Love Above

This mani is a bit of nail art, some swatching, and a small amount of comparison. When Zoya did their New Years sale, I bought 4 new polishes that I intended to replace some terrible polishes that I own, and to fill a few gaps. This is the first of them!

What you see here are three thin coats of Jordan. I bought this polish to replaced Tickled Pink by Wet n’ Wild which takes 4 coats and is incredibly thick. I wanted to compare the two, so I put Tickled Pink on my ring finger, and Jordan on all the others. I cannot tell the difference! Which is to say that the swatches of Jordan online are accurate. I was hoping Jordan would be a two-coater, but for a pastel 3 isn’t terrible. This is just a nice pastel pink creme. No frills.

Colors:
~ Pastel pink: Zoya – Jordan
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled pink (ring finger only)
~ Pink: Zoya – Ciara
~ Dark pink: OPI – Vision of Love
~ Dark pink holo: A England – Let Me In
~ Stamp: B Loves Plates (from the tiny heart next to the plate name)

I then added a gradient, and stamped a tiny pink heart near my cuticle. Super easy, but quite pretty! I do wish I had started the gradient a biiit close to my free edge, but it still looks nice! It was a really quite fitting manicure to wear right before Valentine’s day…so I hope you guys all have a great (and chocolate-filled) tomorrow!

Pink Pastiche

Is this really pastiche? Not so much. A lot of my nail art apes that of other artists that I’ve seen and liked…this was sort of a general “I like things that are somewhat pastel and look like watercolor and flowers” and I tried to make it happen!

It turns out, of course, that I also like things that glitter. The end result of this mani was actually pretty fun, but I just kept adding more things! Lines and more lines and dots…In the end I wish I had used a lighter silver holo base for my accent nail, but I love the pink shine to Rosewater!

Colors:
~ Silver pink holo: ILNP – Rosewater
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Sinful Colors – Pink Forever
~ Neon pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Neon coral: L’oreal – Orange you Jealous?
~ Stamps: What’s Up Nails – B015, Lina Make Your Mark – 02

That’s it for now! Hope you enjoyed this oddly pink interlude!

Soft Pink Floral

I was torn whether to post this for flower day or color day, and I realized that the whole purpose of this mani was that it was pink. Lots of pink. And a few colors that go well with pink, like gold and white. So voila! Inspired by the color pink and things one wears with pink.

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin. However, when I finished trying to mimic her, I decided I didn’t like how boring my white nails were! And as previously mentioned, gold looks good with pink, so I added some gold glitter to the top of my all-white nails, and I kinda love it!

My only real complaint about this mani is that I used red striping tape to make the negative space lines and it kinda bled? So my naked nails look a little red-der than usual and the white has a red tinge. Oh well! Still looks cool :-p

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold
~ Gold glitter: Sephora – I Found a Pot of Gold!

I am kind of amazed that the 31 Day Challenge is almost over! I remember this being a LOT harder to keep up with…but then again this is the only year that I didn’t post daily. This M-W-F posting schedule really makes my life at lot easier! And hopefully I can keep it up. Thus far in residency no one has made a fuss about my colorful nails (then again, I haven’t been painting rainbows or neons yet).

Gnarly Blossoms

I know it isn’t spring anymore, but I got the PERFECT base color and I just had to make this! I’ll likely do it again next year so it fits :-D. Also, flower day anyone? 😀

This awesome design was inspired by ruthsnailart which I have recently become obsessed with. If we are being honest, I added too many cherry blossoms (I like her slightly more minimalist design) but this still looks pretty epic!

The base is a stunning periwinkle blue/purple polish with copious pink-gold shimmer and silver flakies called Traverse the Skies by Emily de Molly. I have had my eyes on this polish ever since it came out, and it does not disappoint! I love it. It is super interesting (both in terms of color and finish), and is just close enough to purple that I’ve also already worn it to the hospital. This is three thin coats, although I probably could have gotten away with two if I was more careful.

What you probably can’t tell is that there are THREE colors of brown in the tree branches (and an additional three colors of pink in the blossoms) and putting this all together took longer than I thought it would. That said, it was worth it! I am impressed.

Colors:
~ Periwinkle: Emily de Molly – Traverse the Skies
~ Dark brown: Zoya – Louise
~ Brown: Zoya – Dea
~ Light brown: Zoya – Flynn
~ Dark pink: Clinique – Pinkini
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll

That’s about it for this one! I’ve never made cherry blossoms this way before (usually I try to make little flowers rather than dots) but I really like this. Hope you enjoyed it, happy flowers day!

Pink and Gold with Flowers

How about something pink and gold? I figure with the flowers it is suitably summer-y too!

The design was inspired by Nails by Erin but my pink base is an AWFUL polish that takes 3 coats and never dries (I need a better barbie pink) and so I wanted to do more things with those nails. I don’t know if this  counts as over doing it, but I actually liked it!

Using Erin’s nails as a template got me very excited about gold dots. I love adding dots to things. In this case, added too many gold dots to things…specifically my middle finger. Oops. it would have looked better with more white space 😀

Colors:
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Pastel pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark green: Salon Perfect – Escape to Neverland
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

I am quite proud of the roses though! I hope you enjoyed them too.

Trellis of Roses

She what I meant by how I have enough flower manis? But they are so pretty!

Anyway, this mani harkens back to mid-2017 when I briefly had oval nails. That was mostly because the sides of my nails had cracked on 3 fingers, but I kinda hated it! I know a lot of nail artists (and really just people with nails in general) who can pull off and look good with oval nails, but I don’t think I’m one of them!

The pretty trellis design was inspired by @mvargas_nails. I am glad I went with a pastel blue base, it pops nicely with both the lines and the flowers! I am also quite proud that I freehanded these lines (although tbh you can kinda tell).

Colors:
~ Blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Hot pink: WOW – #371
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Light pink: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn

That’s it for today! Happy Friday and I hope you enjoyed this week of manis that I’ve been saving in the vault because I really liked them 😀

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!

Aloha

Finally, nail art and no more swatch comparisons! I thought I would open with the nails I painted for my Honeymoon back in March 🙂

Since I was traveling to Hawaii, I wanted some fun tropical nails! I didn’t have any stamping plates that were quite the correct flower, and the few hibiscus ones I have are…not the prettiest. So I tried to turn some flowers INTO something vaguely Hawaiian! I also couldn’t make up my mind between two different designs, so I just went ahead and used both. The mani ended up a bit busier than I intended (oops) but I still like it!

Colors:
~ Purple: Emily de Molly – Traverse the Skies
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: LA Girl – White On
~ Orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Dark green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Green: Sinful Colors – Exotic Green
~ Stamps: BP – 067, Chic Peek BM – XL472

I also wish I had done some lava nails, since that may have been the single coolest thing I’ve ever seen (well, hottest really I suppose). Since my visit, the volcano on Hawaii has started erupting again, which is incredibly unfortunate for the people who live on the slopes of the volcano!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tropical nails! Hopefully I can get my act together and actually have something to post the rest of this week as well 😀

Swatch Test: Mauve Nudes and Pastel Pinks

Mauve Nudes: I don’t know why I compared these exact colors. I guess I wanted to get a sense of how purple/grey each was? No dupes here!

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: Zoya – Chantal
~ Ringe: Essense – I Nude It
~ Middle: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Pointer: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Thumb: Zoya – Rue

Every single polish took three thin coats, but all applied well. In terms of colors, Chantal is the most yellow-leaning, while Nude is the palest by far but also leans a bit yellow-pink. Cashmere, Tape, and Rue are almost a gradient of pastel mauve to true mauve. I mostly wanted to reassure myself that Tape and Cashmere weren’t dupes for each other or anything else, and they aren’t! I also quite like both of them, even if they are boring colors!

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Pastel Pinks: So, I wanted to compare my pale pinks and my pale pink shimmer/frosts. Mostly the frosts if I’m being honest! No dupes here, but some of the colors are downright ugly! I also re-used Tape (from above) to compare a pale mauve to a pale pink.

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Ring: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Middle: OPI – The Color that Keeps on Giving
~ Ring: ULTA – Freshwater Pearl
~ Thumb: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing

All the polishes took 3 coats except Tape, which took two (I guess I used thicker coats). For the cremes, Doll is more of a true pastel pink than Tape, and is also a bit paler. Private is its own thing and I should have known I didn’t own any dupes! I hate how it looks of me, but it is a useful skin tone color for nail art. For the shimmers, Pearl is more of a nude frost and Giving is a true pink frost. They are actually quite different…and unsurprisingly I like Peal a lot better! I can see Giving coming in useful….if and only if (hah I just tried to write iff which means the same thing but in python, whoops) someone tells me I need to wear a baby pink shimmer to a wedding. I don’t think that will happen, so away it goes!

A P!nk Reason

For Day 22 of the 31 Day Challenge, the theme was “song”. I’ve always had trouble with this one, since I can never decide if I want to do music in general, or the theme of a song, or something about the music video.

This year, I decided to be inspired by both the artist (P!nk) and the visuals of the song. I went with the song Just Give Me A Reason, which is depressing but I love the vocals! In the music video, P!nk sports her pale pink/white hair with a pink ribbon, and is wearing a pale pink lace dress. There are also a number of scenes featuring an off-white mattress. I just went with it!

My pinky, pointer, and thumb are all intended to be different bits of lace. My ring finger is a mattress (maybe, if you squint) although I should probably have used the quilting method. My middle finger is intended to be her hair, with the ribbon. I went a bit dark with the pink shade in the hair, but I still like it!

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Pale pink: OPI – Be There In a Prosecco
~ Light pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Pink: Revlon – Bubbly
~ Dark pink: Zoya – Ciara

This mani is brought to you by clear stampers (seriously, I double stamped/shadow stamped all the nails except my middle finger which is TRIPLE stamped)! And too many stamping plates. The lace is from plates BP-L008, BP-L020, and EdM01. The hair and ribbon are from BM-S108 and BM-317.  The mattress is from BM-209. Yikes! Hope you enjoyed, and go listen to the song!

Rose Gold Roses

I feel like a LOT of my recent manis have involved flowers, so picking something for the “flowers” prompt in the 31 Day Challenge was both easy and exasperating. That said, this mani is interesting to me, because I like the concept but I hate the polish that I was trying to model! Oops. Polishes that take more than three coats to be opaque are evil.

The design was inspired by this pin, which has no watermark at all so I have no idea who’s nails those are! But it is pretty so I wanted to try it.

I got a pink glittery polish as a gift, and I wanted to test it out. On my pointer and pinky is 4 (!!!) somewhat thick coats of Gold ‘n Roses by Sinful Colors. I don’t know if this polish is meant to be a topper or not, but it is NOT opaque enough to be worth wearing on its own. The polish is primarily lots of pink shimmer/tiny glitter with larder silver shards. The color isn’t bad, but it took soo many coats that when I added top coat the whole darn thing shrunk! My free edges have their own personal angles now, distinct from the shape of the polish on the rest of the nail.

My thumb has two coats of a matched base color with two coats of Gold n’ Roses overtop, and honestly it looks very similar to the fingers with just Gold n’ Roses…so maybe that is how it should be worn? Seems like a lot of work for a mediocre polish! Also, the polish is rose gold and silver, there is no “gold” in it at all despite the name!

Colors:
~ Pink glitter: Sinful Colors – Gold n’ Roses
~ Nude: Essence – I Nude It
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Mauve: Zoya – Rue
~ Dark pink: Love & Beauty – Pink
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Light pink: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Light green: Glitter Gal – No Worries
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn

I half wish that I painted over the shimmery pink sometime while I wore this to make it more interesting, or added holo topcoat. Alternatively, I bet this would have been stunning with ILNP Juliette! I don’t need any more rose gold polishes :-p. Hope you enjoyed!

Beachside

I realize that this is both blue and tan, but give JUST HOW MANY BLUE POLISHES I USED (omg) I am counting it as the day 5, Blue, post for the 31 Day Challenge.

This design was inspired by majikbeenz who actually has a lovely tutorial! Which of course I only found after I was done since I was simply using a pinterest pin. Whoops!

I basically started with a light blue base and then painted on each of the other blues. And glitters. And flakies. Oh my! I think what really makes this is the textured sand (I knew I could still find uses for those textured polishes!) and the white surf at the border with the sand.

Colors:
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Pastel blue: Zoya – Blu
~ Dark blue: Zoya – Sia
~ Medium blue: Sinful Colors – Endless Blue
~ Dark teal: Zoya – Cecilia
~ Medium teal: Essie – Naughty Nautical
~ Light teal: Wet n’ Wild – I Need a Refresh Mint
~ Flakies: Zoya – Masie
~ Teal glitter: ORLY – Sparkling Garbage
~ Gold textured: Zoya – Tomoko

What do you guys think? A fitting “blue” day? I like it at least :-p

Golden Jewel Fail

This might be the worst mani I’ve done in recent history. Like, total epic and utter fail. I am embarrassed to post this but let it stand as a lesson: Do Not Pair Nude and Awkward Golds!!!!

I couldn’t even bear to wear this particular mani for 24 hours they were soo terrible. Ugh. Once I had done one hand with the pale gold/silvery polish I hated it so much I covered the other hand with a more yellow-toned gold. It too looked awful (although to me maybe sightly less terrible).

Mistakes I made here: trying (again) to use metallic polish over tape. It never comes off correctly. Trying to use a soft gold color over a pink-based nude (a rose gold would have worked, or a yellow-based nude).

Colors:
~ Nude: L’oreal – Boho Babe
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Liquid Gold
~ Yellow gold: Revlon – Hypnotize
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme

Turns out the art I was trying to replicate by Marine Loves Polish was done with nail tattoos Go figure. Win some, lose some! On a good note, the 31 Day Challenge begins on Friday! Stay tuned for some of my recent BEST work 😀

Overlaying Geometry

This is not the first time I’ve tried this design, but it IS the first time I’ve liked the outcome! Given how big geometric patterns are right now, I figured it was worth re-trying this to try and get it right 🙂

The design was inspired by lacquer liefde, which was just such a cool idea! Minimalist yet colorful.

I am, however, still missing a good pastel grey. My old one finally ran out, and I cannot find a replacement! This is my current lightest grey, and it is really more of a medium. This would look better with a true light grey.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold: Sally Hansen – Go for Gold

And in other news, the 31 Day Challenge starts in one week! In the past, it has been run by Sarah from Chalkboard Nails, but she is stepping aside this year in favor of one of my favorite nail art bloggers, Cathy from More Nail Polish! I’m going to do my best to participate (this will be my 5th year), and this will unfortunately likely be my last year. I really cannot foresee having time during residency to paint this many nails!

Anyway, head over to More Nail Polish for more details, and feel free to join in! I’ve obviously posted the list of prompts above, but Cathy has a whole bunch more colors and design options if you want to paint along and post the banner to your own page.

Silver Leaves and Pink Berries

I really like how this mani came out, but it took forever to plan! I knew I wanted something with white, grey, and pink…and trying to figure out what to use for the stamp vs the background took forever. I think I used all 5 nail demos on my silicone mat! Worth it 😀

The stamping plate I used here was sent for review from the Born Pretty Store, but it is full of fun leaves and flowers…both of which are a pain to free-hand. So, I am really glad this plate works as well as it does! It’ll be VERY useful come fall. The geometric pattern is from an Emily de Molly plate though.

You also cannot tell, but I actually used both a white and a silver to stamp, just to see how the variation looked! It’s most noticeable in the non-sunlight photos.

Colors
~ Grey: Zoya – Dove
~ Silver: A England – Excalibur
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Light pink: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Stamps: Floral BPX-L018, EDM 03

If you want the floral stamping plate, head over to the Born Pretty store, it is currently on sale for $2.99! Don’t forget to use my code, LY5X31…although I don’t think it can be applied to things already on sale, sorry!

Glowing from Within

I seldom say this, but I regret buying this polish! A England went on sale at Color4Nails which meant I just had to buy a bunch of them. I only actually wanted one, but I purchased 3 (because of course). Thus far, I was happy with the two I bought…and this was the third, which I bought almost as an afterthought. I wish I hadn’t!

It’s not that this isn’t a pretty color, because it is. Its mostly just that I thought this polish would be red with gold flakes, and it is really an orange metallic with gold flakes. I don’t usually wear orange polish, and I already have an orange metallic! Oh well, now I own another I suppose. And it is a pretty polish, it just isn’t something I’m likely to wear often.

The polish itself is called Gloriana from A England. On the website it is listed as a “chili-pepper red with fine and ultra fine golden sparkle” but I have to disagree. Fundamentally, this is dark orange that leans red, that has a metallic finish and copious golden glass flecks. It covered nicely in two coats, but it is not a red!

I was having a hard time deciding between stamping with gold or black, but everything I saw with either color online was disappointing (I guess not a lot of people use this for nail art), so I ended up covering it with a red-to-black gradient using Siren by Pure Ice, Visions of Love by OPI, and Black Creme by Wet n’ Wild. The stamp is from Bundle Monster plate XL209.

In the end the mani is pretty enough,,,I was just expecting a red polish. In retrospect, I should have known from looking at everyone’s swatches! Oh well :-p at least I got a pretty purple and mossy green!

101 Dalmatians

Another Disney mani that I’ve been sitting on since 2016…July, actually. How sad is that? These are so cute though!

I wanted to do each collar a different color, but when I went back and looked, only the mom and dad dog (Perdita and Pongo) had really distinct collars that were not just the same as all the puppies!

The design itself was inspired by @banicured_. Puppies! And Disney! I’ve wanted a dog for a long time, and this makes it worse…only, I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t end up with dog hair ruining my manis!

Colors
~ White: Wet n’ Wild – French White Creme
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Red: Pure Ice – Siren
~ Blue: Zoya – Ling

I thought about writing “101” on my thumb, but honestly, this was surprisingly quick and easy and I didn’t want to ruin it with trying to make words! Or numbers. Either way.

Did any of you guys have a favorite puppy from 101 Dalmations? Hope you enjoyed!

Geometric Expression

I bought a bunch of OPI polishes recently…and this was one of my unplanned buys. They were having a buy-two-get-one-free sale so of course I had to leave with 6 polishes rather than the 4 I really wanted! Well, there were 6 but two of them were not in stock 😦

I have been in the hunt for a nude/pale-pink/grey and I thought this might be it! Until I swatched it on a nail stick and realized that it is a PERFECT DUPE for a (much cheaper) polish that I already own! Grrrrrr…I don’t usually buy perfect dupes. I feel rather dumb right now.

Regardless, this is three thin coats of Be There in a Prosecco by OPI. Despite taking 3 coats, it goes on better than my OTHER light pink nude creme polish (which takes 4 and even then has leveling problems). The polish is a very pale pink creme. I’ll do a comparison to the dupe sometime soon! As soon as I get over my disappointment.

Colors
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Purple: Zoya – Rue
~ Stamps: BP – L054, 77

The one benefit of this is that I made something cool and geometric! Honestly, I just wanted to color in some geometric stamps, and this made it possible without standing out too much in the hospital.

Unfortunately some of the stamping decals bubbled a bit, so the top coat looks uneven. Oops! Hope you enjoyed anyway!

Resigned Lines

I really need to cut it out with the geometric designs! I actually was deciding between 4 different ideas for this, and I like how it came out but you can barely see the background pattern!

I started with three coats of my nude polish, then water-spotted on (aka spread on water and spritzed on hairspray to make holes before dipping my nails) white polish. I added some golden dots and glitter for contrast, and then free-handed straight lines.

The final step was stamping on the geometric images and adding rose gold dots over the parts that were super black. To my eye (because I knew what to look for) the white waterspotting was visible and quite pretty, but you can barely see it in the photos! Darn.

Colors
~ Nude: OPI – Be There in a Prosecco
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Black: Wet n’ Wild – Black Creme
~ Gold glitter: ILNP – Clockwork
~ Rose gold metallic: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Purple: Zoya – Rue
~ Stamps: BP – L054

It also doesn’t help that there was a lot of texture to this mani, so the whole thing doesn’t look super smooth with top coat. Overall, not my best work oops!

Negative Space Flowers

These came out cute! Although, sadly, they were cuter in my head. I just wanted something colorful and spring-y! I do wish that I had a left a bit more space between the flowers on some of my nails, but oh well.

The art is inspired by @lifeisbetterpolished, who has apparently changed her ID to @withlovekarissa and I had to hunt around and make sure I wasn’t tagging someone who stole her photos!

Anyway. Flowers, and negative space. I don’t usually go for negative space designs, but putting this on a white background seemed too…jarring.

Colors:
~ Sheer nude: Formula X – Marvelous
~ Pink: Wet n’ Wild – Tickled Pink
~ Orange: Wet n’ Wild – Sunny Side Up
~ Yellow: WOW – #301
~ Green: Essie – The More The Merrier
~ Blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead

It is amusing that 90% of the colors I used came from two pastel collections (Wet n’ Wild and Essie)! I should go back to buying collections that come out with rainbow colors with the same finish, it makes for the best nail art! Hope you enjoyed!