Antique Flowers

I’ve been debating for a few days how I wanted to wear the water decals that I got to review from the Born Pretty Store…did I just do one accent nail? Did I do two nails? Top of my nails like a french tip? Triangles? I settled on a double accent because those can be fun, and then was faced with what to do with the other nails!

I ended up using a deep red with gold glitter polish, but a deep green creme was a close second. The only grey-red that I have would have been too painful to clean so I vetoed it (why are dark blues and reds so darn hard to get out of cuticles?).

I really like how these came out! Unlike most water decals, these floral ones are both very well printed (which is to say you can’t see the individual dots of color like you can on most, these look smooth) and come with a white or pale colored backing behind each part of the design. Frequently, the entire background is clear (so you have to put the decals over white to get the correct colors) or the background is colored so it can go over any color…these are cool because the leaves and flowers have their own printed background but the base color shows through everywhere else!

Colors
~ Nude: Essence – I Nude It
~ Red: Zoya – India

This was a super quick mani, and looks rather classy if I do say so myself! Although, oddly, I like it better on my nails with curved edges than the straight edges! I’ve always been a diehard straight-nail-edge fan (and I still am…I broke one of my nails on an awkward angle so I just rounded that hand), but for some reason this one just works on the oval nails! I’m likely to cut them all straight again very soon, but it makes for a fun contrast right now! If you want to get these decals for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, they are currently on sale for $0.99! Hope you enjoyed!

Hilariously, I had a day of work today and without the stress of having to go into the hospital I forgot to post this until now! Whoops 😀

Greyscale Netting

Sometimes I just like to play with monochrome! In this case, I was excited to see that I actually had enough holo polish to make a gradient! Well, technically the black polish was a creme, but over a holo it still looked suitably glittery!

I actually did a second very similar mani (different stamp) that I like much better, but I’ll show that later. This one ended up looking like netting.

Remarkably, I got away with wearing this in the hospital…pathology is much more lenient about nail polish! Maybe because there was absolutely zero patient interaction?

Colors
~ White: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Grey: A England – Fated Prince
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Stamp: Born Pretty Store (asian name) – L008

Next week starts my two weeks on outpatient in this rotation block, so I should be able to wear polish again. It really makes me angry when people enforce rules (like no nail polish in the OR) that have been throughly debunked. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this mani!

Fade to Pink Floral

There are basically two versions of this mani…which I wore on opposing hands. I’ll be posting one today (clearly) and the other next week. They are, in fact, different manis…it just turns out when you try to gradient with white and red, it looks like a lot like using different shades of pink!

This is a triple-pink gradient, with a pink holo stamped on top. I honestly thought that Ciara (the darkest pink in the gradient) would not end up being so dark, so the pattern would show more at the tips. Clearly, I was wrong! It still looks cool. I was aiming for a Valentine’s Day color palette…so yah.

The design is from a stamping plate that I was sent to review from the Born Pretty Store…and I have to say I love it. Some of their plates can be hit-or-miss, either in terms of design or etching. This one is perfectly etched, and the designs are all really pretty! everything on this plate is vaguely stylized floral patterns, but they are all large enough that you can fit them in different orientations (see, for example, my pointer vs. middle fingers…same stamp just rotated and it still covers my whole nail). I have to say I’m impressed!

Colors
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Dark pink holo: A England – Rosebower
~ Stamp: BP – L052

If you want to pick up this stamping plate for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store, where you can find it for $2.59. Don’t forget about my discount code, LY5X31! Enjoy!

Angled Echos

Every year, around Valentine’s Day, I reach for The Unloved by Emily de Molly. I don’t quite know why, but its become ingrained! I also DO NOT understand the name of this polish, given how striking it is. But I digress.

This year, I felt like starting of the pink/red/HEARTS manicures that tend to spew out around Valentines Day with something sharp and geometric. So, ta-da! I double stamped over The Unloved with the same stamp twice…first in black and then in gold. The idea was to make it looks like an echo or shadow of the original design. I like it!

I also wanted to use another new stamping plate I was sent from the Born Pretty Store. This plate is the best. I love love LOVE geometric designs, but freehanding them never works out well (too many straight lines) and using striping tape takes literally hours. The best solution seems to be plates, and this one is chalk-full of awesome geometric designs! I ended up using different ones on each nail (well, same pattern on my ring finger and thumb because I made this decision after I already did those two). I love them all.

Colors
~ Red glitter: Emily de Molly – The Unloved
~ Black: Mentality – Black Opaque
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BP – L054

In warning: the next few posts are going be either heart-themed or red/pink themed. They are still pretty (in terms of the art) but it might be overwhelming (especially since I usually post rather varied colors in a given week). Anyway.

If you want to pick up this awesome geometric stamping plate (and I do recommend it, the designs are really awesome and well-etched), head over to the Born Pretty Store where you can get it for $2.59. Don’t forget my 10% off code, LY5X31! Enjoy!

Sea or Sky

I kept thinking that this mani looked like swirling sea water (with ice on it) or a fancy stone…and my husband saw celestial bodies and stars. So sea or sky, which do you guys see?

Regardless, I have another new polish to share! This one was sent to me to review from the Born Pretty Store. It’s a thermal polish with copious silver glitter in  it, and is quite pretty! Oddly, when I looked at it online, it looked like a bright blue when warm and a deep purple when cold….but in person, its more of a blue-teal when warm and a deep blue-jean shade of blue when cold. Not as exciting as blue and purple, but still pretty! I wonder if they changed the formulation?

Regardless, 009 by VCND Bluesky covered very nicely in three thin coats. I used thin coats to get maximal glitter coverage! It dries to a semi-matte, but does dry fairly fast. The best part is the glitter spread…I didn’t have to go digging for the larger hex glitters at all, and despite the glitter load the polish spread smoothly. The warm color is a bright teal-leaning blue, while the dark color is the shade of blue jeans. There isn’t a huge difference between the two colors, honestly…but both are pretty and the glitter is really nice!

Colors
~ Blue thermal: VCND  Bluesky – 009
~ Light blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ibiza
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Clear: Pipe Dream Polish – Clearwater

I couldn’t decide what to stamp, so I did a quasi water-marble instead. I wanted to do blues with silver (and clear to allow the thermal polish to show through) but the silver I grabbed formed these awesome clumps instead of marbling…so I just went with it! It was much more fun making this messy clumpy marble than it was trying to perfect an elegant and smooth water marble, so win!

If you want to pick up this blue glittery thermal for yourself, you can find it at the Born Pretty StoreBorn Pretty Store for $4.99. I think its important to point out that this is a mini bottle (only 7.5ml). You can also use my 10% off code, LY5X31!

Fanning Out

Today, I reached for the last of this most recent batch of nail art supplies from the Born Pretty Store, and came out with something awesome! Honestly, the water decals are stunning although the color change on my nail is a bit underwhelming.

I decided that for these really nifty fan-shapped decals, I needed to do a reciprocal gradient on my nails…white-purple-white. And it looked fairly awesome when I was done! But when I went to add the decals, the middle purple section was mostly covered.

The decals themselves come as two long strips, and would fit very long nails (even my longest nail only has about 2/3 of the decal on it). Unfortunately, the pointy part of each design is slightly too narrow for one nail, so if I had kept the webbing between each the sides of my nails would have been exposed. I decided to just hollow out alternating pieces of the decal and put them on my nail that way. My thumb has what they actually look like (webbing between each concentric fan pattern).

The designs removed very easily in the water, but were thick enough to reposition with ease. They were actually really really easy to use, which is often not true with full-nail decals!

I added silver caviar beads at the end…just for fun. 3D nail art makes me happy! Hope you enjoyed, and you can pick up these decals if you like them from the Born Pretty Store for $0.99. Don’t forget my 10% off code, LY5X31!

Frills and Foofaraw

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t get the line that Zoe (from Firefly) says out of my head  while painting these “Too much foofaraw. If I’m going to wear a dress, I’d want something with some slink.” Hence, Frills and Foofaraw!

This another of the designs where I used my newest review-haul from the Born Pretty Store. The water decals I used here are stunning, but I was at a loss for what to do under them because they were so complicated! I wanted to use bits from each part of the design (the water decal is one of those long continuous ones) and I kept arguing ‘gradient? ombre? glitter? colors?’ and settled on a subtle holo-shimmer in light grey because contrast is better.

I finally get off my surgical rotation this friday, so I can start growing my nails out again! It also means I can wear more awesome crazy nails and less subtle sadness (I haven’t posted many of the subtle manis yet because I am putting off editing them). I might even go back to posting daily, we shall see!

Colors
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
(no, I don’t know why I made a color list for just one color. Go with it).

Hope you enjoyed! And if you want to pick up this complicated yet cool water decal for yourself, you can find it at the Born Pretty Store for $0.99. Don’t forget to use my 10% off code, LY5X31!