Bright Patterns

This was intended to be easter eggs (it went with my explicitely-easter-themed other hand for an easter mani) but i’m posting it separately just because (well, mostly cause they didn’t match that well)!

More or less, this is what happens when I play with stamps. Ta-da! I don’t even know what I ended up thinking about this, but it was entertaining to put together. I hadn’t done gradient stamping in a while.

I am also not going to go hunting for the list of stamps that I used, sorry! I don’t know that it matters (but if you REALLY want to know I can find them).

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Teal: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly

In other news, I am really glad I bought Regents Place all those months ago…I wasn’t sure I would ever want a periwinkle purple-blue, and I’ve probably used it 5+ times (which is more than I’ve used almost anything that wasn’t black/white/silver/gold). Go figure!

Soothing Triangles

I just love teal-purple gradients. I would say that’s a problem, but I really don’t think it is!

This mani was quite simple…although not as easy as it could have been! I just wanted to do gradients on the triangular tips of my nails, like this but I decided that wasn’t quite colorful enough. So, I made the chevrons deeper and turned them into a modified version of a previous mani of mine, which can be found here.

At this point, I had three nails with some white and two nails that were just gradients. Of course, I had to bump my pointer nail, and thus got rid of my idea to just add a few dots (when in doubt I always add dots…it might NOT be the best plan!), and instead went to find a triangle stamp. I actually double stamped over the design twice to make the white really pop. I love it!

Colors
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ White stamping: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need a Refresh-Mint
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Purple: Zoya – Malia
~ Stamp: BP – 77

I forgot how much I’ve missed using striping tape! It really is the best. Hope you enjoyed!

Hop On!

It’s the friday before easter! This only matters because it means I have to take a plane tonight :-p. Somehow, I’ve been wearing these nails all week and none of the fellows, residents, attendings, or patients noticed! My fellow med student did, at least!

The art was inspired by this pin. I just really like the periwinkle color coupled with the egg pattern! Of course, I had to add an easter bunny. The nails on my other hand don’t quite match (and don’t look very easter-y so they’ll be posted at a later point).

My ACTUAL easter nails are red, like the eggs used to crack each other at a greek easter party. It’s an odd tradition, since there are easily twice as many eggs as people at a given party and no one wants to eat them after they are all smashed up!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Purple: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Teal: L’oreal – Not a Cloud in Sight
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black

Anyway, happy friday and happy easter if you celebrate! I’ll be busy trying to avoid chametz (bread things) since it is still passover, but hopefully there will be chocolate mousse or truffles for me to eat for dessert and not just cake!

Refreshing Dry Brush

I’m pretty sure these nails are my first ever attempt at a dry-brush mani. I have to say, it was fun, easy, and looks pretty cool! I think I’ll try it again sometime 🙂

The design was inspired by badgirlnails. I made up the design on my thumb, and it looks cool too. Sadly, my ring finger tape is a bit wonky, but I only realized that AFTER I added top coat, so too late!

Colors
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need a Refresh-Mint
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented

This mani reminds me of the time between spring and summer, when the swimming pools open! Its the teal. It has to be. It also works pretty well for Easter 🙂

Hope you enjoyed!

Sea or Sky

I kept thinking that this mani looked like swirling sea water (with ice on it) or a fancy stone…and my husband saw celestial bodies and stars. So sea or sky, which do you guys see?

Regardless, I have another new polish to share! This one was sent to me to review from the Born Pretty Store. It’s a thermal polish with copious silver glitter in  it, and is quite pretty! Oddly, when I looked at it online, it looked like a bright blue when warm and a deep purple when cold….but in person, its more of a blue-teal when warm and a deep blue-jean shade of blue when cold. Not as exciting as blue and purple, but still pretty! I wonder if they changed the formulation?

Regardless, 009 by VCND Bluesky covered very nicely in three thin coats. I used thin coats to get maximal glitter coverage! It dries to a semi-matte, but does dry fairly fast. The best part is the glitter spread…I didn’t have to go digging for the larger hex glitters at all, and despite the glitter load the polish spread smoothly. The warm color is a bright teal-leaning blue, while the dark color is the shade of blue jeans. There isn’t a huge difference between the two colors, honestly…but both are pretty and the glitter is really nice!

Colors
~ Blue thermal: VCND  Bluesky – 009
~ Light blue: Zoya – Yummy
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Ibiza
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Clear: Pipe Dream Polish – Clearwater

I couldn’t decide what to stamp, so I did a quasi water-marble instead. I wanted to do blues with silver (and clear to allow the thermal polish to show through) but the silver I grabbed formed these awesome clumps instead of marbling…so I just went with it! It was much more fun making this messy clumpy marble than it was trying to perfect an elegant and smooth water marble, so win!

If you want to pick up this blue glittery thermal for yourself, you can find it at the Born Pretty StoreBorn Pretty Store for $4.99. I think its important to point out that this is a mini bottle (only 7.5ml). You can also use my 10% off code, LY5X31!

Top 10 Polishes of 2016

Hello! I was looking through my stats for this past year trying to figure out what I wanted to post for my top nail art…and it looks like fewer and fewer people are actually reading this. I don’t know if that’s due to people using RSS feeds of various types (I like the bloglovin’ layout better than wordpress) but still. Sad! Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop blogging though. Even if two of my favorite bloggers just left 😦

ANYWAY favorite polishes. I got ~50 new polishes this year, so I don’t actually have that many to choose from…but this was pretty easy. Most of them jumped out at me. One polish that made the top 10 I forgot to actually show you guys (ooooops) so I’ll be on next years top 10 I guess! That being said, if you want to get it now while it is still around, for honorable mention (aka I haven’t edited the photos yet but its a great polish) go look at Shadow on the Moon by Emily de Molly.

Top 10 Polishes of 2016 (many actually released in 2015)

1) Enchanted Polish – Congratulations…I think this is self explanatory

2) Emily de Molly – Crystal Crown…probably one of my most-worn polishes this year. It is great for work, elegant occasions, and just generally awesome. It is also super pretty.

3) Bow Polish – Thermal Top Coat (black)…also for obvious reasons. I can see this featuring a LOT in my nail art in the future!

4) ILNP – Clockwork…this is almost a cop-out since I put Fame on last years top 10, but I really REALLY love these polishes, and Clockwork is stunning!

5) Emily de Molly – Open Season…this is the only glitterbomb (well, with larger glitters) on this years list. I got fewer of this type of polish this year, but of the ones I bought this was hands-down my favorite. It is rich and stunning.

6) A England – Briarwood…I more than doubled my A England stash this year, and of the 5 new polishes I got, this was the coolest. I don’t usually go for browns, but the rich shimmer and the holo finish made this easily one of my favorite new acquisitions this year!

7) Cupcake Polish – Berry Good Looking…this is almost cheating. Last year, almost every top 10 list I saw contained this polish, and I decided that if that many people loved it, then I needed to get it. I am so glad I did. I don’t own anything that is this ridiculously color saturated and holographic. It is awesome.

8) Nails Inc – Regents Place…the only creme on the list this year is NOT a Zoya polish! Most of my Zoyas were bought over the black Friday sale and I haven’t worn most of them…but even so I have not been stunned by their color choices this year. I got this particular polish on the clearance rack at ULTA and the color is just perfect!

9) Emily de Molly – Stockpile…I might have a problem with how many Emily de Molly polishes I buy. Seriously. This is the third one on this list! Although that’s mostly Hayley’s fault for making perfect polishes. This is basically Crystal Crown’s grown up older sister. I love it but it is NOT subtle!

10) Powder Perfect – Microcosm…this polish has been sadly discontinued, but it was great while it lasted! I had trouble describing it when I first saw it, and this hasn’t changed. This polish is mind-blowingly complicated, and not for the faint of heart. I don’t own anything else like it, and it should be overly complicated but somehow works. It makes my top 10 for this year!

And that’s all! What have I missed? Any new polishes this past year that I absolutely need to buy?

Dangles and Lace

This did not come out how I planned…mostly because I can’t make curved dotted lines on my non-dominant hand! This was initially supposed to be a slightly modified version of @twi_star@twi_star. I like that I added extra draped beads (and the silver) but I wish I had been able to make the delineating dots consistent! Also water decals >> stamps. I just don’t have the right water decals. Whoops!

In other news, I really hate the names of Nails Inc polishes. I know they are named after places in England…but they are impossible to remember. Give me SOMETHING more creative!

Colors
~ Purple: L’oreal – Royalty Reinvented
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington
~ Stamp: BC – 10

That’s all for today. My current rotation is kicking my butt and I didn’t get a chance to edit my nail art this past weekend cause of Thanksgiving!