I need to drag out the real camera

but I won't, because it's infinitely easier to snap the photos in between checking on what the world is up to. 

This manicure did not photograph very well, but it was stunning in person. 

Two coats of Color Club First Look, a sultry deep blueish greenish with just a hint of shimmer.  The accent nails are an addition of one coat of Butter London Henley Regatta, a fabulous blue green micro glitter that really added light to the dark base. 

I covered all nails with a coat of Wicked Fast and called it a day. 

space invaders

I only say that because that's what this terrible little tape job reminded me of when I saw the photo. 

I have been working on my tape skills, in awe of all the gorgeous Art Deco looks I've seen recently. 

As can be evidenced below...I'm still working on it. 

The gorgeous hot pink holo, Orly Miss Conduct, was my two coats base. My favorite part is that even with the SERIOUS sparkle in this baby, removal is a breeze. 

Zoya Tao, my favorite deep gray, looks strangely subpar here, but look at past posts to see what a stunner it is on it's own. And this is one coat!

What a Flake

As the weather is finally cooling down, I've been pulling out some deeper colors to get ready for fall. 

Today is Essie Merino Cool, a really beautiful pale purple, covered with two flashy coats of Cult Nails Seduction. Seduction is a multi colored flake suspended in a purple jelly that gave a lot of depth to this manicure. 

Two coats of each, and a sealing coat of Wicked Fast, and I was out the door!

Recreating A Classic

I remember when I first jumped into the Pinterest waters. I had been hesitant for awhile, but peer pressure had me go from spending five minutes to three hours on the site one night, and I've never looked back. 

I was just getting started with an interest in painting my nails at that point, and I remember my first "nail art" pin:

I remember thinking "holy Jesus that's a lot of work", and filing it into the "never gonna happen" place. 

Well, my chevron stamp color ruined the effect I wanted, so I went with a crackle and I'm pleased to present my take:

The pink is Zoya Reagan, gorgeous deep purple pink. The white is Zoya Purity, covered in one very thin coat of OPI Black Crackle. The glitter nail is China Glaze Nova, which has the perfect mix of larger and smaller holo pieces to cover a nail completely in three coats. 

Outside sparkle cam:

I learned that I need to invest in some stamping polishes, so my blacks aren't grey, but other than that, I'm really happy with how this came out. 

Throwback!

Valentine's Day, 2013

Zoya Blaze with Zoya Purity freehand hearts

The pictures are garbage because this was a quick cell phone job. 

The Zoya Ornate collection remains one of my favorite releases to date. The colors are flawless and have great multiple use applications. 

All-Star Game Support

In honor or tonight's game, I present a tribute to my favorite ball club. 

Created using all Zoya polishes. 

Song for the blue base, Rekha for the red, and Purity for the freehand logo. 

I have loved the Texas Rangers since I was a little girl and attended games with my grandfather. They are a part of me, and I love them through thick and thin. 

We have a good showing in the roster, and I'll be rooting for Cruz, Nathan, and even sidelined-with-an-injury Darvish tonight. 

I hope you have your own favorites, and LET'S GO, AMERICAN LEAGUE!

I'm back!

Man, I have really fallen out on this thing. In my defense, the cross country move took a lot of time, and I don't have a proper computer set-up anymore, but still!

I have been doing my nails frequently, but have not been good about pictures. I'm hoping that this is the post that gets me back into things because I do love it. 

So enough of that!  It seems that summer is the perfect time for neons, a personal favorite of mine. 

I love the high contrast of snow white and bright pops of colors, and am always looking for new ways to do it. Today, I went with a dotted french using all Color Club no name stickers for the neons, and Barielle Enduring for the white. 

I love that the yellow turns the blue into a great shade of neon green. So complimentary. So easy. 

I am out of practice with the cuticle care regime, so I'll be getting those bad boys back in line over the next month. 

I Promise That I Have New Content

But by the time I get home every night, I'm crazy exhausted, because I've moved!  I moved out of my home state and am now trying to acclimate to a brand new one and start a brand new job.  So I haven't been much for editing/taking photos in a while.  I haven't painted my nails in over a week - that's got to tell you that something's up.

I promise that I'll edit a bunch this weekend and get back on it; don't give up on me!

Now to find the nearest polish store...

Welcome Back To the 80s!

It's Jem!

Kind of!



Zoya Jem, a coppery turning purple burgundy shimmery jack of all trades.

Long Live The Queen!

Or the McQueen, depending on where you buy your Butter London polishes.

A really gorgeous shimmery champagne that gets awesome opacity in three careful coats.  I really loved this shade on me because it was just dark enough to not give me weird flesh-y nails, but it wasn't so dark that I got creepy lobster hands.

Sparkle Times One Million

My favorite combinations come from just rooting around in the drawers of polish.

Zoya Kelly, a creamy, beautiful slate blue, under the total perfection of Cirque XX, a glitter of all sizes and shapes and flashes.  It reminded me of a close-up of the cosmos, or a children's birthday party table.

Little column a, little column b?

And my sunlight lamp/light box wasn't giving me the sparkles I wanted, so I took to the outside.  I had to go vertical to get the sunshine and NOT get the neighbor's chimneys and our fence.

Working The Stripes Again

Eh.

A base of Zoya Raven, striped with Barielle Enduring, OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, and OPI Glitzerland.

I added too many stripes, and Lucerne... didn't show up as well as I thought it would.  So what could have been cute quickly fizzled into not so cute.  But I worked it out for a day, and resolved to try it again later.

Can You Call Them Indies Anymore?

A-England and Cult Nails, the few that I have of each, have absolutely blown me away each and every time. The formulas are impeccable, the colors/glitters are incredibly well thought out and well placed, and the packaging is adorable.

A-England Saint George is a really gorgeous deep emerald color with a very fine holographic glitter fleck inside.  Incredible depth and so many greens in one green makes this such a stunning shade

Hey there, pretty.

You can see the depth of green in the middle of my middle and ring fingers.  So perfect.

I have a really bad habit of leaving the polishes I've worked with that week on the kitchen counter.

(Stay with me.)

So every time I walk by, I glance down to see what's out, and if something interests me, I'll swab it over whatever color is on my hands.  I spied the round black top of a Cult Nails bottle, and brought up Doppelganger, which I have used before.  It's this great milky shimmery bomb of color that I thought would look just fabulous on top of ol' George.

I was right.

On the thumb nail you can see that Doppelganger doesn't completely remove the trace of your bottom color.
It lingers.

It's one of those "sunlight hits the emerald water just right" kind of looks.

I Got The Blues

I'm really feeling this versatile shade lately.  From super light sky blue, which I won't bust out because it feels unnatural given that it's 30 degrees outside, to inky rich dark blue, which is the star today, blues are rocking my world.

I picked up Essie Midnight Cami on some can't remember it now website months ago when I became obsessed with the fall shade.  By itself, it's this gorgeous, deeply shimmered midnight ink blue.  Just gorgeous and so dark it looks black if you're not in the right light.  I've also been trying to go through my pile of hexes purchased also months ago, and I thought my giant pot of silver holo hexes would be a fitting topper to the blue.

The worst part about working with hex glitter is not getting them on, but getting them to stay put.  The method here was two thin coats of color, one thin coat of quick set topcoat, a super thin coat of non quick dry topcoat to adhere the hexes, and then two coats of Gelous for some building stay power.

Yikes.  My hands just feel heavier typing all of that out.  Time will tell, but I'd love all the glitter to stay in place one 24 hour period.  Or even just through a bout of hyper obsessive hand washing at work tomorrow, with the flu avoiding I've been trying to do lately.

Essie Midnight Cami accented with Silver Holo Hex Glitter

Forgive the alien skin tone - needed a lot of color adjustment on this one to atone for the awful shadow.

Simple and Satisfying

Is anyone finding it difficult to transition out of all the Christmas festivities?  As exhausting as they are every year, I find such a let-down when I'm putting up all the brightly colored lights and holographic tinsel.

Sigh.

I know I'll gripe about it next year, so let's move on.  I was looking for something that would look pretty and not be too much work, so I worked back to an old favorite.

Essie Go Overboard, a gorgeous deep teal creme polish, topped with Essie A Cut Above, which the site lists as pink, but I think of as a copper-y multi sized glitter.

Go Overboard is a really great single coverage shade.  A Cut Above spreads out really well, but I did two coats just to get more coverage, which really popped over the teal.

In an effort to get a few more days out of it, I thought I'd see how it looked with a matte topcoat.  Win!

The matte lightens up the background, and gives the glitter a mirror-like shine.  Flawless.

Better In My Head, Worse On My Nails

I'm not creative - I don't know if I've beaten that into your skulls enough just yet.  But I'm not.  I have a circle of friends and family that are absolutely filled to the gills with creative and precious ideas, and I admire them.
From afar.
With a Pinterest board of other people's pictures telling me what my house/clothes/face should look like.  But this is 2013!  Time to bust down walls and try new things!


I feel like I tried to put a monkey tail on a dolphin, and then got disappointed when her swimming became disjointed.


This idea, kind of a reptile scale shades of green thing, was way lost in translation.  It's a shame because Color Club VooDoo You Do is this really neat steel gray/green color that definitely shifts depending on your light.  I don't know that I'd call it a duo-chrome, but there's something there.  And of course, sweet sweet Essie Trophy Wife is a flawless super bright teal green that rocks AND rolls whatever nail it's working on.  But whoever invented clear hexes should be hung by their toes and flogged.  If I were smart, I would have thrown some onto a dark piece of paper; but why would I go and make it easy?

This just didn't work for me.  My own personal Frankenstein is presented below for your judgement.

Color Club Voodoo You Do and accent nail in Essie Trophy Wife

...what...is...that.

Maybe squishing all of them together will...nope.  Still crazy looking.

I want to re-try the whole reptile scales thing, I'll just have to plan it out a bit better and maybe, you know, go in with a real plan.

Wherein I Copy Someone Much Better Than Me

I subscribe to a number of nail art blogs, of course, and frequently star things in Reader that I just have to replicate.

Can I break for a second and beg the Google gods to pleasepleaseplease bring back "Share" in Google Reader?  I know that project is on the blade of the axe all the time, but it is a super love of mine, and to add Share back in would be fantastic.

Back to it.

Chelsea over at The Nail Network had the greatest combination of Zoya Noot and Storm the other day, and it stuck in my mind until I got home.  I don't know how she ever picked these two colors to go together, but her nails looked AWESOME and I was jealous.  Zoya Noot is this fantastic kind of darkened olive green creme that's a fantastic one-coater.  Storm is one of the other Ornate collection beauties Zoya released this past winter, a black creme with tons of micro holo glitter.

I never would have picked these two, but I totally should have.  Way to go, Chelsea - this is completely fab.


Enter the replication demon:

The holo doesn't flash under my sun lamp, but in the real sun it's a beast!

The weird lighting reflection makes it look like my nails are rolling waves of...putrid green.
Great.

Close and roiling.

I Got Distracted (oh so apropos)

Cult Nails really has their stuff together.  Today's gorgeous color mix comes direct from the shores of Florida, bringing a heaping ton of green circles and micro holo glitter all suspended in a thicker black jelly base.

I got opacity in two coats, that weren't even that careful, and loved the formula.  It dries pretty gritty, so you'll need two thick coats of topcoat if you're an even and shiny type.  I like the kind of grit texture, but the rainbows don't really flash until you get it glossy.  And if I have to pick between grit and glitter, I'm going glitter every single time.

Cult Nails I Got Distracted

And now for some sunlight perspective, so you can really see the glitter sparklebomb.