Stormy Heart

This is it, the final boring mani that I wore to interviews! Although if I am being honest, this one is not all that boring. It is also February  which means I am permitted to start posting hearts (not that I have any other pink manis prepared…I spent the last few weeks wearing subtle pink and so I have been avoiding the color altogether. Can I make a blue Valentine’s mani???). Anyway, have some shimmer and some hearts!

I knew what I wanted to do with this mani, and trialled three different grey/grey combos before settling on this one. I am a little sad because the hearts take up so much space you can barely see the base! This only matters because the base is Crystal Crown, which I have just now realized was discontinued at some point in the past. This is awful because it is easily my most-used grey, and the bottle is half empty! Ooops. I need to keep a better eye on when indie polishes discontinue my favorites!

But anyway, this was basically advanced stamping with grey and white over grey. It looks rather nice for all that, and was suitably almost-subtle and heart-shaped!

Colors:
~ Grey shimmer: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BM – 620

Happy Friday! And this ends the run of boring manis. Now all I need to do is actually pick where I want to be next year (and for the next 10 or so years, yikes!) and get started on some actual Valentine’s manis!

Wintry Twirls

The stamp I used here is a bit odd. It is mostly swirls and twirls, but also has stars and for some reason a pine tree? Either way, I seemed like something fun to use in the wintertime…and even more fun to randomly cover with golden shimmery glitter!

Basically, this is another ‘stamp with white over nude and add GLITTER’ which, in addition to swirly designs, seems to be my MO when I need something somewhat subtle but still fun. I also just quietly enjoy the subtle shimmer in the nude base.

I feel the need to give a little shout-out to this particular stamping plate, I don’t use it often because I own so many darn stamps…but it is super deeply etched and always transfers beautifully. I should move it to the front of my image plates, not the back!

Colors:
~ Nude: Essence – I Nude It
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Gold shimmer: OPI – Ski Slope Sweetie
~ Stamp: BP – 43

That’s it for today! One last final boring mani on Friday, and then we can move on to more colorful things 🙂

Encircled

So close to finished with these boring interview nails! Today’s is the only set that I ended up using yellow for. Usually I dislike yellow, but I wanted to use this specific polish because it was just…sitting there. Lonely. So I did! It may have ended up a bit…very glittery, but yet again no one commented so I think I’m ok 🙂

I spent a bit longer than I should have trying to pick which stamp to use, but I settled on this odd encased circles design. I don’t think I’ve ever used this particular stamp before! It is a bit boring, but overall pretty.

Please ignore the fact that the bottle shot of the polish has a smear of the polish on it. I honestly don’t even notice anymore until I go to take photos and then suddenly whoops there is a dirty bottle!

Colors:
~ Yellow holo: SV – Gilded Lemon Drops
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BP – L003

That’s it for today, happy Monday! I finally get to go back to lab as of this week, so I actually am quite pleased 🙂

Icy Swirls

Continuing with the theme of subtle, snowy, and swirled, we have this post! By this point in the interview season I was giving up on the very bland manis that I sported in the beginning, and was firmly in the realm of mints and golds and a bit more contrast.

That said, I still deemed this subtle enough to wear! It is another of my favorites, and it helped that during this particular interview it definitely snowed! It is always fun when my nail art predicts the weather :-p

I do need to get some more snowflake stamps, on the off chance that I have time to do nail art next winter (this whole residency thing is becoming far more real, I need to put together my actual list and cross my fingers!), since most of the plates I have don’t stamp well!

Colors:
~ Teal with glitter: Cadillacquer – Memory palace
~ Pastel teal: Zoya – Tiana
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: BM – S108, 319, 323, Born Pretty – L008

Happy Friday! One more week of interview-friendly posts before I jump feet first back into colorful posts!

Pearly White

This mani is a bit special…I ended up doing quite a few back-to-back interviews during the fall (which I do NOT recommend, I could have used some recharging time!) but only one of those involved two interviews in different cities, which is to say I flew from one to another with an intervening weekend spend at a friend’s place.

During this weekend, I repainted my nails using polish I traveled with, since I knew that nothing I was going to be able to do would make a mani last for over a week! This means that these nails are 3 days old by the time I got home to image them, and that they were painted in my friend’s bathroom using absolutely minimal supplies. I even ran out of acetone (ergo cleaning up the stamps were…difficult). This means that these are not the best example of my work. Regardless, they are suitably subtle while still having a pop of glitter!

I can also safely say that there are only 4 remaining designs, so there will only be one more week of boring posts! Also, 3/4 have “storm” or “winter” in their titles so I am going to assume that past-me turned to a more grey-themed palette :-p

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ Silver holo: F.U.N. Lacquer – 24k Diamond

I think it is time for me to get a head start on Valentine’s nails, and finally start planning out my honeymoon to Hawaii…only a year a half after the actual wedding! Anyway, happy Wednesday!

Magical

This is a bit dark for an interview mani, but I don’t care! I wanted to create something using copper shimmer so here we go. Completely by accident, two of the polishes that I picked out had names about magic! So I chose an appropriate title :-p

This ended up being another of my favorite designs from the work-appropriate theme I had to use for interviews, but I think that was mostly because I knew I was breaking a few unofficial rules by using darker shades! Also, secret color-shifting shimmer.

I think there is a pattern in all of this: when in doubt, I will use swirly stamps for interviews. I have a hunch that when I finally get the rest of the art edited this will really play true…I finally had my very last interview last week (YAY!!!) so I can finally start putting color back on my nails, but you guys won’t see them for a few weeks yet!

Colors:
~ Purple: ILNP – Long Walks
~ Shifting shimmer: ILNP – The Magician
~ Copper: Pure Ice – Magic
~ Stamp: BM – 607

I spent a few weeks feeling angry at myself for buying The Magician from ILNP since I rarely use toppers, but I actually really like this one, and I think I should get some good use out of it. Hope you enjoyed!

Simply Swirled

This mani was done super last minute because I had forgotten that I had an interview the next day (I never forget about flights, but if its only a bus ride away…well, that can be a problem). I mostly wanted something fast!

I don’t know that I love the combo of a frosty shimmer with a metallic polish, I think a creme stamp might have worked better. I do love this stamp though, it is pretty much my go-to when I need something fast, swirly, and pretty!

The colors here are Freshwater Pearl by ULTA for the pink base, and Penny Talk for the rose gold stamp. The stamp itself is from Bundle Monster plate 314.

Of course, there was also no sun while I wore this, so you only get to see indoor lighting, sorry!

I promise that the designs going up next week are a tad more colorful! Happy Friday!

Pastel Pink Peacock

New polish! Even if it is in the nude range, I still like it. I have also bought a bunch of shimmery glittery polishes recently, that I am going to pretend I will be able to wear next year. The hospital is hiring me to work, not to have tame nails, right?

This was also fun because I completely forgot that I owned this stamp, somehow. I don’t know that taupe-with-silver are really peacock colors, but I like it anyway! Mostly because glitter makes everything better.

What you see here are three thin coats of Caught on Tape by KBShimmer, but I very easily could have done two if I made the coats just a hair thicker! The polish is a very pretty purple-grey leaning pale pink nude. That is quite a description…but I will hopefully have comparisons to some other nude/neutrals up in the next month or so, so you can see what I mean!

The glittery polish in this design (Rosewater) is probably the polish I most want to use as soon as I can use colors again…it is just so darn shimmery!!

Colors:
~ Nude: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pink shimmer: ILNP – Rosewater
~ Stamp: BP – L003

Anyway, hope you somewhat enjoyed this! And again, that maybe some of this works as inspiration if you have an interview or formal event but want pretty nails regardless :-p

Newly Minted

I wanted to be ever-so-slightly daring with this particular mani, and used a pale grey/mint polish instead of pink or nude! It didn’t matter, no one commented on it during the interview :-p

This is probably one of my favorite designs among the work appropriate set that I’ve had to do these past few months. I really just love this base color, and I adore the tone-on-tone stamping with gold highlights. I think this is the third time I’ve done something with this color set (most of the rest were on clinical rotations around a year ago). Go figure!

I am curious, what do you guys think about more adventurous colors for work, but with tone-on-tone for the design? Like a darker grey or a brown shimmer rather than something pastel in the pink range? The ‘art’ would be subtle but I don’t know that it isn’t the color that matters more.

Colors:
~ Mint holo: Cadillacquer – Memory Palace
~ Mint: Zoya – Tiana
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamp: BP – 17

Tomorrow has another favorite design (see, I can enjoy non-colorful things!) and a new polish! Hope you enjoyed!

Subtle Pink Overlay

Of all the designs I did during my residency interviews, this is probably the most subtle. I figured if I was going to wear a pink that was blatantly glittery, then I needed a design which would not stand out!

I used a pink glittery base that claims to be holographic and almost is, and then stamped over it with a scale pattern using a gradient of light pink to normal pink. I almost wish I had used white and not light pink, this design was almost invisible!

I think this is also the only time I didn’t just cut both my hands back when one nail broke…which is why I have one hand with nice square nails and one hand that is rounded. I dislike rounded nails!!

Colors:
~ Pink holo: Milani – Digital
~ Pink: Clinique – Pinkini
~ Light pink: OPI – Be There In a Prosecco
~ Stamp: BC – 04

This was work-appropriate mani #2, out of maybe 10? I have two interviews left at this point so probably out of 11 total manis. We shall see. I hope these are giving those of you with jobs that require boring nails some ideas! :-p