Mermaiden

It has been a while since I last did mermaid nail art! Don’t ask me why though, I’ve always loved looking at pretty scales!

This design was inspired by @xnailsbymiri, although I liked my scales enough not to add the glitters or pearls (not that I own tiny pearls like that) I do own gold seashell charms but they are SO SMALL that it would have looked silly! Starfish don’t make great necklaces, but you work with what you have!

The nails with scales were actually more complicated; I made stamping decals using a gold stamp and colored them in with a dark teal creme and a teal holo. I applied the stamping decals over a light teal creme base using top coat (since that works better and is faster than my old method of coloring in the designs on my mat). Otherwise, I just added some caviar beads and a charm!

Colors:
~ Light teal creme: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Dark teal creme: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Teal holo: Powder Perfect – There be Mermaids!
~ Gold: Essie – Good as Gold
~ Stamps: BC – 04, BP – L003

Honestly, I used the lighter teal holo just because of its name. It is also a great color, but if I am painting mermaid scales, I need a mermaid polish! I am also glad I got these posted sometime over the summer. We shall see when my other summer nails make it up! Oops 😀

Funky Dotted Pink

I don’t know what I was thinking with this. I wanted to use my pale pink swatch test nails to make something….and it got out of hand. This would actually have been a really cool mani if I just stuck to one of the paler pinks as my base! As it is with the weird background dotted gradient…nope.

So I started by making a dotted gradient from lightest to darkest color, interspersing the creme polishes with the shimmers. That looked ok. Then I stamped with a neon teal, which still looked ok. Then I added black. I just wish my nail tips weren’t so much darker! I love the pink/teal/black idea. Oh well.

Colors:
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Pastel pink creme: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pastel pink shimmer: OPI – The Color that Keeps on Giving
~ Nude creme: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Nude shimmer: ULTA – Freshwater Pearl
~ Dark nude creme: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B015

In other news, this is my first Whats Up Nails stamping plate, and I love it!! It is wonderfully etched and I wish I had done this mani better service. It is one of the only plates I own where I can really see myself using every single damn image. I am impressed! Despite how awful these look, you will be seeing a lot more of these designs. Anyway, happy Friday, and I promise next weeks manis are better!

Psychedelic Flowers

Sorry you guys! My posting schedule remains wonky…just because I haven’t edited any photos yet! I’ll try to get back on track. In the meanwhile, enjoy this really weird kinda floral mani with a really pretty base!

I don’t really know what I was thinking with this design. The polish I used as a base is super pretty but very busy, so I decided to throw three metallics on top of it? Not one of my best ideas.

Anyway, the base here is three thin coats of From the Land of Oz by Polished for Days. Unfortunately, my camera is not capturing the lavender-purple base of this polish, the camera likes to think it is more blue. I only used three coats for more glitter depth, it was full coverage in two. This polish is from Polish Pickup, so isn’t available anymore…but if you aren’t yet you should all go join PPU! This coming month is a revival of past favorites and a LOT of my very favorites are coming back, so if you missed something this would be a great time to pick it up!

Colors:
~ Purple shimmer flakie: Polished for Days – From the Land of Oz
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ Purple: Zoya – Delaney
~ Teal: Petites Color Fever – Figi
~ Stamp: BP – L052

So, that’s that! Again, sorry for the odd posing schedule, I’ll see what I can do about getting myself edited up!

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!

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…

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: 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!