Grey Marble

A somewhat simple mani (made by smushing colors on with saran wrap), and then some striping tape! It ended up looking far more elegant than I intended it to 🙂

The base here is a pale grey creme called Dove, by Zoya. I’ve been in the market for a light grey for a while, since my last one ran out….around 2 years ago. Whoops. Dove covered perfectly in two thin coats, and reminded me why I love buying cremes from Zoya! This isn’t a shocking color, but it is pretty. Not that many brands have a grey creme in stock at all times, so I’m glad Zoya does!

The art itself was my (successful?) attempt to make my nails look like marbled granite. I know most people start with a white base (and if I ever do this again, I am likely to as well) when they try to create a white/grey/silver granite look but I wanted to see what it looked like all grey! And I needed to use Dove in a way that would look cool but be subtle enough for work.

I actually took a whole bunch of photos before adding the striping tape, because I wasn’t sure if I would like it. I really did though, so there are no photos here of the silver-less manicure!

Colors
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Light grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Dark grey: WOW – #333
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for another swatch on Wednesday.

Cherished Ties

Remember how the day before Valentine’s Day I said I had this awesome new nude polish? And then I used that polish as my base for the Valentine’s Dotticure without showing you swatches? Well, here are the swatches!

This is three thin coats of Cherish by Picture Polish. Since I am stuck wearing boring colors in the hospital, I figured it was time to amass a collection of nudes and semi-nudes that are moderately interesting and do not require 23482934 coats to be opaque. This definitely fits the bill!

Cherish is a slightly grey nude with copious holo shards scattered in it. It is quite flattering! The holo certainly catches the light, but it isn’t strong enough to be distracting. It also dried quite nicely 🙂

I stamped over Cherish with Penny Talk by Essie, using a Born Pretty stamping plate. I cannot claim credit for this idea…my sister asked me to use this specific stamp on her nails a while back (hers were blue-on-blue) and I liked how it came out so I decided to use the pattern!

So what do you think, tone-on-tone but still pretty? The best part was that the pattern almost disappeared in indirect lighting, and jumped out in sunlight.

Hope you guys enjoyed!

Doily Flowers

Simple easy work-friendly mani today!

Unfortunately, the sun did not cooperate, so you can’t see how peachy this looks in the light, with its contrasting bright pink flash. You can see a hint of it in the direct light photos, but still!

Colors
~ Pink: Femme Fatale – Mr. Pinchy
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Stamp: BC – 10

I did so many lace nails in a row back in September that I am completely done with them for the time being. That being said, there are a few more waiting in the wings.

Enjoy!

Tribal Blush

This officially begins a week (honestly, probably one of many!) of completely work-appropriate manis. Which is to say this is a week of short nails painted in various shades of pale pink. Sad, but it works!

While I was on surgery, I needed to make sure the team absolutely did not notice my nails! Now, the team was mostly guys, but if they had noticed I’m sure they would have told me to take the polish off and my nails were a disaster back in July. Ergo, girly, pink, and subtle nails.

I also don’t really like ikat patterns, but I saw this on one of my stamping plates and I figured it was something between an ikat and a tribal pattern, and thus couldn’t be too terrible. Honestly, it isn’t half bad! And the stamp worked perfectly.

Hope you enjoyed…maybe! I apologize in advance for all the upcoming pink.

Murky Purple Dots

Oh dear, what even to say about this mani. It is subtle and muted, so it worked well in the hospital when I wore it. It is also ugly.

It isn’t that this design is poorly done…mostly just that I don’t tend to wear grey-toned colors and this whole mani just makes me think of crushed spirits :-p

Currently, I am on my pediatric rotation…so I need to figure out if I can wear bright colors (or better yet, Disney-themed) manicures while I am looking after the kids and babies! I am a bit afraid to try, but if I never try then I’ll never know.

Colors
~ Light purple: Zoya – Rue
~ Dark purple: Sinful Colors – Muse
~ Stamp: BC – 06

So, boring but serviceable. Non-purple manis begin next week 😀

Scale-Mint

Do you want to know what is the most embarrassing part of this mani? I don’t actually know what color I used! It was either Green with Envy by Maybelline or Tiana by Zoya…but I don’t know which! Probably the Maybelline since it is just a TAD more teal (and the Zoya is a tad more green) but that could just be my screen.

I usually write down which colors (and stamps) I used when I put together a mani. I write the posts days to weeks later (only rarely do I write the post the day I actually paint the manicure), but at least I have the colors written down! Whoops.

This was a manicure I did when I was on my surgical rotation…which is why my nails are so short. I got away with having teal nails because the scrubs we wear at the site where I was were actually a beautiful mint color! Most scrubs are some shade of blue. I prefer the mint. One of the floor nurses noticed that my nails were not some demure shade…and that was it. Score for an all-male team I suppose!

Right now I am actually working in the emergency room, but they seem to care much less about being 100% presentable! Which is great for nail art. That’s all for today…I don’t have any sunlight photos of this mani because when it wasn’t raining I was in the operating room!

Sapphire Crown

This I love. I actually love this so much I’m considering duplicating it for my wedding (but in purple. Maybe use the same grey base? I don’t know). Its just elegant but twirly and so pretty!

The base is another new-to-me Emily de Molly polish. I am buying them in DROVES. Its ridiculous. This one is Crystal Crown (hence the title of this post), and its a pretty soft grey with golden-green shimmer and a linear holo flare in direct light. The holo is not in-your-face, and neither is the shimmer, but both are visible. It is, if anything, a bit darker than I was expecting (I was going for almost-white) but it is pretty! And maybe work appropriate? I did take 3 coats for good coverage, but dried fast.

I added top coat and double stamped. The first stamp, which I am including one picture of because it was so pretty even if it was really subtle, was just a bunch of curlicues from Bundle Monster plate 607. I stamped with tone-on-tone grey, using WOW #333. You really can barely see it but it is stunning!

I added a second curly stamp using Bundle Monster 314 (probably my favorite stamp among everything I own. I’ve used it at least 5 times) and a dark blue polish Midnight Swim by Maybelline. I rotated which part of the (admittedly small) stamp area I picked up, and rotated where it went on the nail.

I was debating stamping with either a dark pink or black, and I am so glad I picked the blue. It’s such a cool look!

Hope you enjoyed 😀