• Orange: Nail Art – Orange

I don’t know why I added orange dots on my thumb. It was a good idea in theory, but looks odd in practice. Oh well. Enjoy!

Falling Flowers (fail)

I saw a beautiful layered flower mani at the swatchaholic and decided I had to try it with my new array of purples. However, I own none of the stamping plates that she owns…and moreover, none of my flower plates match.

So, I tried it by hand, using a TINY stamp. And repeating it 230490823 times. The first layer looked good (white over light purple). Then I added the darker purples and it started to look messy.

Then I lost at Settlers of Catan and stopped paying attention to my nails because it was taking too long. So the end is just sad.

I think I’m going to try layering stamps again…but using ones that speak to me, rather than what I’ve seen done. Because this did NOT work with what I had!

Colors

• Pale purple: Sally Hansen – Lacey Lilac
• White: Sinful Colors – White on White
• Medium purple: Zoya – Malia
• Dark purple: Sinful Colors – Fig
• Purple glitter: Zoya – Valerie
• Flakie: Sephora by OPI – Coconut scented
• Stamp: BM – 311

Next time…fewer stamps!

 

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Exotic Chevrons

I wanted to try out Zoya Faye (oh my god she’s beautiful), and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to pair her with! Then my eyes fell on my dark purple holo and Zoya Penny. Bingo.

Despite being freakishly glittery, this nail art is actually somewhat subtle. The copper polish doesn’t stand out sharply unless my nails are tilted (when you see more of the purple in Faye).

I added the gemstones just for fun…there is a design I’ve been wanting to try that uses a similar pattern…I’ll get there someday! But I thought it would be cute. I’m pretty happy with this.

Next time I do want to pair Faye with a solid purple (maybe Zoya Malia…). So many possibilities, so little time!

This is 3 thin coats of Faye on her own. So damn sparkly. I almost didn’t want to do art over her, which is why I settled on chevrons. This seems to be a trend with the Zoya polishes

Colors

• Purple/bronze: Zoya – Faye
• Purple holo: L.A. Girl – Purple Effect
• Copper: Zoya – Penny

In the sun, between the purple holo and the wonderful glitter that is Faye, this mani SPARKLED.

It was also rather interesting that in direct indoor light, Faye looks like a simple copper/bronze/gold glitter (ok, that’s not simple. But she doesn’t look purple) and then in the sunlight, she goes nuts! I think indoors she’s almost a butterLONDON scuppered dupe (without the green). I’ll have to test this!

Sorry for the photospam! Enjoy!

~~~~And remember, please go vote for my nails at the Rite Aid contest!!

Owl of a Different Color

One of my best friends came to visit, and asked me to do her nails! At first they had to match her dress (she was in town for a conference) but then we got to have fun. She settled on owls, since she went to Rice for college. Rainbow owls. There is a reason we are friends

I thought I would have trouble putting together something fun for her tiny nubbins, but these birdies looked so much better on her nails than they would have looked on my longer ones! …I’m still going to try this on myself, but I think I might stick to traditional brown owls!

I was not terribly happy with her first mani. I didn’t completely wait for the base color to dry, and it turns out that it’s hard to stamp on another person’s hand! It ended up ok, but not my best work. A fun stamp though! BM-315.

As she put it, she had “one short and squat owl, and one wonky-eyed owl” and the rest were pretty darn good.

Colors

• Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
• White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
• Yellow: Revlon – Electric
• Orange: Nail Art – Orange
• Light pink: NYC – Prospect Park Bloom
• Pink: Sinful Colors – Pink Forever
• Light purple: Sally Hansen – Lacey Lilac
• Purple: Sinful Colors – Fig
• Light blue: Zoya – Yummy
• Blue: Sinful Colors – Endless Blue
• Light green: Nail Art – Green
• Green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
• Tan: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing
• Brown: Zoya – Dea

Hope you enjoyed these colorful critters!

~~~~Please go vote for my nails at the Rite Aid competition!!!

Sunset Maze

This is a two-part mani, mostly because I did it on my right hand (using my left) and realized that (a) I liked the accent nail better than the others and (b) the lines needed to be straighter. This was the third possible submission for the Rite Aid Nail Art finalist entry. So, I took it off the next day, and re-did it!

I started with a somewhat-rainbow gradient (unfortunately we were not given white polish to use, so its over a somewhat sheer milky base. I’m sure the colors would pop more over white!).

The original design involved free-handing straight lines using black nail polish to create a maze pattern. My accent nail got Revlon’s white nail art pen rather than polish on a brush.

That pen is AMAZING. Unfortunately, it wasn’t 100% opaque at one coat, so I tried to dab it on where it was a bit sheer…and when I added top coat it broke into pieces (see the black with white accent nail photos). However, when I re-did it, I just went over a second time on the whole design (only on my thumb, the other fingers were mostly ok), and it didn’t break apart.

I really love the way this looks! It was, of course, inspired by the beautiful mani at Chalkboard Nails.

Colors

• Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
• Pink: L’oreal – Orange You Jealous
• Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
• Blue: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
• Dark blue: L’oreal – Shocking Seas
• Black: Pretty Woman – Black polish from velvet flocking powder kit
• White: Revlon – nail art pen

I really love the nail art pen! And I want to do this again…but over white and with brighter colors. Well, some brighter colors. That pink really pops!

Which do you like better, the black or the white?

Hope you enjoyed!

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Red Velvet

Designs similar to this have been popping up everywhere in the last few weeks, and I love them. The idea of a deep color, stamped over with black, and then matted. Beautiful.

This might also be my first 100% successful stamping attempt. There were no touch-ups, and I think I got all the nails done right! I’m proud of myself.

The base color is Zoya Isla. She’s a beautiful deep red blackened metallic color. Unfortunately, she bubbled for me (I think it had to do with how fast I was doing my nails) but you can’t tell once the stamp and top coat were added. This is two coats.

Sadly, I didn’t completely clean my stamping plate from the last time I used it (I swear I tried!) so there are a few bits of silver glitter on my mani. Oops!

Colors

• Red: Zoya – Isla
• Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
• Stamp: BM – 314

These nails were intended to be elegant but understated…I wore them for my qualifying exam for graduate school (which I passed!!)! Without the matte coat, I thought they were a bit too glitsy.

Enjoy!

~~~~Please go vote for my nails! Under a week left. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Baroque in Purple

I saw a beautiful holo/swirly/gemstone nail art design and really I should have known that my dark purple polish was not going to swirl that easily!

I do like the way this came out…but I can do better. And I will (maybe in pink/red), sometime soon. I was pressed for time during this mani, and I think if the lines were more even between nails and I spent more time on the swirls (or just gave up and stamped) this would have worked better.

Even so, I love the way the colors come together, and that mine is a bit more subtle (the purples are closer in hue). Also, HOLO GLITTER.

The base here is Zoya Malia, a beautiful purple creme. It was hard to get the true color on this one! here is one coat (yes, one) of Malia. I like the color, but I don’t know that I’d wear it on its own! I need more bling/glitter/craziness in my polish

Colors

• Purple holo: LA Girl – Purple Effect
• Medium purple: Zoya – Malia
• Dark purple: Sinful Colors – Fig
• White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

Stay tuned for the pink/red version at some point! Next time featuring taped straight lines and actual swirls!

~~~ And remember, please go vote for my nails for the Rite Aid Extravaganza!!!

Zoya Sale!

Just a tiny quick update…Zoya has having a sale from now till the 16th, buy one-get-one for their older summer shades.

Basically, pick any 2, 4, 6….you get it…shades from the list here and add it to your cart. At check-out, put in “FLOGO” and a 50% reduction will be taken! Free shipping if you get more than 8 total polishes.

Now I just need to stop myself from buying Pippa and Ivanka… (I already have Wednesday and Alegra, and love both of them)!

(also, if you use my link to buy stuff, I get points. So if you are new to Zoya, please use my link! I LOVE their nail polish!)

Abstractions on Green

I know that green and gold are Christmas-y colors, but I couldn’t resist. I decided I had done a striping tape mani too recently to do another (oh man I can’t wait to pair this with Zoya Ziv!) so I settled for a green and gold stamping mani. I’ve been wanting to try the falling rectangles from BM-320, ta-da!

They didn’t come out as nicely as I would have liked, but they do still look pretty cool.

Again, I was in love with the base color…Zoya Holly. Its a beautiful slightly blackened metallic green, and it GLOWS. I’ve been looking for an emerald green metallic, and I will look no further! This is ONE coat of Holly. Color me impressed.

My pinky looks a bit sad, mostly because I TRIED to stamp with Zoya Ziv, but I should have known a glitter/flaky wouldn’t stamp well! Oh well.

Colors

• Green: Zoya – Holly
• Gold: Maybelline – Bold Gold
• Stamp: BM – 320

Honestly, I almost think this mani looked better before I stamped over it. The gold took away some of the glowing beauty from the green. Oh well!

Enjoy!

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With the Grain

…Which was not how my life was going when I did these! My prelims were in one week!! But I saw a wood grain design on the internets, and thought “I could do that”, so I did!

My base is two smooth coats of Zoya Dea, a beautiful even medium brown. I have been in the market for a brown creme, and this one is really quite pretty. It also dried surprisingly fast!

Despite being a rather odd look for nails, I think this might be one of my favorite designs.

I also like the length of my nails….somewhat short, but almost flat across the top. I can’t stop staring at the pattern!

Colors

• Brown: Zoya – Dea
• Tan: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing
• Oxblood: Julep – Lucy

Enjoy!

 

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Please go vote for my blue stripy nails from yesterday over at the Rite Aid Nail Art Contest! One vote per day! (Sorry for being so annoying)