Sea Storm

My birthday is the end of this week! It is also the first day of my end-of-intern-year-break. It is going to be amazing to actually be doing my speciality after the end of this month. Regardless, I decided to celebrate by posting a week of some of my more favorite recent manicures! Starting with this one.

In addition to looking like fancy lightening, this mani showcases a fantastic base color! What you see here are three thin coats of Narrow Sea by Illyrian from lat years March PPP. Yes, I wore these almost a year a go and never posted them. I was saving them for something special, because omg I love this color. I honestly could have gotten away with two coats of the polish, but I wanted more shimmer! My only complaint, and it is a tiny one, is that the polish is a bit thicker than I expected, but leveled well regardless.

To get the nail art I dabbed on some white and covered it with a dark grey-green and grey-purple to make the clouds and surf, and freehanded some lightning strikes! I wanted them to glow, so I added some shimmery polish. I am so happy with how this came out!

Colors:
~ Dark teal shimmer: Illyrian – Narrow Sea
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Dark grey-green: Zoya – Evvie
~ Dark grey-purple: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Holo shimmer: ILNP – Rosewater

That’s it for today. Stay tuned for more of my favorite manis on Wednesday and Friday. Hope you enjoyed!

Pink Along the Circle

I have no idea. I just started playing with things and ended up here? I wanted grey, red, and pink, and somehow wound up turning to this pattern.

I started with a light grey base and layered one coat of a glitter polish overtop, to give it some flakies. I then stamped, and dotted the rest of the pattern. The only really fun part of this design is that I mixed red and white and just swirled them together, so the dot color is variegated.

Colors:
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Grey glitter: Polished for Days – Grey Opal
~ Dark red: OPI – Visions of Love
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – S101

That’s it for today! A bit of an odd design with a bit of an odd collection of colors, but overall not terrible :-p.

Holo and Hearts

How about a not-quite-traditional valentine’s day mani, for all that I think I’ve used this particular stamp at least once a year, and typically ON valentines day!

The base color here is Zoya Payton, a purple scattered holo. The base is a bit more pink-leaning, and hilariously (or not) enough it is an almost perfect dupe for TWO other polishes in my collection. I love jewel tone purples, its a problem! That said, Payton covered very well in two thicker coats and my others take three coats. However, if you happen to on LA Girl Purple Effect…you don’t need Payton. Oops!

I decided that Payton alone was not enough, so I dry marbled on a bit of LA Girl Purple Effect (which is why I know they are basically perfect dupes) and Milani Hi-Res. It was still a bit subtle…so I decided to stamp with a silver holo instead of just a silver like I had planned!

Colors:
~ Purple holo: Zoya – Payton
~ Light purple holo: Milani – Hi-Res
~ Other purple holo: LA Girl – Purple Effect
~ Silver holo: Color Club – Harp on It
~ Stamp: BC – 04

The end effect was dizzying, and you can barely see the pattern of the stamp over all the purple holo! It was still fun to wear, but I need to remember to use a creme to stamp over glitters, not another glitter! Stay tuned for more quasi-valentine’s day manis this week 🙂

Gently Swirled

This mani is a mess. I wanted to make something subtle and swirly, and decided to give Sandy a second shot. The first time I used this polish it took 4 coats and was still barely opaque…and since it has a lot of glitter and flakies, it was quite thick. This mani ALSO took 4 coats and honestly I give up. Sandy is moving to my “pretend this is a topper” section in my nail art room.

It also doesn’t help that on my easier-to-image left hand I decided to plan out where each part of my swirly stamp was going to go…and on my right hand I just winged it. The right hand looked much better in the end! But I took very few photos because the photos of my left always come out better. Silly me.

Colors:
~ Grey shimmer: KBShimmer – Sandy
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 Ornaments 3

In the end, this mani was a bit of a bust. It fulfilled its purpose, which was to be subtle, but I didn’t love it. Ah well, on to next week!

Shower Curtain

This title is odd. I was trying to figure out what this mani looked like, and my husband thinks it looks like ikea furniture. Honestly, I can kinda see it. I got a new stamper for free for buying farrrr too many stamping plates from Whats up Nails during their stamping sale. Ooops! Anwyay the stamper is huge and squishy and SUPER see-through and honestly worked perfectly on the first try. It is also amazing for layering. My older (and beloved) clear stamper couldn’t have aligned these so easily!

So anyway I wanted to stamp this fun triangle pattern in black, and then go over it shifted in white to make a funky striped triangle pattern. I did that on my middle and ring fingers (and it was so easy to align, it was almost unfair, this stamper is awesome). Then I decided that I liked the design better with just the black stamp alone! So I left my other three fingers without any white at all.

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Moyra – Matrix 54

The sad end to this story is that I got a bit of polish on the covered end of the stamper, and I tried to wipe it off with acetone. I should have known better. DO NOT USE ACETONE ON PLASTIC…now it is no longer opaque! I want to cut the end off so that the whole thing is hollow (and useable) but I can’t find my hand-saw. So, sadly, I am now back to one useable see-through stamper.

Leave for the Tropics

These are one of my favorite nail designs that I have done recently (…that was not in the 31 Day Challenge, which is where I usually put my favorites). It is a bit of the wrong season, but it was 70 degrees out yesterday so it totally still feels almost-tropical! Basically I love these and I wanted to post them now :-p

These nails are based around water decals from the Born Pretty Store: all the leaves are decals! Which is absolutely amazing because they have white backgrounds and beautiful cut out edges and show up perfectly against a dark green base. I love when I don’t have to use a white base for water decals!!

The flowers I added by hand, because what is a mani with fun leaves without a few dotted petals? I like how colorful it is 🙂 but really I cannot wait to use the rest of these decals, maybe in spring when it is appropriate! But who knows. Snow leaves? I can make that a thing, perhaps!

Colors:
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara

Hope you enjoyed these tropical nails in the Fall! I think the rest of this month will be a bit more Autumn-themed. I even have some pumpkins! October rather snuck up on me thought, so I only really have one Halloween manicure (which, the holiday is next week, how did that happen)! Hopefully I remember next year in advance and can put together some more fun seasonal manis :-p  Anyway, these decals are currently on sale for $1.59 for a set of three sheets, and I strongly recommend them.

Pinned Petals

This idea got into my head and I just had to run with it! I wanted to make a purple-white-floral overlay, and then add a rectangular stud to make it look like they were being buckled together. Ta-da!

I made nail art using the full nail water decal that you see spread across the tips of my nails here, but honestly I like the way this came out better. Don’t get me wrong, the whole decal is stunning, but there is something about this mani that keeps me coming back to it.

Also the base color here is yet another polish pickup pack shade, this is called Just One Look by Painted Polish, and it is from the August options. This is three thin coats and I adore this polish! It goes on a little thick, but the pastel purple is stunning and I love the linear holo background with the larger holo glitters!

Colors:
~ Pastel purple: Painted Polish – Just One Look
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Decal: Born Pretty – A055

The born pretty store is having a rather impressive sale right now, so you can find this set of decals (with two others) on sale for 99 cents here! Gotta say, I love that these are opaque and yet thin, so if you are into decals I recommend them! Enjoy!

Holland

The final day of the 31 Day Challenge of 2018 is here! I only participated in about half (a little under half if we’re being honest) of the total and I am still exhausted. Major kudos to all of you who were following along, and to my past self who somehow managed to post daily!

Anyway, today is “honor nails you love” and I have a bit of a different thing happening. Probably 25-30% of all my nail art is based either loosely or exactly on designs I have seen other people do. This time around, I decided to do a design off of the website for a product! Although it is also the nail art used by that product.

What I am trying to say is that today’s post was inspired by, of all things, the stamping plate website itself! I cannot find the original artist (and trust me, I’ve been looking) but I literally bought this plate because this image showed up in my email and I needed to replicate it! So voila. I think I’ve done a pretty good job honestly!

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Blue shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Dark grey: WOW – #333
~ Light green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamp: BM – XL204

And that’s all for the 31 Day Challenge! Hopefully I will still be around and posting next year, but as residency gets harder we shall see! I am still painting my nails and enjoying it, so I am hopefully. As it turns out, yesterday was my 6 year blogaversary, so I have been blogging for longer than I thought! Go me?

Soft Pink Floral

I was torn whether to post this for flower day or color day, and I realized that the whole purpose of this mani was that it was pink. Lots of pink. And a few colors that go well with pink, like gold and white. So voila! Inspired by the color pink and things one wears with pink.

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin. However, when I finished trying to mimic her, I decided I didn’t like how boring my white nails were! And as previously mentioned, gold looks good with pink, so I added some gold glitter to the top of my all-white nails, and I kinda love it!

My only real complaint about this mani is that I used red striping tape to make the negative space lines and it kinda bled? So my naked nails look a little red-der than usual and the white has a red tinge. Oh well! Still looks cool :-p

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold glitter: Sephora – I Found a Pot of Gold!

I am kind of amazed that the 31 Day Challenge is almost over! I remember this being a LOT harder to keep up with…but then again this is the only year that I didn’t post daily. This M-W-F posting schedule really makes my life at lot easier! And hopefully I can keep it up. Thus far in residency no one has made a fuss about my colorful nails (then again, I haven’t been painting rainbows or neons yet).

Floating Feathers

As it stands, this is my least favorite mani that I have pre-set for this month. I was trying to go for something cute and whimsical…but it honestly just came out boring. Sorry!

I did stick to the black/white/grey theme at least, unlike in previous years when I added color pops. Maybe that is why I don’t like it though, color is my jam!

Colors:
~ Grey holo: Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Lina – Make Your Mark 02

Anyway, this post is a bit lackluster but next weeks is much better, stay tuned for gradient day on Monday! Happy weekend 🙂

Pink and Gold with Flowers

How about something pink and gold? I figure with the flowers it is suitably summer-y too!

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin but my pink base is an AWFUL polish that takes 3 coats and never dries (I need a better barbie pink) and so I wanted to do more things with those nails. I don’t know if this  counts as over doing it, but I actually liked it!

Using Erin’s nails as a template got me very excited about gold dots. I love adding dots to things. In this case, added too many gold dots to things…specifically my middle finger. Oops. it would have looked better with more white space 😀

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

I am quite proud of the roses though! I hope you enjoyed them too.

Geometric Mint

You guys, I know I keep saying this, but I am soooo tired. I got two hours of sleep last night and had a lunch meeting today so I couldn’t sleep as I had planned! So this post is going to be short.

For some reason this mani just reminds me of toothpaste? Like the white + black + bright teal makes me think of toothpaste tubes and paste coming out of them. i don’t know. The art was inspired by the actual Whats Up Nails website, although I should have picked a slightly less-white base and a dimmer color! I wanted a neon, and I got a neon. I’m going to have to repeat this in a way that doesn’t make it look like an advertisement!

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Mint: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Stamps: Whats Up Nails – B015

Anyway, hope you enjoyed and happy Friday! I only have ONE more call in the ICU (well, until November) so I am very happy!

Silver Arabesques on Purple

Eeep! Sorry for the extended absence…after moving a WEEK ago, AT&T failed to install our internet and we didn’t get wifi until today! So this really is the first time I could have posted :-p

Anyway, this mani is wayyy too complicated! A stamp this complicated needs a creme-on-creme finish, none of this playing with 5 colors of holographic glittery purple and stamping in silver. I love the stamps but this is too much!

I also likely should not have added dots. Oops! Live and learn. It’s still kinda fun!

Colors:
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Dark glitter purple: LA Girl – Purple Effect
~ Bright glitter purple: ILNP – Zoe
~ Blurple holo: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ Fuchsia holo: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Purple holo: Gothic Gala – Vallis Sanguine
~ Stamp: Moyra – 50 – Ornaments 3

Hope you enjoyed! And if I’m lucky, I should be able to get back to my semi-regular monday/wednesday/friday posting schedule.

Triangulated Teal

I was so close! I tried to get this up on Monday, but none of the art was edited at all yet. So, slightly past midnight, sorry! Posting is going to get a bit hectic. I spent all day packing, and I only have a few more days to be ready to move and I am in no way packed! The nail art room is getting packaged tomorrow, which is going to be really sad (the apartment we are moving in to only has two bedrooms, not two bedrooms and a tiny study perfect for nail polish).

All this is to say that if the posts start getting hectic and delayed, I am sorry! Between packing, moving, unpacking, orientation, and then starting on an intensive care unit rotation right off the bat (which, that is going to be TERRIFYING), I have no idea when my posts will go back to normal! Nor do I really have any idea if I’ll be able to keep the nail art coming in residency, but I will try!

Anyway, today’s post was done using the teal holographic swatch comparison. The end art is a bit clumpy…the fat straight lines are from a stamp and all the rest of the embellishments were hand-painted. But, it was all I had on deck so here it is!

Colors:
~ Dark teal holo: A England – Saint George
~ Bright teal holo: Julie G – Mermaid’s Tale
~ Shimmer teal holo: ILNP – Party Favor
~ Coarse holo teal: LA Girl – Teal Dimension
~ Teal glitter: Forumla X – Outburst
~ Silver holo: Color Club – Harp On It
~ Stamp: BM – 604

That’s all for today! Hopefully I have enough down time to put together a post that is on time for Wednesday…

Aloha

Finally, nail art and no more swatch comparisons! I thought I would open with the nails I painted for my Honeymoon back in March 🙂

Since I was traveling to Hawaii, I wanted some fun tropical nails! I didn’t have any stamping plates that were quite the correct flower, and the few hibiscus ones I have are…not the prettiest. So I tried to turn some flowers INTO something vaguely Hawaiian! I also couldn’t make up my mind between two different designs, so I just went ahead and used both. The mani ended up a bit busier than I intended (oops) but I still like it!

Colors:
~ Purple: Emily de Molly – Traverse the Skies
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamps: BP – 067, Chic Peek BM – XL472

I also wish I had done some lava nails, since that may have been the single coolest thing I’ve ever seen (well, hottest really I suppose). Since my visit, the volcano on Hawaii has started erupting again, which is incredibly unfortunate for the people who live on the slopes of the volcano!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tropical nails! Hopefully I can get my act together and actually have something to post the rest of this week as well 😀

Swatch Test: Teal Glitters

Today’s post is going to be a bit short, because I am running low on time! I graduate on Sunday, so my family and my husband’s family are coming into town this weekend. Running rampant. We also had to cannibalize half of my ‘nail art studio’ (aka our third bedroom which has been used solely for nail art for the past 4 years) to store a metric ton of wedding gifts that are still in their boxes. Fine china and crystal glasses are overrated!!!

Anyway, this leads me to today. This is a short post comparing one of my favorite nail polish families, the teal glitters! Spoilers: I love them all and will be keeping them all. I also hope that the post I have prepared for Monday actually gets edited in time…there is a non-zero chance that with all the hubbub this weekend I just won’t have time to edit the nail photos! But we shall see.

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: A England – Saint George
~ Ring: Julie G – Mermaid’s Tale
~ Middle: ILNP – Party Favor
~ Pointer: LA Girl – Teal Dimension
~ Thumb: Forumla X – Outburst

A England polishes are amazing because of how opaque they are: this is ONE coat of St George. Mermaid and Dimension both required two coats, while Outburst and Party Favor both needed three. That said, I think Party has become my go-to color for my toenails. It has been on there for a month and counting and I love it! Comparing these 5 polishes, Outburst is clearly a gitterbomb polish, but is not super opaque on it’s own. Dimension is much darker than the others and has holo shards rather than glitters. Favor and Mermaid are not too dissimilar, but Favor has a shimmer to it and a bit of a dark blue shift that Mermaid lacks, while Mermaid is just SWIMMING with glitter. George is just a beautiful one-coater in dark teal, with a subtle holo finish that mostly looks like shimmer. Ergo, keeping them all! Happy Friday!

Swatch Test: Deep Purple Cremes and Dark Purple Holos

Deep Purple Cremes: How are “deep” purple cremes different from “dark” purple cremes? I don’t know, Maybe the other post is more medium purples? Either way, these are the other purple cremes that I own, which to me seemed like a different grouping. Really, these are the blue-leaning dark purples and Monday had the red-leaning purples.

From thumb to pinky:
~ Thumb: L’Oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Pointer: Formula X – Ignition
~ Middle: Zoya – Landon
~ Ring: Zoya – Monica
~ Pinky: Station – Happy Wine-y People

Three of the 5 polishes were two coats, except Wine-y and Paparazzi, which were three. Wine-y and Monica are almost dupes, if you ignore the fact that Monica has a much much better formula! None of the others are remotely similar, other than being purple. Paprazzi is more of a blurple anyway! I think it is safe to part with Wine-y.

———————————————————-

Dark Purple Holos: I was hoping that most of these would look like each other and I would be left with 2-3 polishes total, but they are all so different! Ugh. And yet, so pretty.

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: LA Girl – Purple Effect
~ Ring: ILNP – Zoe
~ Middle: A England – Crown of Thistles
~ Pointer: Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking
~ Thumb: Gothic Gala – Vallis Sanguine

For density, Effect and Zoe both took three coats, the others were all opaque at two. In terms of the dark scattered holos, Effect is darker than Zoe, and Zoe has visible shards rather than just glitters, with the addition of some really pretty shimmer. I think I need to keep both! For the linear purple holos, Crown is more of a shimmer than a holo, but leans more blue than the others and has absolutely perfect application, Berry remains a freaking rainbow (still one of the polishes that I gasp at when I put it on) but has actually turned more red since I got it? I still love it. Vallis is prettier and more holo than I remember but I still hate the bottle shape with its long pointy top! I was hoping to part with Vallis but it is such an interesting unique red-purple holo shade that I think I need to keep it and actually use it…eventually.

Knotted Neon Meeting

Sorry for not posting yesterday, it was Match Day for us medical school folks and I ended up going out to celebrate with my friends (ALL of whom got our #1 choice, which is basically unheard of) and forgot to post! Anyway, this mani was a bit touch-and-go, but it came out remarkably well for something that I thought was hexed!

I wanted to use these neon gradient water decals that I was sent from the Born Pretty Store…but it turns out they need a white base (can you imagine these popping over black? I was so darn excited initially). Anyway, this necessitated me going and buying a new white polish since my poor final bottle of Snow me White by Sinful Colors is so thick that it is only suitable for stamping. Ergo, I grabbed the LA Girl white and it took three darn coats! Oh Sinful Colors, please come back to my pharmacy!

Once those three coats finally dried, I added the decals. Over white, they are wonderfully pigmented and very finely designed! I love the detail and how well the colors actually blend. However, they made for boring nails…so I color-matched the pink and blue to two creme polishes that I own and did a gradient just along the edge of my nails! The colors ended up awesome, but I really REALLY should have done the gradient FIRST. It ended up a bit messy as a result and I spent more time than I had trying to make it look symmetric from nail to nail!

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling

Anyway, if you want to pick up some very bright water decals (and three sheets worth from things like full-nail swirls, to geometric patterns, to knots like these) head over to the Born Pretty Store. They are currently on sale for 99 cents! Not bad. Hope you enjoyed!

Marble-ous

Really, I just wanted to play with some fun colors for “watermarble” day! I actually tried 4 combos before settling on this one…the right mix of bright, dark, and glitter.

I’ve been trying to marble with glitter polishes more frequently, since I rather love the effect they leave. This particular set of colors didn’t end up with the glitter mixed into the creme polishes as much as I would have hoped, but I still like it! For some reason, none of the purple or blues I used wanted to play along…and I wasn’t willing to risk my really expensive polishes just to see if they would marble.

I ended up using a bunch of polishes for this, and lets be honest, you probably cannot tell which is which in the photos! I named them all regardless :-p

Colors:
~ Neon teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Teal: Zoya – Rocky
~ Teal glitter: Julie G – Mermaid’s Tale
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regent’s Place
~ Purple: Formula X – Ignition
~ Purple glitter: LA Girl – Purple Effect

Day 20….we are almost 2/3 through the 31 Day Challenge! And at this point I have completed all by the last day’s nail art. I like to pick from within the challenge for the honors nails you love prompt…I have a few ideas, but I am waiting around to see if someone does something that blows me away (and that I can imitate, cause lets be honest I would love to do ANYTHING Coewless has done for this challenge but I am simply not skilled enough). Hope you enjoyed!

Geometric Spaces

Finally, colors! Again, a simple polish + stamp design, but I do think these pair nicely.

There really isn’t much to say about this, its just brightly colored and glittery. I did think about making it more complicated, but I actually liked how this looked and decided to stop before I ruined it.

I have a whole lot of polishes that I don’t use nearly as often as I should, and Teal Dimension is one of them. The depth is just lovely!

Colors
~ Teal holo: LA Girl – Teal Dimension
~ Teal stamping: Mentality – Teal Opaque
~ Stamp: BM – 604

Hope you enjoyed! Happy Friday!