Golden Shadowed Leaves

This is a bit of a sad day: tomorrow I leave Philly for St Louis. So, this is my last nail art post while in Philadelphia. Philly was where I first discovered nail art, and in the last 7 years my collection has gone from 2 polishes to over 400. I was thinking of posting a pretty skyline design I did, but I ran out of time to edit it (this is becoming a theme) so you’ll have to make do with some shimmery leaves.

This is the mani I created out of my pastel teal swatches, and so there are more teals than you might imagine! I did a dry brush of each of the 4 colors (three cremes and one holo) over each other, and then double stamped over the top with a gold glitter and then a green holo glitter. I really like how it came out!

I am glad I went for the dry brush technique, the bases all ended up looking roughly the same by the time I got to stamping. I also think this is the first time I’ve actually liked stamping the same image twice? Usually I try too hard or the colors are awkward together. But green and gold always works!

Colors:
~ Pastel mints: Zoya – Tiana, Maybelline – Green with Envy, Glitter Gal – No Worries
~ Mint holo: Serum No. 5 – Jaded
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Green: A England – Dragon
~ Stamp: BPX – L018

Initially, I was going to stamp gold then black, but my eyes fell on Dragon which I haven’t used in probably a year, and I grabbed it. A England polishes always stamp so well! It makes sense, since basically all of them are one-coaters. Adina is nuts. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! And goodbye Philly! My next post will be from St Louis…but since I move in on Monday we probably won’t have internet for a few days. Sorry! I will also have some freehand art up eventually…I do have some in the vault I just haven’t edited that either, I know it’s been a lot of stamping post recently!

Swatch Test: Light Blues and Pastel Teals

Light blues: I should start by saint that hate light blue polish. I kept thinking as I was laying out these polishes “why do I never wear any of these?” I feel like for all of my other swatch tests (and there will be quite a few more) there were a couple polishes I gravitated towards for base colors or nail art, and with this set of blue there was nothing that I found exciting. To be fair, if I need a pastel blue I grab Zoya Blu and if I need a medium blue I grab one of my other three blue Zoya cremes…so it is really only the range between pastel and medium blue where I have this problem.

From pinky to pointer:
~ Pinky: Sally Hansen – Breezy Blue
~ Ring: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Middle: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Pointer: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue

While swatching, I realized WHY I hate using these shades of blue. None of them are opaque enough! Ugh. Breezy took three THICK coats and even so was barely opaque. Cinderella was legitimately still see-through where my free edge is and this was with three thick coats. Boat only took three regular coats but is a bit thicker than I would like as a polish, and Rather is both a bit thick and dries matte (which is why these swatch photos do not have top coat). In summary, all of these polishes took three coats, and Breezy and Cinderella were still not quite opaque at three thick coats. That said, I do love the pink shimmer in Cinderella (I would believe this polish to be the color of glass slippers), and the slightly grey finish to Boat. I cannot stand the subtle frost in Breezy, and I am probably just getting rid of this polish since I have Blu which I know I love.

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Pastel teals: I own three very very similar pastel teal polishes because unlike the blues, I love pastel teal! It is such a pretty soft color. I basically wanted a pale teal and a pale green…but a pale green looks much like a pale teal! The three of these (minus my pinky of course) ended up being very close in color, but not quite dupes!

From pinky to pointer:
~ Pinky: Serum No. 5 – Jaded
~ Ring: Zoya – Tiana
~ Middle: Glitter Gal – No Worries
~ Pointer: Maybelline – Green with Envy

The holo polish, Jaded, took only two thin coats, the rest were three. Worries was slightly more jelly-like than the other two, and so I used thicker coats, but it dried quickly so overall the finishes were the same. In terms of comparisons, Tiana is the palest of the three, while Worries is the closest to green rather than teal. Envy is slightly more blue and slightly brighter than Tiana, but they are very close! It does have a better formula (thinner but just as pigmented). I bought Worries and Tiana when I ran out of my first bottle of Envy (this is my third, I think) and since I use pastels a lot I just kept all three. I don’t honestly think I need them all, but I think I might keep them anyway? Tiana is the one that I could part with most easily, as Worries is more green and Envy does have the best finish! I just threw Jaded in since the base color is the same, but wheeee holo!

The Ocean is Kooky Dooks

I knew I wanted to make beautiful tropical sea nails just before I left for my honeymoon to Hawaii. I also sweet talked my husband into watching Moana (for like the 20394830th time) in preparation, and somehow these nails came out looking like Moana ocean! I am pleased.

I love how these nails looked in person, but between the dark blue and the bright teal, in photos I ended up with lobster fingers! I’ve tried to somewhat color adjust for that, but I don’t know how successful I really way.

The double stamping (silver and white) looked fun, but there is a part of me that wonders if the mani would have looked better with just a single stamp? I will never know!

Colors:
~ Neon teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Dark blue: Maybelline – Midnight Swim
~ Silver: Revlon – Metallic
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: Geometry BPX – L020

That’s all for today! I thought I would throw in a mani that didn’t have a brand new polish in it for the first time in a while :-p Enjoy!

Tropical Fronds

I am in Hawaii right now! Or, at least I should be. I am very excited. I was waiting to post these nails (which I painted back in December in honor of my cruise to the Caribbean) until the start of my next tropical vacation because I am a dork.

The design here was inspired by clairestelle8 and I honestly think I did a pretty decent job replicating her design! Unfortunately, the base gradient which looked really vibrant on my nails did not translate well in the photos. It isn’t pastel!

For the design itself, I had to hand-stamp each leaf, since I didn’t have a plate with thick enough frond leaves to work. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long! Also, I didn’t like the idea of using a white border for flowers, so I used the darker of the blues instead, and I wish there was a tiny bit more delineation between the flower and the surroundings.

Colors:
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Yellow: Maybelline – Citrus Collide
~ Green: Essie – The More the Merrier
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamps: BPX – L018, BM – XL472, 313, 318

That’s all for today! Sorry preemptively for not responding to any comments for the next two weeks, meanwhile I hope you guys enjoy the posts I have lined up!

Hearts Galore

Happy Valentine’s Day! And happy birthday to my baby sister. She gets extra chocolate :-p

This is the mani out of the 5 that I chose to post today in particular because it both has the MOST hearts, and is primarily pink so I figured it fit the theme best! But seriously, SOOO many hearts. Wow.

The base here is yet another new polish from the holiday sets that I won from Nail Polish Canada, and yet another Zoya! This is Kelsey, a bright pink with blue undertones. This polish manages to be a dark-toned neon, which is pretty darn cool. My camera freaked out. The polish also covers well in two thin coats…and I probably could have gotten away with one thick coat instead…Zoya has been killing it with the consistency of the cremes in this collection! I don’t even like pinks and this is an awesome color. And finish. And everything.

This is also another stamp that I’ve had for a while and just…never used. I chose to stamp with a pale grey rather than a white polish, and I regret that a little…I had to double stamp the flower design because the grey didn’t stand out as much as I wanted! Although I do think coloring in the flowers with a bright pink chunky glitter was awesome 🙂

Colors:
~ Pink: Zoya – Kelsey
~ Grey: Maybelline – Bare Escape
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Pink glitter: Different Dimension – Cranfairy
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

That’s all for today! I hope you get a lot of chocolate, maybe some flowers, and suitable affection from everyone (partners, pets, kids…all that jazz)!

Harvest Patches

Fall-themed patchwark nail art! I rather love this design. I wanted to make some fun patches (because I loved the piece I did last year) and use only fall colors. Voila!

I realize this isn’t exactly Thanksgiving-themed, but it is close. Also, Wednesday’s post is 100% Thanksgiving (with turkeys and everything). Besides, scarecrows are maybe a holiday thing? Unless you live on a farm and use them for something other than looking cute :-p

In order to put this together, I had to come up with a set of three oranges that worked well together. In the end I just ended up using the oranges from the Washington DC collection, they were released last autumn and they are still seasonal!

Colors:
~ Light orange: Maybelline – Bleached in Peach
~ Orange: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Dark orange: OPI – Yank my Doodle
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Snow me Black

Yes, there are a few stamps on there. No, I did not write down the plates that I used (sorry)! But they look cool! Hope you enjoyed 🙂

Dark Laces

I have been sitting on this mani for months, but I figured fall was a good time to post it! I loved doing this one, but the laces took forever, so that I ran out of time to add enough top coat to smooth everything out. So, I am sorry for the slightly uneven finish!

The design was inspired by @banicured_ although her’s were all in white. The laces stand out more against the white, but there is nothing like a jewel-toned ombre to make me happy! Also, I wanted to see how OPI’s Stay Off the Lawn stacked up against some of my other darker colors.

It makes me a little sad how infrequently I can get away with doing manicures that show even a bit of my naked nail. I wear too much blue (and green, and even certain pinks) and my poor nails look like splatter paintings. I had to wait until they cleared up just to do this!

Colors:
~ Sheer: Sephora X – Marvelous
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Teal: OPI – Stay Off the Lawn!!
~ Blue: Maybelline – Shocking Seas
~ Purple: L’Oreal – Paparazzi Pleaser
~ Pink: Zoya – Margo

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed 🙂