Rowdy Roses

Technically, I painted these around Valentine’s day. However, roses are good any time, so they are being posted now! In retrospect, I wish I had not made the backgrounds holographic, I think the art would have popped more against a creme background. Live and learn! Besides, I like making my backgrounds more sparkly than would otherwise be indicated :-p

Colors:
~ White holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Red creme: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Red holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Green: Zoya – Josie
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: BP – L067, UC – Lovely Leaves 2

On a separate topic: things are going sideways in the US. At the moment, the city that I live in has a curfew, and honestly all but one of the 4 cities I have lived in at any point in my life are doing the same. The systemic racism and violence is (finally) being called out, which is (sadly) provoking violence. To all my readers in the USA: stay safe, stay strong, and do what you can to support your community. To my international readers: yes, all of this is exactly as terrible as it looks. If you feel so motivated, please encourage your leadership to sanction the USA; sadly I don’t think Trump listens to anything except his pride and his wallet, so if his income can be hurt we might actually see some change.

Perfectly Pinked

Ok, I really like this one. I don’t know how the colors work together or why this design caught my eye, but here we are! Honestly I think a real gold rather than a rose gold would have gone better with all the pinks…but you can hardly tell. Girly and glittery to the rescue!

Colors:
~ Rose gold: ILNP – Juliette
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark coral: Essie – Sunday Funday
~ Stamp: MoYou – Frenchy 14

Really the moral of this manicure is if you add enough glitter and colorful distraction, everything looks good. Again, this manicure should not work. I like it anyway :-D. Hope you enjoyed, and happy Friday!

Chinoise Bridge

This was honestly a great idea and a very poor execution. The biggest issue I have with stamping is positioning the stamp on my nails. This got much MUCH easier with the advent of clear stamper heads (I look back at my first few years of blogging and am both horrified and impressed with the tools we had and how we made them work). That said, unlike a regular single color stamped image which can be easily wiped off with a bit of acetone, an advanced stamping design cannot. It lives forever. Which is to say I had a LOT of trouble positioning the stamps for this manicure and it shows!

Colors:
~ Red metallic: Zoya – Isla
~ Red creme: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: MoYou – Porcelain 01

Please don’t judge my stamping position too harshly, I did try! Anyway, hope you enjoyed all the red and gold, and how much my nails look like elegant slightly lopsided bridges :-p Happy friday!

Carrot Gems

I didn’t know what else to title this! It ended up looking somewhat like a gemstone…with tiny carrots? I basically just stamped in black but didn’t like how that looked, so I grabbed a complimentary color to my shifty base which ended up being a dark orange. I overlaid some of the black patterns with orange…and then added black dots. The end result is actually really cool looking but I had no idea where I was going with this and can hardly take credit for it!

Colors:
~ Orange/green multichrome: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L049

That’s all I have for today! I spent the 5 days I wore this manicure being constantly distracted by the glitter and the shifting colors, so kudos to Ethereal Lacquer I suppose! Hope you all enjoyed 🙂 (And sorry this is late! I totally forgot to pre-post before my 28 hour shift in the hospital.)

Fancy Teal Tips

Yet ANOTHER fun manicure with a bright weird base color and a design from the UrbanNailArt collab plate. I am seriously glad I bought it! Sadly, the silver I used on my tips is a tad overwhelming, but you can still see the cool semi-foil below 🙂

The base here is three thin coats of Near and Far by Emily de Molly. This is a “pastel” multichrome, and honestly it is lighter in shade than most of my multichromes but I would not call this color pastel! I will need to do a comparison with the other similar multichromes I own just to see how much lighter it really is. Regardless, it is a very pretty and very shifty color! I captured the bright teal flash, as well as shifts to blue, indigo, and purple.

Colors:
~ Teal/purple multichrome: Emily de Molly – Near and Far
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur (renaissance)
~ Stamps: Moyra – 32 Nature, Lina – @urbannailart collab

I honestly especially love how this polish looks in the sunlight, you get an eyeful of the purple flash. Many multichromes have a fun sun feature, but this one really wowed me! Anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Summer Flower Gradient

I painted these in January. It was cold, there was a sleeting icy mess outside, and I decided it was time for some bright sunny colors. If the outside world would not cooperate, I would just have to make them happen myself! And that is how this manicure was born. Of course, its more fitting to post them in spring so here we are!

Colors:
~ Bright orange-yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
~ Orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Hot pink: Zoya – Morgan
~ Golden shimmer: Ethereal – Rainforest
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

I have been on a kick of adding highlights with my few not-quite-opaque pastel multichromes, and it makes me very happy. This time I added some Rainforest over the center of the flowers just for a bit of variety! You can’t really see it in the sunlight (for example, the second photo) but indoors it was glittery and added just a little kick that I think helped overall. Hope you enjoyed 😀

Shimmer Flowers

This ended up being oddly delicate? I didn’t mean it to be but its actually rather pretty! Between the pastel grey-green base, the thin black lines, and the scattered gold glitter, I’ll take it!

This mani (by which I mean this base polish) exists because a coworker tipped me off that a local St Louis tchotchke (turns out I’ve never had to spell tchotchke before!) store was selling old Formula X polishes for $1 each. These used to be something like $12 each at Sephora (and I think I bought 4 of them when they were on some kind of sale) and this random odds and ends store had HUNDREDS of these polishes in boxes! So, of course, I pawed through them and ended up buying 12 polishes. For $12. Now, one was a top coat and one was a base coat (I had to test them…) but still. I am so happy!

Anyway. I doubt this polish is really available to purchase anywhere but I am going to review it regardless because it is new to me. This is two thin coats of Quantum by Forumula X. It is a pretty, subtle, pale grey-green and I quite like it! It is a bit more neutral than I usually reach for, but I don’t own anything quite like it and it was easy to wear and to match to things. I have already worn it again and I only bought the polish 3 months ago.

Colors:
~ Grey-green: Factor X – Quantum
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Gold glitter: Salon Perfect – Gold Leaf
~ Gold shimmer: Sephora by OPI – I Found a Pot of Gold
~ Stamp: Lina – Urbannailart

Hope you enjoyed this delicate art! I promise we are coming to the end of flower power posts. I just figured I would dump all my flower manicures online while it was still spring time! 😀

Neon Blossoms

Oh wow these nails ended up bright. Fun, very colorful, but eye-searingly bright. Which I suppose is what happens when I reach for one of the brightest corals in my collection! This design was inspired by @nails4cocktails. I wanted something with bright colors and cherry blossoms, and this caught my eye! Hillarously, I actually did both of her cherry blossom manicures without knowing they were by the same person, within a week of each other :-p

Colors:
~ Blue shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Pink: L’oreal – Orange You Jealous?
~ Neon pink glitter: Cadillacquer – End of Silence
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL158

Hope you enjoyed the further flowers! Sadly the actual cherry blossoms outside are starting to fall off, although my allergies are pleased by this change (for now, until even more flowers show up to set them off again)!

Scattered Roses on a Field of Gold

I told you there would be more flowers, and here they are! To be fair, I really really like how this mani came out (unlike the other two I posted this week). The theme appears to be color-in-flowers-with-jelly-polish. This manicure also gave me an excuse to play with another new polish :-D. I also almost forgot to post this (oops!) but its technically still Friday!

I wanted to see if the new pastel-ish multichromes from Emily de Molly we really worth buying…so I bought one that was different than anything else in my collection. Meet Goddess of Rays, an orange-gold-green-emerald pastel almost foil-like multichrome. I have to say, I was impressed! This covered very well in two coats, was only a tiny bit streaky, had a great shift, and was overall a pleasure to wear and a pleasure to look at!

Colors:
~ Orange/green multichrome: Emily de Molly – Goddess of Rays
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Pink creme: Zoya – Veronica
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B005

Initially I just added some black stamps, which I deemed too boring. So I decided to fill in the roses with a pink jelly polish, and add some matching dark pink creme dots as the little buds/berries! Ergo this weeks theme. To be fair, this manicure was shifty and awesome and more eye-catching than spring-like. But it fits! Hope you enjoyed 😀

Dividing Roses

Oh how I wish this plate was better etched, the designs are so pretty! This is the companion piece to the pink/periwinkle/purple floral art I posted last week. I liked the stamping plate soo much that I wanted to use it again immediately. Again, it did not work to my satisfaction! Maybe it will work better with more intense dedicated stamping polishes…but I have my doubts.

Colors:
~ Light purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Yellow jelly – Esmalta De Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubbles
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink jelly: Zoya – Paloma
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Flower Tango L002

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the roses! I have decided it is time to post spring-themed manicures (can you tell?) because it is April and I have a bunch of them sitting in my to-be-edited folder.

Pressed Leaves on Papaya

This manicure is a combination of many pretty things, that when put together, makes a surprisingly ugly end result. A nice gradient, some pretty glitter, a fun leaf stamp…and it did not work! Anyway, here are the individual pieces.

The base color is a new-to-me polish, three thin coats of Papaya Don’t Preach by KBShimmer. I wanted a pastel neon orange, and what I ended up with was a light neon orange…which is very pretty, I will absolutely use, and is not what I was going for! Oops. Darn comparison photos, it looked lighter in swatches (lets be honest, that is true of most neons, cameras just cannot handle them). As neons do, this dried semi-gloss, photos here are with top coat. It has a nice even glide to it and is quite a fun color! It is just too dark for what I had in mind.

Colors:
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Papaya Don’t Preach
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ Glitter: China Glaze – Fairy Dust
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BP – Texture L002

I am also, FINALLY, the proud owner of Fairy Floss by China Glaze. I have wanted this scattered holo top coat for years but never wanted to pay full price for it. Well, I found it on sale for $5 and decided it was coming home with me this time. It makes gradients better, and I needed it! Ahhh, wonderful glitter :-). So, different pieces…odd end result. Hope you can enjoy somewhat!

Pastel Geometric Floral

his was full-on inspired by the demo art on this stamping plate’s shopping page. Unfortunately, the plate was just not well etched enough to really pull this off! I do love the images but I could barely make the stamps pick up even with all my tricks and my best stamper head. 😦

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Purple: Zoya – Abby
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Green: Zoya – Tiana
~ Glitter: Cult Nails – Center of Attention
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamps: Born Pretty – Flower Tango L002

Regardless, the manicure ended up pretty. The caveat of course is that I went over a fair amount of the black lines by hand, since they did not end up picking up enough to call it a stamp. If you guys want to pick this up for yourselves (and cross your fingers that you get a better etched plate than I did!) you can find it here for $3.99.

Planets in Orbit

Space!! Space is the best. I don’t remember why in retrospect I made all the various space things purple instead of varying the color scheme, but the end result is more uniform than I had remembered! Regardless, this was quite fun to wear 🙂

Colors:
~ Black holo: Zoya – Storm
~ Purple: Zoya – Landon
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BM – XL213

Nothing much else to offer today. Hope you are all finding something fun to do (perhaps nail painting?) in this time of staying inside and away from friends. Regardless, I hope you are all staying entertained and good luck avoiding virus exposure!

Purple Tribal Suns

I wanted to use this particular stamp, so I did! I have been waiting to use it for over a year now, and just didn’t have a polish I wanted to cover up 90%. I did it anyway, because there has been so much purple recently that covering it with MORE PURPLE just seemed logical.

Colors:
~ Light purple glitter: Painted Polish – Just One Look
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Dark purple: Zoya – Danielle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L052

I even managed to refrain from adding a dot to the center of the design in the base of my nails. :-p we all know how much I love adding dots! Anyway, hope you all enjoyed!

Permutated Mutagen

Happy almost-St-Patrick’s Day! I do actually have a lot more and more suitable manicures, but I haven’t had a chance to transfer them onto my computer yes so you get these instead! At least they are green.

Colors:
~ Green multichrome: ILNP – Mutagen
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink glitter multichrome: POP Polish – Watermelon Bubbleslick
~ Stamp: Born Pretty – L078

I think most places have cancelled any and all St Pattie’s day festivities, and if I’m honest, I am grateful. I am a doctor, and it is low key terrifying the preparations that hospitals have been forced to take in order to prepare for the coming disaster. I am aware that I am likely to lose any and all free time in a manner of weeks (if not days), and there is a chance this blog might go on hiatus if I end up working more than 80 hours a week in the hospital (hopefully that won’t happen, but I think it likely will). So please, enjoy wearing green, be happy…and hang out in small groups.

Magenta Squared

This was a fun manicure. I have no idea where it came from though! I wanted to use one of my new Polish Pickup polishes, High Degree by EdM. I will get to that polish in a second (it is incredible) but I decided to go with black and orange over it for some reason? I was going to do flames but somehow ended up here instead. I have no idea what it is but I like it!

High Degree is a bright almost neon magenta jelly completed full of small and medium iridescent glitters. This is fantastic for two reasons: the glitters glint between orange-yellow-green and sometimes red from the jelly overlay, AND because they are iridescent rather than intrinsically colored they remove like a charm! This is somehow a glitter polish that removes almost like a creme. I ended up covered in glitter, but it was so worth it. The polish covered well in two coats but I added a thin third coat for added glitter dimension. This polish is utterly incredible (I know I said that already).

Colors:
~ Purple glitter: Emily de Molly – High Degree
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange holo: Emily de Molly – Scorched Earth
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B015

I then added a black geometric stamp and decided that was too boring, so I went ahead and put thin orange holographic lines inside anything that looked vaguely solid? The end result was cool looking and futuristic! Don’t ask me why I did it though, I was just bored. Hope you enjoyed!

Underworld Arrival

I lied. I said no more curved nails (and to be fair I reshaped my nails since the last post)…although these remain curved. Despite that, this manicure actually looks cool! I finally FINALLY picked the right stamp to compliment an oval shaped nail! It helps that this is one of my favorite polish bases. Overall, decent job with a bad substrate!

Colors:
~ Green: Rogue Lacquer – Princess of the Underworld
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BP – L052

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Friday’s post is one of my favorites in a while. I tried a new technique (which to be fair was the first time I tried it but I have shown some later manicures with the same technique before the original). That was confusing, so stay tuned!

Shifting Berry Swirls

What is better than a multichrome magnetic? How about one stamped with a vibrant berry holo?! Unfortunately, since I stamped with a bright berry purple, you can hardly see the orange-yellow shift of Astral Realm. At angles you can see the swirls in purple over the yellow, but its hard to pick out, sadly!

Colors:
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Purple/orange magnetic multichrome: Born Pretty – Astral Realm
~ Purple holo: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Stamp: BM – XL213

This was double stamped, first in magenta then in black. Of course as mentioned only the black shows, but it still looked cool! Magnetic polishes are so much fun! And they make for easy and pretty art. Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Childish Twirls

This is a very simple manicure, but shimmery and shifty! Just what we needed after two straight weeks of boring nude lace themed nails. Of course, when I painted these my nails were an awful rounded shape, but you can’t win everything :-p

Colors:
~ Teal multichrome: Enchanted Polish – Kids
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: MoYou – Frenchy 14

I don’t quite know why I reach for really complicated multichromes or glitter mixes when I don’t have anything in particular in mind, but it ends up looking pretty! I just need to make sure my creme polishes also get love sometimes 😀 Hope you enjoyed!

Simple Mauve Lace

I wanted to see if one of the larger stamps I own could be made to stretch prettily across all my fingers. Success! Of course, nude lace stamping is never complete without some jelly accents, so this ended up a little more purple than I initially intended.

Colors:
~ Pastel mauve: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Purple jelly: Zoya – Katherine
~ Stamp: BP – L084

The purple jelly had somehow migrated to the purples in my polish collection rather than the jellies (a few finishes get side aside from their color pool in my organizational setup, jellies are one of them). Luckily, I tend to remember the name of particular polishes so Katherine was easy to find! Hope you enjoyed, happy (belated) Valentine’s Day, and I hope you are all excited as I am that next week we move back to COLORS!