A few manis.

Here are a few different polishes that I have worn since my last post.

This is OPI's Y'all Come Back Ya Hear? layered with a coat of China Glaze's White Cap. After I came back from the Lake District (which was amazing, by the way), I was off to Scotland and wanted something that would last the week. I showed you the OPI way back in March of 2011. I've also shown White Cap over black here. Forgive the weird pointer finger-less posing. My nail ripped halfway down (ugh!) so now it is sad and short and gross looking. 

Here is Miss Sporty's 010 (Beetle Wings? I hate that they don't label the bottles with their names!). My pictures are kind of awful, but hopefully you can see that this is a gold-green duochrome. I layered it over a brown polish (MUA Mud Pie), but I am curious to see how this looks over other colors. I'm pretty into this, but unfortunately I painted this on a Thursday night after my internship, and woke up Friday with a horrendous migraine that lasted all weekend, so I didn't get to enjoy the manicure. Nonetheless, this applied well. I can't remember how many coats I did over the base color, but no more than two.

Lastly I have Miss Sporty's 343 (Coral Gum?), which is what's on my nails right now. I think I used two coats. It applied well, it's nice and shiny, and it's a Spring-y coral. What's not to like? The lady ringing my up at Asda liked the color, too!

Now I am back into the full swing off term three, and to be honest I just want it to be summer! Shortly after the term ends, my parents are visiting for a couple weeks, and then my sister comes for a large chunk of August. I can't wait to see my family; I miss them so much! I've really been missing home lately, and hopefully their visits will help my make it through another year.

I hope those of you in the UK are having a good bank holiday. I really should get going on some school work, since I have the extra day! Boo.

MUA Frozen Yoghurt and NYX Carnival

Tomorrow morning I am headed off for five days in the Lake District. I am not bringing any polishes with me, so I wanted to wear something that would last the five days - hopefully anyway! So, I decided to do a glitter gradient on the tips to hopefully ward off chipping. I layered NYX's Carnival over MUA's Frozen Yoghurt. I showed Carnival once before here. Frozen Yoghurt reminds me of Sinful Colors' Verbena, which I wore here.

The first photograph is a bit blue-leaning, but the last two are pretty color accurate. 

I'm off to finish this episode of Roseanne and head to bed. Later, gators!

China Glaze For Audrey half moons with stars

I showed you guys China Glaze's For Audrey nearly two years ago now, but here it is as a half moon mani with some star gems on an accent nail. The gems were sent to me by Nicole in a swap a while back.

I'm pretty "meh" about this manicure. It was much cuter in my head! I think the stars would work better if they were a bit smaller. And I'm pretty sure they'll be falling off very soon. Even after two coats of top coat they stick out. Also For Audrey seems to apply... sloppily? Does anyone else have this issue? Despite clean up efforts there is still excess polish, and I was being careful as I applied it. Who knows? Maybe I'm just out of practice. I raved about the application process my first post about For Audrey, but it looks sloppy in that post, too. Urgh.

Happy Wednesday!

I'm back (?!?!) with some blue and yellow hearts

It has been nearly a year since my last post that actually included a proper manicure in it. This is what I have been up to since then:

Around the time of my last proper post, I found out I had been accepted into graduate school in London. I spent a lot of time stressing out about getting a passport, getting a visa, applying for student loans, figuring out housing in London, moving out of my apartment and into my parents' house, and then finally moving across the Atlantic. Phew!

Then it was all about finding my way in London, getting accustomed to being a student again, making new friends - all the things that come with packing up and moving across the globe. It has been amazing.

So why am I back? Well, to be honest this kind of started a few days ago when I discovered like the rest of the interwebz that Google Reader would soon be no more. I took this as an opportunity to sift through all of my subscriptions rather than move everything over to a new reader. In doing so, I starting going through nail blogs again and realizing just how much I miss doing my nails.

That being said, I am not sure how often I will be able to update. One, being in graduate school means I am frequently stressed, lacking sleep, and generally busy with school-related things, and thus nail polish falls low on my list of priorities. Second, due to my chosen field (conservation of works of art on paper), I am not able to wear nail polish during the school/work week. I hate to admit how much of an adjustment this has been for me. As much as I love what I am doing, I truly miss having painted nails on a regular basis. Third, because I am on a very limited budget, and will be moving back to America at some point, I am limiting my polish purchases. Despite all of that, I am hoping that I can see polishing my nails as a release after the school week, and hope to update at least semi-regularly.

Now, enough rambling. Here's what is currently on my nails:

Blue background with yellow hearts! Plus a stripey accent nail.

I managed to get my thumb to be semi-grid like.

They look pretty cute against my pineapple shirt.

I've acquired an iPhone since my last post and I am obsessed with Instagram like everyone else.

The colors I used: Miss Sporty 456 (Blue Bath, I believe) and Barry M Lemon Ice Cream.

So, there we go. My first post back. For those of you with a job that doesn't allow you to wear nail polish, how do you manage!?

Heads Up

Just a brief post to let you all know about some image stealing.

I was recently emailed by a lovely reader named Susana, who informed me one of my images has been used without permission on the site OPI Nailbar. Here is the page with one of my pictures of OPI's Clubbing Til Sunrise. And here is my original post showing off Clubbing Til Sunrise.

There are a variety of other bloggers' images stolen on this site, especially on the Classics page. I can only assume since they did not ask for my permission, they didn't ask for permission from anyone else.

I have been out of the nail blogging loop for months now, unfortunately, so I couldn't link the images to specific bloggers. If you see someone's nails you know, please pass it on.

I have contacted OPI Nailbar through their contact page, but am doubtful of how successful it will be. I had to use Google Translate to send a version in Spanish (I sent it in English as well).

To my knowledge, this is the first time I have come across an image of my own being stolen. I thought I had avoided that due to watermarking all my images, but perhaps I should have been more obvious with my watermarks. I didn't want them to be too distracting so you all could focus on the nail polish, not my blog's URL posted across the image. But it's certainly something to consider if/when I get back into blogging. (On that note, I am getting the itch to start blogging again, but all the polishes I brought with me to London I've already blogged about. Time to buy some new polishes!)

It's kind of a weird feeling knowing that someone has stolen something you spent time on. I've seen it multiple times in the nail blogging world, so in some ways I am not too surprised. That being said, it by no means makes it okay.

It makes me realize how important it is to let shady businesses like this know it is not okay to steal someone else's work for their own gain. I'm certainly going to by very mindful of any etailers I purchase nail polish from. If they use stolen images, I am not going to purchase from them (not that I have in the past), and I intend to contact them and let them know why. At the very least, I encourage you to not shop at OPI Nailbar.

...Okay, so this wasn't exactly a brief post! I hope you are all doing well! Like I said, I am really starting to miss nail blogging, so my love for nail polish might get the better of me, and you may see me around again in the not so distant future.

PS, I currently have American Apparel's Manila on. I am not even going to link you to my original post about it, as my pictures are even more embarrassing than this PhotoBooth one.

Edit: It seems that OPI Nailbar have taken down my images, as well as other bloggers' images. I never did receive and response from them.

It's Been A While...

I wanted to write a brief post to let you know that I am still alive. Truthfully, I have no idea what the future holds for this blog. In about an hour, I am headed to the airport, and tomorrow I will touch down in London, where I will begin my graduate studies for two years.

In the interest of remaining somewhat on topic, here are the (very) few nail polishes I am bringing along:

I am not ready to say goodbye to this blog (and my followers!) quite yet, so I will keep it open. I very well may start blogging again - you never know!

I did just start up a blog for all of my London adventures, if any of you have any interest in what I'll be up to. From Minneapolis to London is what its called.

Hope all is well with everyone!

ELF Fuchsia

So, first of all, I'm going to apologize for the quality of the upcoming photos. I don't have my DSLR with me, and out of laziness just used PhotoBooth. While they are not the highest quality, they are actually rather color accurate. Here's ELF's Fuchsia.

Fuchsia is obviously a fuchsia colored polish. Consistency-wise, it's one of those creme-jelly combos. It is opaque enough to need only two coats for coverage, but it dries nice and shiny. Applying it was strange, though. With the first coat, I noticed that the polish started separating, for lack of better word. It almost looked like how crackle polish works, only in one or two spots on the nail rather than all over. I'm not sure if it was just part of the polish, or it reacting to my base coat? It was weird to say the least. The second coat did cover up those spots, so it wasn't a total deal breaker.

It looks more purple in the bottle than it does on the nail, and at first I was disappointed, as I'm not a big pink person. But it immediately started growing on me, and I think it was just what I needed. I've been so stressed out with grad school stuff (damn you, FAFSA!), it was nice to put something cute and bright on my nails. It's definitely a summer-y color, which is welcomed.

And yes, I was hanging out in my parents' kitchen when I took these photos.