Murky Pond Blooms

This started out as a comparison between my three murky gold-green polishes. As it turns out, I REALLY love this color (as it stands my #1 lemming right now is Nine Zero Lacquer Singer’s Auto Salvage, which is basically the same color as all of these but with an intense amount of glitter). Anyway, I wanted to see how they stacked up! Of course, I had to add nail art too…I was wearing a cool shirt and I decided to model my nails after the shirt I had on (which is sad because I couldn’t wear it again the next day and perfectly match my nails, but oh well)!

In a Trance by Cult Nails (ring finger) has the least amount of shimmer, but covers nicely in three coats. It is the most understated of the three, but looks the most elegant on. Fotheringhay Castle by A England (pointer and pinky) is the only one with holo shimmer, and has more of a deep/metallic finish than the other two. It is almost a one-coater, which is incredible. Wallis by Butter London (middle finger) actually has a deep blue base with copious gold glitter, with the end result being this tarnished green-gold. It is deeper than the other two, but since the base is a jelly it takes 3-4 coats. That being said, it likely remains my favorite. I just cannot get over the depth and shimmer!

I ended up sponging on black polish somewhat randomly, and then double stamping the result with a plate sent to me from the Born Pretty Store. The plate has some fantastic geometric and random element patterns! I used two of them here, one in gold and then one in black. It looks wonderfully random! The plate is BPX – L020

I ended up hand-painting some roses and leaves to finish off the design. There was a part of me that wanted to leave the mani without the flowers…but the shirt I was inspired by has flowers and I actually think it really lightened up the resulting nails!

I am not going to list all the polishes I used…suffice to say it was a lot. If you want to pick up this random fun stamping plate for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store! The plate is currently on sale for $2.99, and personally I love the wacky designs on it! Don’t forget my 15% off code, LY5X31!

Hope you enjoyed!

Silver Leaves and Pink Berries

I really like how this mani came out, but it took forever to plan! I knew I wanted something with white, grey, and pink…and trying to figure out what to use for the stamp vs the background took forever. I think I used all 5 nail demos on my silicone mat! Worth it 😀

The stamping plate I used here was sent for review from the Born Pretty Store, but it is full of fun leaves and flowers…both of which are a pain to free-hand. So, I am really glad this plate works as well as it does! It’ll be VERY useful come fall. The geometric pattern is from an Emily de Molly plate though.

You also cannot tell, but I actually used both a white and a silver to stamp, just to see how the variation looked! It’s most noticeable in the non-sunlight photos.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Stamps: Floral BPX-L018, EDM 03

If you want the floral stamping plate, head over to the Born Pretty store, it is currently on sale for $2.99! Don’t forget to use my code, LY5X31…although I don’t think it can be applied to things already on sale, sorry!

Vines Through the Swamp

Don’t ask me about the title. I thought that as lovely as the base is, it looks like a swamp. And then I got stuck into thinking about Shrek and now “I’m a Believer” is stuck in my head on repeat.

Anyway. This is one of the A England polishes that I picked up a few months ago during the color4nails sale (because I couldn’t resist) and it is LOVELY. Now, at least part of that is because I simply love this type of murky green-brown, but a lot of it has to do with the polish itself! (Actually, I have a post that I’m working on that compares the three green-brown polishes I own. Yes, I own three of them. Because this color is magnificent).

Shown here is two thin coats of Fotheringhay Castle by A England. I almost could have gotten away with one! Adina’s version of this particular color is a deep murky green-gold with scattered fine holo shimmer. The holo is less noticeable than most other A England holos, but the finish is stunning and you can certainly see the shimmer! I’m quite happy with this 😀

Colors:
~ Green: A England – Fotheringhay Castle
~ Gold shimmer: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold metallic: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Light pink: ULTA – Babydoll
~ Pink: Essie – Eternal Optimist

I ended up triple stamping with two Bundle Monster plates: once with a gold shimmer that ended up very faint because the plate was not etched well, once with gold metallic swirls, and then over that using black polish and the same swirls. It came out pretty well for all that stamping madness!

Hope you enjoyed!

Purple Fade Out

Nail polish websites NEED to stop putting things on sale! A England went on sale for a few days, and Adina makes some of my favorite polishes, so I just and to grab a bunch! I don’t know what I was thinking, I already have >10 untried polishes sitting around. I am a mess!

When I was looking for which colors I wanted (since I already have 10 or so A England polishes) I ended up buying half the Elizabeth & Mary collection. The two I wanted and this third one, a purple! In retrospect, I should have passed on the orange/red glittery one. That being said, THIS polish is stunning and I am glad it caught my eye!

This is two thin coats of Crown of Thistles, a pretty red-toned purple holo. The sunlight photos are the most color-accurate, the others make the polish look more blue than it really is. Crown of Thistles is a bright magenta-purple with copious scattered holo shimmer and a pink-purple shimmer that almost makes the polish look like a duochrome. I am impressed! Even better, it is basically a one-coater. If I had just been a little more careful, I would not have needed two coats at all.

I ended up applying a gradient stamp over the polish, which worked out better than I expected but doesn’t look great in the photos. I mostly needed something to blend in…I am getting tired of having to think in terms of what I can wear in the hospital! Just a few more months I can put whatever I want on my nails again.

Colors:
~ Purple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: EdM – 22

At this point, I also have 9 (!!) Disney-themed manis built up that I’ve been working on over weekends (when I am free to do what I want with my nails). Do you guys want to see them soon, or should I keep going until I can do a whole month of Disney? 😀

Spring Stripes and Buds

Unsurprisingly, I painted these back at the beginning of spring, when it was still exciting to put flowers on my nails. Oh well! They are still cute, and came out oddly colorful 🙂

These came about because I just wanted something fun a floral! I was going to use striping tape to make the lines, but the base took 4 coats (which reminds me of why I NEVER USE this polish, ugh) so I couldn’t use striping tape because my nails never dried. So, freehanded stripes! Pain in the butt…but not half bad. More of the story is that I have almost mastered straight lines? I think only one of these is my right hand, but I actually managed all these lines on BOTH hands.

The only reason I find that amusing is that I recently discovered I switch off hands when doing a physical exam in the hospital…which the rest of my team was super impressed by! I’ve always been somewhat ambidextrous, but I think its only gotten stronger since I started painting my nails way back at the beginning of my PhD!

Colors:
~ White jelly: Revlon – Cala Lilly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BC – 06

Ok, that went very off topic. Suffice to say, these ended up colorful, cute, and a bit strange! And Cala Lilly is a terrible polish that I should get rid of before I try to use it again and spend 2 hours waiting for my base color to dry.

Negative Space Flowers

These came out cute! Although, sadly, they were cuter in my head. I just wanted something colorful and spring-y! I do wish that I had a left a bit more space between the flowers on some of my nails, but oh well.

The art is inspired by @lifeisbetterpolished, who has apparently changed her ID to @withlovekarissa and I had to hunt around and make sure I wasn’t tagging someone who stole her photos!

Anyway. Flowers, and negative space. I don’t usually go for negative space designs, but putting this on a white background seemed too…jarring.

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ Blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead

It is amusing that 90% of the colors I used came from two pastel collections (Wet n’ Wild and Essie)! I should go back to buying collections that come out with rainbow colors with the same finish, it makes for the best nail art! Hope you enjoyed!

Pink Peonies

Spring means flowers, right? So have some flowers! Even if the real ones make me sneeze.

This design was inspired by Copycat Claws although her stamp was far superior to mine! And I really need to find a suitable green jelly polish :-/. Any recommendations?

I do at least like how the pink and teal came together! Although I wish I had focused a bit more on some yellow/pink. I don’t usually like yellow, but it looks pretty with the pink jelly nearby!

Colors
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pink: Zoya – Paloma
~ Teal: Zoya – Frida
~ Yellow: Esmalta da Kelly – Yellow Soap Bubble
~ Green: Zoya – Jace
~ Stamp: BM – XL209

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed and happy Friday!