Fiery Ripples

This mani is simple, but looked kinda amazing. And I had nothing to do with that fact. It was 110% the polish that I used!

Anyway, the polish of the day is Fired Up by ILNP. This polish is amazing. What you see here are three thin coats. First off, I had 0 clean up with this. Nothing. The polish was perfect to apply, which is fairly rare. Second, the color is drop dead gorgeous. It is a silver-white scattered holographic base swimming with bright orange shimmer that shifts through gold to green at sharp angles (you can see the green reflection off neighboring nails). I love it.

Once that I was dry, I stamped with a swishy ripple design from one of the born pretty store plates that is labeled in non-english, so I cannot type it up! but it is full of pseudo water marble patterns. The white polish is, as always, Snow me White by Sinful Colors.

And that’s it, that’s the mani. I feel like I usually have a bunch more to say, but I am too busy staring at these photos to say much. I love the polish. I want to wear it again right now.

For those of you who are curious, the only other similar polish I own is Rosewater by ILNP (they came out with a whole line of them) and I think the shimmer in Fired Up is maybe a hair more intense…but mostly Rosewater is a vibrant pink and Fired Up is a bright orange. Same basic concept otherwise!

Hope you enjoyed! My plan for next week is a bit different…I am going to put together swatch test comparisons for a bunch of similar polishes that I own, in an effort to help others makes buying polish easier, but mostly because I need to destash some of my polish before I move! Oops. So, stay tuned for swatch comparisons!

Strands and Bubbles

This is a pretty simple mani, but I am still quite proud of it! I am pleased, not because it is in and of itself impressive, but because I painted it while on my honeymoon!

I needed something quick, easy, and somewhat tropical. I thought these looked like bubbles, so I went with it! I also had only really brought teal and blue polishes with me, so I had a rather limited set of options :-p

All said and done I think I painted my nails twice while on my honeymoon? The other design is even simpler! But never let it be said that my nails chip.

Colors:
~ Teal holo: Powder Perfect – There Be Mermaids!
~ Pastel teal: Zoya – Tiana
~ Blue: OPI – Holidazed Over You

That’s all for today! I just felt like I should throw in some non-stamped manis every now and then. I’ve been so busy recently that I feel like all I have time for is stamps, and gradients under them if I’m lucky!

Blurple Smush Stars

This design is based of a technique totally new to me, and I love it! It takes little while to create (mostly because you need to let the design dry on a silicone mat before applying it to your nails) but it is pretty darn cool looking. I am calling it a squish design 🙂

I was inspired by @alla_nails. Seriously though, this technique is amazing, and now I wish I owned a white polish that separated into cells (one of those intentionally spotty ones) because the designs you can make with one of THOSE is even cooler.

The base polish that I used is yet another new one, called Danielle by Zoya. Danielle is a dark blurple creme, and is a true blurple, which is to say it is an almost perfect 50/50 mix of blue and purple. It is basically a dark periwinkle and is unique in my collection. Amazingly, this polish was almost a one-coater. I should just trust Zoya with cremes by this point, everything they make is magical. All of their cremes in the holiday collection have had phenomenal consistencies and pigmentation. So yah, I used two thin coats here but I really could have gotten away with one slightly thicker one.

Actually getting the cool designs from the mat onto my nails was painful! I wanted to make very thin decals (since my nails are so curved) but the first one I tried to remove cracked! So I added top coat before removing them from the mat and they were thick enough to make wrinkles :-(. That said, I still think they look awesome! I might just use an even thicker coat of the dark base polish next time. I didn’t make any type of a video, but you can find the one from @alla_nails that I used here.

Colors:
~ Dark periwinkle: Zoya – Danielle
~ Periwinkle: Nails Inc – Regents Place
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

I have been experimenting using this type of design with other colors, we will see what I come up with! It works best with contrast (dark color with white, light color with black). Hope you enjoyed!

Flakie Overlay

I think the theme of this week is “things Eva matted.” However, unlike Monday’s post, I am really sad that this mani did not end up glossy!

The design was inspired by @kgrdnr, as many good things are. I mostly just wanted to use Ski Lodge by ILNP because it somehow found its way onto my desk. However, then I decided it wasn’t quite glittery enough, and I added some flakies over top. Voila!

Despite being really simple, I think this came out rather awesome. I have missed working with dark greens (they are not an approved-of color in the hospital or on the interview trail), and holographic + flakie polishes are an awesome combination.

Colors:
~ Dark green creme: Sinful Colors – Last Chance
~ Dark green holo: ILNP – Ski Lodge
~ Green flakies: Lyn B Designs – The Speed of Light, you Know
~ Gold: Salon Perfect – Gold Leaf
~ Matte: KBShimmer – Oh Matte!

Regardless, you can also see why I am sad I matted this! Usually I am all-for matted flakies, but I ended up removing some of the depth in the design and certainly in getting rid of the awesome holo inherent in Ski Lodge. Oops! I’ll likely try a similar design with a different color, and I just need to remember to keep it glossy 🙂

Shifting Silver Cracks

Another new polish! This one is super shifty and cool :-). I could hardly bear to cover it, so I did a truly minimal design!

What you see here is two thin coats of State of Mind by Emily de Molly. When I first saw this polish online I knew I had to have it…precisely because I had absolutely no idea what the actual color of the polish was! It looked very different in various photos, but all of them looked awesome. As it turns out, the polish is a multichrome that shifts from a dusty pink, through copper, and to olive green. It is a deeper color than most that I own. On top of that, it has a bright pink-fuschia shimmer, as well as copper multichrome shards (you can see them in indirect light). It ALSO has an intense linear holo finish that glows bright purple (I don’t know how Hayley made the holo a different color than the polish, but its magical). Basically, this polish is confusing and super pretty.

The design, such as it is, was inspired by MarnieLP but I might have to try this again with better tape placement now that I know how the spacing goes. I love the idea! Maybe the next crazy weird polish I get 😀

Colors:
~ Purple holo multichrome: Emily de Molly – State of Mind
~ Silver: Nails Inc – South Kensington

I wish my camera was better at capturing purples…the polish is a bit brighter and quite a bit more pink-toned than it looks under indirect light in my photos. I tried to color correct, but my fingers looked like zombies so I left it this way.

Hope you enjoyed!

From the Bottom

I had such high hopes for this mani, and they just didn’t pan out! Turns out tiny thin lines are HARD. Especially with slightly goopy polish. Oh well!

I was trying to imitate this design by Kira Sweet. I have  to assume she used either acrylic or paint and not polish to get those tiny lines! My freehand just can’t measure up

The base color here is another of my new OPI polishes, Yank my Doodle. I really wanted this one when I saw it in the store because it looked like a fun mix between coral, orange, and brown. Think of the possibilities! The truth is though, I don’t actually much like it on my nails its a little too dark. That being said, it self-leveled nicely and covered well in three thin coats. Maybe I’d like it better if I liked the nail art more?

The white used here was my standard Snow me White by Sinful Colors…which I can no longer find at my local Rite Aid! So now where do I get my white when this one runs out? *gasp*

Anyway, even if this isn’t the best mani ever, I hope you enjoyed it! I should stay away from super intricate freehand for the near future :-p

Burnished Copper

The Born Pretty Store sent me another nail polish! Since I get to chose which colors I want, I of course went after a multichrome…and then stamped over it.

I’ve had my eye on any number of copper-based multichrome polishes (hilariously, when I ordered this polish I owned 0 and I now own 3, oops), and I thought I would give this one a try! Unlike many of the other multi chromes I’ve bought, this one DOES require a black base.

I put on a black creme polish, and then added two thin coats of 212 (the polish doesn’t have a name, sadly). It went on streaky, but dried with minimal brush strokes! And two coats was more than enough, which is great seeing as how the bottle is a smaller size.

The polish also ended up being quite shifty! It is primarily a bright red-toned copper (almost but not quite pink or peach), which fades into bright orange-copper and then golden-green. I’ve certainly seen shiftier polishes, but this one isn’t bad at all! You can definitely see the multichrome-ness.

Colors:
~ Copper multichrome: Born Pretty – 212
~ Copper shimmer: Zoya – Penny
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

I just added some stamps because I can’t leave my nails plain. I didn’t know if this would look better with gold or black, so I defaulted to black. Not bad!

If you want to pick up 212 for yourself, head over to the Born Pretty Store! The polish is currently on sale for $4.99. Don’t forget to use my 15% off code, LY5X31!