Overcast

This is what happens when I come home in a rush from out-of-state and need to be in the hospital the next day but am currently wearing something brightly colored and intricately patterned. Basically, this is just sad.

I usually plan out my manis a little in advance…just in terms of color or inspiration or a specific stamp to use. In this case I had a boring pink that I was going to stamp with white and grey…and decided not to use pink. So I of course grabbed the darkest grey I own. Which was a terrible idea, because my nails looked like Wolverine claws!

I tried to fix that by adding a layer of white-tinted polish with gold flecks in it, but it only ended up looking super uneven. So then I knew I NEEDED a full-coverage stamp, but I couldn’t do black (which would have looked nice) because that is far too dark for the hospital. I settled on a lighter grey. And honestly, its ok but it certainly isn’t good! Yikes.

Colors:
~ Dark grey: Zoya – Evie
~ Sheer white: Revlon – Calla Lilly
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Stamp: BP – L049

Sorry this is so drab, I wish I had something prettier to show today. It gets better later next week, I promise! Although, since I am taking an 8-hour long exam tomorrow, grey nails seem fitting :-/. Cya on the other side!

Make Your Own Marble

Every year on “tutorial” day I am torn: do I make nail art based on someone else’s tutorial or do I make new nail art and my own tutorial? I had more time than usual this year (I got out of the clinic early) so I went with the make-your-own!

One really cool idea that I’ve been seeing around is geode nails…but all the good ones are made with either 400 layers of polish, acrylic paint, or gel polish. I will do none of those. I also have seen a lot of marble nails (the stone, not watermarble) and I wanted to see if I could combine the two! Plus, bonus water decals.

Basically, I wanted to demonstrate how you turn a rather unimpressive water decal into something glittery, and then unique. See below for actual steps…

1. Coat your nails in a base coat of your choice. Then paint your nails white and top coat (I used Snow me White by Sinful Colors as my white)
2. Remove the clear layer from the top of your water decal, and cut into nail-sized pieces.
3. Soak the decal in water for 15-45 seconds (if it has a clear background, closer to 15, if, like mine, it has a solid white background, more like 45). Apply to your nail, position to taste. Blot to dry, and clean around your nail beds to remove the excess decal with acetone.
4. Snazz it up! Pick the color you think would look best glitter-ized (likely not the most common color, so here I would not have picked white or blue) and add a coarse glitter. I picked the yellow, and covered it with gold glitter (Million Dollar Dream by F.U.N.).
5. You can stop here, if you want glittery marbled nails…or you can go on and personalize with stamping decals. In this case, I grabbed geometric triangle images (ND-104 and BP-L054).
6. Chose your two colors: the stamp and the inner colored part (I went with Black on Black by Sinful Colors for the stamp, and #333 by WOW for the inside part). Pick up the stamp, ideally on a clear stamper, and then color it in with your chosen polish.
7. To apply the decal to your nail, paint a thin coat of quick-dry clear polish, and when it is barely tacky (70% dried), use the stamper to transfer the design. Obviously you’ll be going one nail at a time for this part, unless you have numerous stampers.
8. Add whatever else you want (I ended up adding a golden circular glitter), clean your nails, top coat, and you’re done!

I don’t know that I love having gone with a medium grey for my fill color, but I thought white would be too boring and gold would stand out too much. I guess I’m ok with it!

The water decals that I used were a bit of a surprise. I requested to review a 12-pack of full-nail water decals, and picked a collection of marble finishes. This particular design was the ugliest to me, so I used it hoping I could make it prettier. I was, however, not expecting the decals to have their own backing (white rather than clear) and they were thick enough that I probably didn’t need a white base! Also, they were thick and so bunched, which could have been a problem, but they actually stretched in a really fascinating way, which meant they ended forming to my nails (with a little pushing around) perfectly. I really love these decals! If you want the full set of 12 from the Born Pretty Store, you can find them here for $1.99.

Anyway, that’s it for today! One more day left in the Challenge 😀

Half Moon Sky

Day 18 calls for “half moons” only, I really despite most half moon nail art. So, I decided to be sneaky and make half a moon in the sky! In retrospect, galaxy day is tomorrow so you guys get lots of astronomy :-p

The design was inspired by Chalkboard Nails, although I added some topography to the moon. I kinda wish I hadn’t, but whats done is done! I like how this came out.

Some day I will get acrylic nail paint and be able to make thin tiny lines (like the star novas). I do love that I do everything with nail polish, but it gets difficult!

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Ibiza
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove

That’s it for today! Simple and straightforward, and totally cheating 😀 Hope you enjoyed!

Entrancing

This post is going to be a bit nuts because I am going to review THREE Born Pretty Store products! So lets get started…

The three things I have for review in this post are a stamping plate, liquid latex, and a shimmery powder. The first two a pretty straight forward. I was sent a very pretty geometric plate to review, with lots of triangular patterns! I really love geometric designs right now. However, this plate was a bit tricky. It was well-etched but NOT completely flat…it had that whole beveled edge thing that a lot of plates are doing. That said, the designs around the edge (which is to say most of them, since this plate was square) were very difficult to pick up evenly. I ended up bending the edge of the plate up so I could get a clean pick-up. In the end, both images that I used worked, but it took some finagling to get the corner image correct! I think it was worth it, as the images are so darn fun.

My second item was liquid latex. I was sent two colors from the same line, a lavender (which I used here) and a bright green. Usually, I use the Glisten and Glow latex barrier, which is a bright neon pink, and is very thick. Compared to that, this lavender was unfortunately lacking. The latex has a faint color to it, and the lavender hue blended in so well that I couldn’t actually find the edge of the latex! This made it difficult to make sure that it was aligned properly with the edge of the nail polish. The second, and much larger, problem, was that this was VERY sticky. One would think that would not be a problem, but it meant that when I pulled it up, it actually lifted the polish on my nails! The polish was 90% dry (since I was adding powder it wasn’t 100% dry) but I had to go back and rescue the nails. On my right hand I used my old latex around the nail and the Born Pretty latex on the finger to keep it clean and it worked beautifully. On a positive note, it is very thin, spreads, well, and dries like a dream. My advice would be not to use this as your only latex barrier as I would not recommend using it on the actual nail edge, but to buy it as a cheap supplement to cover your fingers (aka for things like water-marbling).

The last item was something I did not request to review. By accident, I was sent this awesome shifty powder that is intended to be used with gel polish. However, I do not work with gel polish! So I tried this over regular polish and it worked great. The finish I got was no 100% smooth (you can still see the glitter aspect of the powder) but I also do not know with certainty that this finish is not what was intended…because I have no idea what they sent me! Anyway. It is a very fine (but not super-fine) shimmery glitter. The glitter itself is a clear-white color with a green glint. Over black (I tested it) it is a bright emerald that shifts to a bright pink at angles. I tried it over a pale grey for more of a unicorn (and work-friendly) pattern! Over the light grey, you can clearly see the bright teal-green shimmer, and a lavender (pinkish purple) in direct lighting. It is very shiny!

Per the recommendation of the internet, I used a water-based polish as a top coat (Nfu-Oh Aqua Base…which is really NOT a top coat) since regular top coat supposedly turns the powder into true glitter. I don’t know what it would have done to this, but I figured since I have an aqua polish I should use it!

Other than the stamp and the powder, the three polishes I used here were Snow me White by Sinful Colors, Dove by Zoya as the base for the powder, and Evvie by Zoya for the darker grey-green highlights. I like the hand with dots better than the ones with lines, but then again I always like dots!

That is all for today! The Born Pretty Store website is back up, so here are some links! The shifting color powder can be found here for $2.99 for 0.2g. The geometric stamping plate can be found here and is currently on sale for 99 cents. Although, I cannot recommend the latex as your only latex, if you want something cheap for larger areas not directly around your nail beds, you can find it here for $2.99…which is really very cheap, I think they figured out that the quality is not the best!

Overlaying Geometry

This is not the first time I’ve tried this design, but it IS the first time I’ve liked the outcome! Given how big geometric patterns are right now, I figured it was worth re-trying this to try and get it right 🙂

The design was inspired by lacquer liefde, which was just such a cool idea! Minimalist yet colorful.

I am, however, still missing a good pastel grey. My old one finally ran out, and I cannot find a replacement! This is my current lightest grey, and it is really more of a medium. This would look better with a true light grey.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

And in other news, the 31 Day Challenge starts in one week! In the past, it has been run by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails, but she is stepping aside this year in favor of one of my favorite nail art bloggers, Cathy from More Nail Polish! I’m going to do my best to participate (this will be my 5th year), and this will unfortunately likely be my last year. I really cannot foresee having time during residency to paint this many nails!

Anyway, head over to More Nail Polish for more details, and feel free to join in! I’ve obviously posted the list of prompts above, but Cathy has a whole bunch more colors and design options if you want to paint along and post the banner to your own page.

Subtle Patina

This ended up looking like a pretty pattern with a patina over it! Like, copper underneath (hence the flecks of gold) and then rusted. I don’t know, maybe thats too poetic?

Although this was painted for and worn to the hospital, I think it is pretty enough (and not pink!) to count as just a regular mani. Despite how subtle it is, I actually really like it! For once, adding dots was actually the right move :-p

I need to remember to use the random full-design square plates I have more often when I am low on time, enjoy the randomness of the pattern that ends up on my nails.

I also need to keep reminding myself that pastel of just about any color should be acceptable in the hospital, no need to limit myself to pink! Or purple. Mint is a current favorite nail color of mine so I’ll keep trying to work it in 😀

Colors
~ Grey: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Teal: Zoya – Tiana
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BM – S101

That’s all for today…but the later part of this week is another Disney heroes and villains set-up!

Grey Trimmed Lace

Ok, so this is super boring. Like really really painfully boring. That said, it came out nicely and no one noticed any of the art in the hospital so I’ll cal it a win. It also gave me a chance to use that darn stamp…its been staring at me for years and I never figured out why someone would need some angled lace pattern!

I don’t have much to say about this. Pink. White. Grey. Some lace. I sound like a broken record…I really hope my current stint in the outpatient clinics is more forgiving of manis! I think it will be (I am barely getting graded for this, it is for my own edification).

Colors:

~ Pink: ULTA – Baby Doll

~ Grey: Zoya – Dove

~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

~ Stamp: BM – 323

I hate posing for bottle photos with anything but Zoya or rectangular bottles. I don’t know why, but the shape fits well in my hand. This awkward straight-edged bottle? Not so much. So, thank you brands like Zoya and Emily de Molly for making easy-to-hold bottles :-p

Thats it for boring pink manis! There is one more subtle mani but at it least it isn’t pink or nude. Oy.