Fall Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Fall Gradient

Well, I picked two colors that I thought were suitable for fall: Mink Muffs by Essie, a cool chalky light brown, and Meet Me On The Star Ferry by OPI, a brown purple shimmer. I painted on two coats of Mink Muffs and then used a makeup sponge to dab MMOTSF on the tips and working toward the nail bed. Even though it is a purple brown shimmer, it came out looking a little gold and I'm pleased with the end result.

Matte Camouflage Accent Nail with Zoya Envy

Ahhhh, Zoya Envy, you are my favorite almost-black. I love this super dark green. It inspired me to do a sweet green camo accent nail that I matted out with ELFs Matte Finisher.

First, I painted all but my rings with 2 coats of Zoya Envy. Then 2 coats on the ring fingers of Essie Mink Muffs. I sloppily did squiggly horizontal lines of a mix of Mink Muffs and a green franken I conjured up a while back. A few squiggly lines of a dark green which has no name (from some kind of art kit), and a few squiggles of Envy to tie it all together. I did a coat of super shiny Seche Vite to smooth out the creases then topped with one coat of the Matte Finisher. Can you see me?

First Mani of 2012!

I'm going to see how long I can keep my fake nails off so I can blog more! I painted on 2 coats of Essie's "Mink Muffs" as a base coat. A super creamy greyish brown creme that I love! On top of that I took a striped brush dipped in OPI "I Brake For Manicures" and made six lines in groups of threes coming from the edge of the nail in. I wanted to add a little bit of shimmer so I also drew on lines of OPI "Meet Me At The Star Ferry", a pinkish brown shimmer that looks really nice paired with Mink Muffs.

NYE Mani #2

Ahhh... Much better. A NYE mani worthy of drinking and smooching the night away. I used "School of Hard Rocks" by Essie as a base color.  Then did a suuuper thin French tip in blueish glitter "Nail Junkie" by Sinful Colors. You can barely see it in the picture, but it looks awesome in person. I used a silver striper polish to do these little bursts coming from the corners of my nail bed. In the center of the silver bursty thing, I put a tiny silver rhinestone surrounded by tiny silver hexagons. Wish I could find my camera cord so I could upload better pictures of everything! Sorry!

Xmas mani #3

Its a minimalist Christmas mani! I just did a white French tip to my natural smile lines (one coat of Snow Me White by Sinful Colors), with a single coat of Vanity Fairest by Essie over the whole nail. On my accent ring and thumb, I just took a tiny brush and painted on a dark green holly leaf with Zoya in Envy. Then added red rhinestone "berries". Topped with Seche Vite, a fresh bottle from Chrissy for Christmas! And voila! A simple, clean and appropriate Christmas mani done in just minutes.

Pink Flowers, Rhinestones, and Pink Striping Tape

So I've been meaning to upload this, I couldn't find my camera USB cable thing for a few days. These are Chrissy's nails, my lovely hand model. She thankfully gets her nails done for my blog when I don't want to do mine or when I have poop nails that need to be filled. :) I painted her nails white (she's always trying to paint them white and I always talk her out of it!). I then used a medium dotting tool to make drag-petal flowers with Essie Raise Awareness (light baby pink) and OPI Elepthantastic Pink. I put tiny purple and blue rhinestones onto the middle of the flowers. For her accent nail, I left the base white, and when dried, I used my new pink metallic striping tape to make a lil fishnet-esque grid. I laid down the striping tape where I wanted it and then used clippers to cut the tape off where the nail ended. I topped with top coat and was pleased with the design. I only put one layer of top coat on, as she had somewhere to go and she did not upkeep with more top coat at her house. She later told me that the pink striping tape had shed it's color! She sent me a picture on my phone of her stripes still intact, but the pink had rubbed off to a dull grey/silver!~!! I would post this picture, but it was on my phone and I am lazy. I will retry this design with more top coat to see if I have the same problem, and also add this to my earlier review of my nail haul post.

  I have 10 colors to try, so far, this is the only one I've used, and I'm very worried that it won't hold, because it's soo cute! Has anyone used striping tape like this? Or how would you use it?

Essie School of Hard Rocks Swatch

Ahhh I've had this polish for a few weeks now and haven't gotten a chance to swatch it out because my crap long acrylics and my 30 day challenge. But here's the scoop: School of Hard Rocks from Essie's Winter 2011 Collection is a creamy, slate blue/green/grey polish that glides on smooth and opaque in just 2 coats. I was sorta worried as it's been sitting upright in its drawer for at least 3 weeks and it had already settled at the thin liquidy stuff rose to the top. I gave it an extra few shakes and it was good as new. The first coat was transparent and streaky, but it coulda just been me, as my hands are very badly sore from 3 straight days of crocheting Xmas presents. I love the color, it is such a new shade of blue/grey/green (lol) that I really haven't seen before. I instantly felt like it was winter and it made me feel very warm inside. The only problem I have with this polish: when I was applying top coat, the polish started to rub off onto the top coat brush!!! And I'd had my nails dried for nearly 45 minutes! Maybe it was just this top coat, I'll let you guys know next time when I use a different top coat. But my review stands: this is a great new color!! I love it, and can't wait to try the other Winter 2011's from Essie!

Huge Post: Haul, Swatches, Reviews... (Pic Heavy)

This is OPI's "Crown Me Already" from the Miss Universe Collection (the silver and large hex glitter). And the blue is "Across The Universe " by Deborah Lippmann.

OK let's start with 'Crown Me Already': I'm not sure if it was just this bottle, it's my friend Megan's and she ordered it online and she said when she recieved it a little bit had leaked out a bit. Not sure if it was a little think because of the insane amount of glitter, or because of the leak, but it was pretty hard to apply, and seemed to PUSH more polish out of the bottle each time I put the brush back in. I love the glitter, love the sparkle, but it was pretty hard to smooth out the texture, even with Seche Vite top coat. I also used a toothpick to push the large hexagon glitters around to keep my cuticle line clean looking.

"Across the Universe" is a dream glitter polish. It only took 2 medium coats to opaque and despite it being loaded with hexagons, it went on smooth, and had a jelly-like finish. It was smoothed out instantly with only one coat of Seche Vite. This is also Megan's polish. I got to swatch these while dog-sitting her super awesome golden retriever, Lady. Hey Megan!

YAY 3D acrylic! I'll go into details about that further down the page, as this is a swatch review for Essie's "Raise Awareness". It's Essie's breast cancer awareness pink and it is a lil tricky. I did read another review of this polish saying it was streaky and it is. I feel like when I'm painting tips it's even streakier vs. whole nail application. So this is two coats. I love the color, it would be less streaky with 3 coats, but I don't like to have heavy looking tips. I think that this polish would be less streaky in 3-4 months as it ages and becomes a little thicker.

Here is my pink nail drill I just got yesterday from Beauties Factory. Check it out here. I got it for about $25, and actually this is my replacement drill for the one I just got last month and BROKE. Now for this review I would like to make it clear that I BROKE the drill the first time. It did not come malfunctioning. Good news: the BF pink drill has a one year warranty, and this one was sent to me for $10 fee and I got to keep my other drill, it's cable, and drill bits. As for it's power: it goes up to 20,000 RPM (super fast and powerful) but so far I haven't had to use it at it's max speed; it does the job on medium. I've successfully filed a nail I had to put on today, and carved out the moon tips from my squared off nails. It did a fine job, my tips are sharp and more defined that with my previous battery powered drill. See above, the moon tips in my Essie "Raise Awareness" pictures. The only down side I have seen with this drill so far: it gets pretty warm in my hand after long use, and once it has overheated and slowed down. I turned it off for about 5 minutes, and was able to use it just fine again. I would reccomend this to any beginners for use on home acrylic application. And these are my acrylic brushes that I got JUST for doing 3D kawaii japanese nail art!!! and this 12 color set of acrylic powder. The colors are pretty random, but I'm not too picky about that right now these are just for practicing 3D stuff. I only paid about $2.50 for the 5 brush set (free shipping) and $6 or so for the acrylics also free shipping. It only took about 2 weeks to get here from China, and they are good enough quality to do a few little bows and flowers.

The website is here and it's insanely cheap for decent quality nail stuff like rhinestones, glitter, etc. So you should DEFINITELY check it out. Free shipping from China to US and came in a super decent amount of time. The comtainer that the acrylics came it was a little dusty (as shown) but I just dusted it off with a paper towel after I saw how yuck it was in the photo. None of it was spilled in shipping, but it was just a little dusty with powder. The brushes are super cute and the bristles are a nice soft sable hair for acrylic application, and they clean as well as my expensive ones from Sally's.



Well, if anyone read this whole thing, kudos to you, and I hope this was helpful for someone!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Days 14 & 15 - Flowers and Delicate Print

I'm so behind! Here is Day 14: Flowers, I used Jesse's Girl "Baby Cakes" to sponge on the tips and then white a blue flowers just like in my purple post.

And here's my delicate print - I was on the phone so I got this idea from Erin but did a poop job- and I used Mink Muffs by Essie to load on a thick basecoat and while it was still wet, I pressed on little lace pieces I cut out. It probably would have looked better with topcoat, but I was kinda in a rush - just like I am right now because I'm still on the phone! Peace!

Camoflauge Remix

I'm going to redo a couple of my earlier posts, just because they get so many hits from searches off of Google or Bing - my camo nails from almost a year ago being one of the most popular. I redid these camo tips using Mink Muffs by Essie as a base, this unnamed beige/tan, and a regular black and added a few of my new holo black star cut outs. Topped with 2 coats of Beauty Secrets Top Coat.