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.
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!?
For a brief period of time, I considered changing around the style of this blog. I was going to do my manicures based on the book I was reading. I quickly realized that wouldn't work out well, as my reading and nail polishing paces are different. Plus, I read a lot of embarrassing young adult books, and I don't know that I want you to know about all of those! At any rate, I decided doing that every once in a while would be fun. Here's the first one, based on Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus.
The Night Circus is about a circus which only occurs, obviously, at night, and the only colors at the circus are black and white. There are fans of the circus who follow it around, and they wear black and white, with a red accessory so they can recognize one another. This color scheme was the inspiration.
I started out with a couple coats of Man Glaze's Mayo, and then added Man Glaze's Matte is Murder for the stripes. I chose these rather than cremes because I liked the added shimmer. The red was Tate by Nails Inc. I think these turned out pretty cute. But I have to say, I am so envious of those of you who can paint an even stripe.
There's much more to The Night Circus than I told, so if you haven't read it, I highly suggest you do so. It's so good! I really like circus themed things, particularly from the past, so I was really into all the imagery in the book. I also was a fan of Water for Elephants (not the movie though, that was awful). Actually, the first thing I remember wanting to be when I grew up was a tight rope walker in the circus. Have you read either of those books? Are you a circus fan?
I'm up to day 19 of The Challenge, and that means galaxies!
All of the polishes I used: Street Wear Mmoody, 17 Glitter Top Coat, Love & Beauty Charcoal, China Glaze Cheers to You, ManGlaze Mayo, Orly Galaxy Girl, China Glaze White Cap, Love & Beauty Light Green, and Essense Choose Me! Phew!
I started out with two coats of Charcoal by Love & Beauty. If I was wearing this alone, I would have done three because there are some bald spots. Charcoal is, as you can see, a black base with silver micro-glitter. Application was smooth, and it dried decently fast. It does dry to a gritty texture, so top coat is a must. My biggest issue with these Love & Beauty polishes are their names. Charcoal? Really? Charcoal is just plain black! Graphite would have been slightly more appropriate, as that actually has somewhat of a sheen to it. Come on Love & Beauty, put more than two seconds of thought into your nail polish names!
And there's the final product! They are not totally perfect, but I think they look pretty nice. The shooting star on my index finger is a bit too prominent, but I adore the one on my ring finger. Doing these galaxy nails was so fun, and far less time consuming than you'd think (especially considering the amount of polishes that go into creating this look). My coworkers liked 'em, and they could tell what I was going for. And if the general public can tell these are space-based, then I'd call it a success. And I do have to say, a camera can not really pick up the beauty of these bad boys. Do some for yourself and see what I mean!
I was too lazy to take process photos, but I'll break it down into steps:
1. Paint base color. Ideally something dark and shimmery.
2. Sponge on white in cloud-like manner.
3. Add an iridescent color on top of the white to tone it down. I used Mmoody, Choose Me!, and Light Green for this, alternating on each nail.
4. Add a darker iridescent color to parts of the "clouds" that are too bright. This is where Galaxy Girl came in handy.
5. Add shooting stars with a silver or a glitter or a silvery glitter.
6. Use more white to add stars. It's pretty cute if you add some twinkling stars to the mix.
7. Cover said stars with a glitter to tone them down. Cue White Cap.
8. Add as many glitter polishes as you can find. This is where I used two coats of 17's Glitter Top Coat. I wish I had Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure (or similar polish) because the flakies add some great dimension.
9. Add some top coat and tada! The universe has exploded on your nails.
If, like me, you are a visual person, here are the tutorials I followed when doing my galaxy nails: Here Comes The Sun's video tutorial, and Rebecca's photo tutorial.
With that, I am off to "space out" (heh!) to It's Always Sunny and fall asleep!
Day 16 of The Challenge is supposed to be tribal print, but I have some qualms about it. I feel a bit odd doing a print that is supposed to be "tribal" without knowing anything about the pattern itself, or the tribe it comes from. I see it posted a lot as Aztec nails, but do you know anything about the Aztecs? Do you know what that particular patterns means? Like, if the stripes are red, does that mean it was used in times of war? What about if the stripes are yellow? Time to eat bananas? I'm not picking on anyone whose done "tribal" print nails, I just don't feel okay doing it. If you want to learn a bit more about cultural appropriate/using culture(s) to be trendy, the tumblr My Culture is Not a Trend is a great starting point. It focuses a lot the recent hipster trend of white people putting on a war bonnet and some face paint and being all "look at me I'm an Indian lol," but I think it still pertains to stuff like this.
At any rate, I have modified the Challenge. Since Lindsay at Nailtopia sent me some nail tattoos, I decided to try those bad boys out!
I started with two coats of Concrete Mixer by Models Own. This is a really great medium grey creme, that applied pretty smoothly. It dried really shiny, even before adding top coat. I am loving this color. A great fall/winter shade. It looks a little brown in a couple of my photos, but it is a true grey. The second and fourth images are the most color accurate.
I am in love with the 50s/60s designs of these nail tattoos! So cute! I want wallpaper of these graphics. The nail tattoos applied just like temporary tattoos. Cut the design off the sheet, stick it on, press a wet cloth to it for a bit, and tada! you have some cute designs on your nails. The easiest nail art ever. The hardest part is trying to get them to be center, but I obviously wasn't terribly concerned about that. I can't wait to try more.
What do you think about the nail tattoos?
No doubt you've all heard about Steve Jobs's passing. What are your thoughts? I must say I am more saddened by it than I would have thought. Without giving too much away, I work at a place that I guess you could say was instrumental in making Apple products successful, so I feel more attached to him than I did before I worked there. Do you own any Apple products? What was your first? In the mid-90s, my family bought a Performa, and after that we bought an iMac G4 (which was like the coolest thing ever at the time). In school we had the candy colored iMacs, and we all fought over what color to use. The first computer I bought on my own was a MacBook Pro.
And speaking of work, I have to leave for it in a few. Happy Friday, everyone!
First, I have some good news. Well, good for me anyway. I won the 400 follower giveaway over at The Phalanges Files! How awesome! I have never won a giveaway before, and I am beyond excited. I can't wait to try out all the goodies.
I'm halfway through the 31 Day Challenge! Number 15 is delicate print. Uhhh what does that even mean?! I had a tough time with this one. I spent a lot of time pouring over blogs and searching the nail art tag on Tumblr. Eventually I stumbled across this photo, and thought, Well I guess that kinda looks delicate?
First I applied a couple coats of Peony by Love & Beauty. Under the fluorescent lights of Forever 21, this looked like a shimmery champagne, which I thought was pretty chic. As it turns out, it leans way more pink than I anticipated. I still like it though, so I guess it turned out okay. Application was a pain. It's kinda thick, and hard to control. It also bubbled a lot. The second photo is soft, I know, but I think it shows the shimmery quality of it nicely.
I used OPI's Thanks So Muchness! as the secondary color for this. Mad as a Hatter and Absolutely Alice grabbed all the attention from the Alice collection (rightfully so), but I think the reds of the collection are gorgeous! This is a really lovely shimmery red, that is a one coat-er! I used hole reinforcements to create the curve for the larger half moon look. The polka dots are Mayo by Man Glaze, and the gold studs were sent to me from Nicole at Top to Toe.
This look didn't turn out perfectly, but I'm pretty pleased with it. One thing I enjoy about this challenge is that I force myself to do things I normally wouldn't. I would have never created a look like this, without the prompt of the challenge. It's not a very "me" look, but it is nice to break away from routine and challenge myself. I'm not sure that I'd ever look at a mani like this and think, Oh look how delicate that looks! But at least it's cute?
I do want to apologize for posting photos with my cuticles in such horrid condition! This is the worst they've looked in a while. I promise I just globbed moisturizer on, so hopefully they'll be looking better shortly.
I'm on day 14 of The Challenge, which is floral print. I've always thought the vintage flower print that has become popular is so cute, and that is what I tried today! I based my nails on this YouTube tutorial.
For the base color, I used OPI's Fiercely Fiona. As we all know, this is from the Shrek collection. This is a yellow that leans more to the green side. Maybe it would be more apparent compared to a true yellow, but on me, this just looks like a normal yellow. Which is sorta disappointing, because it looks so unique when the green is more visible. As you can imagine, application was a pain in the ass. There was no way I was gonna get away with anything less than three coats for this pastel yellow.
These are the three polishes I used for the flowers: Zoya Shawn, Revlon Peachy, and Omega Labs Nail Art Striper Brush #175 (sent to my by Nail de Royale).
It took me a couple nails to get the hang of the striper brush, but I think they turned out pretty decent for my first try. It's hard to not dissect the different parts of creating this look so up close - ah, the drawbacks of having a nail blog - so squint and back away from your monitors, people! Don't they look like cute little roses now? They reminded me of this dress I own:
Nothin' quite like a dorky PhotoBooth image to really get the point across.
I do want to mention that I used my Point & Shoot for this, not my usual DSLR (I forgot to charge the batteries after I used it last). I like the macro setting on the P&S, but the quality is clearly inferior. Plus, it kinda distorts the shape of my fingers and makes them look... well, like someone else's fingers. And it made Peachy look more orange than it is. I'll be back to the DSLR next post, promise.
While painting these vintage-y nails last night, I watched The Notebook for the first time. How embarrassing. I have been avoiding it all these years. My sister really loves it, and if she loves it, there's a 98% chance I'm gonna hate it. I mean, I love my sister, but we have very different tastes. She reads Nicholas Sparks (hence her love for the movie) and Jodi Picoult, and I read Kurt Vonnegut and Sylvia Plath. I remember talking to her once about Kurt Cobain, and she was all, WHO?! And I'm like, you know, dude from Nirvana, married Courtney, killed himself? She stares at my blankly. I mean, this girl doesn't even know who Nirvana is! How has she gone this long and never heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit"!?!?!? I'm digressing. The point is, throughout the movie I was doing two things. One, I frequently shouted, "THIS IS SO UNREALISTIC!" And the second thing I did was cry. A lot. Like, not just some tears rolling down the face, like full on ugly cry sobbing. I gave myself a headache. I can't believe it sucked me in like that! I mean, I still think it was pretty stupid, but I cried throughout like half of the movie. Ugh! In my defense, I only watched it because I will watch Ryan Gosling do anything. A five hour movie of him making macaroni and cheese in slow motion? Count me in! Have you guys seen The Notebook? What's your take? Did you cry as much as I did?
It's been like a week since I've posted! I'm sorry. I've just been so into the nail art lately, that I've been wearing it longer than usual.
Day 13 of the 31 Day Challenge is animal print. I chose leopard print. I can't even put into words how much I love leopard print. I love wearing a leopard print blouse with a pencil skirt. I have a leopard print fleece blanket that I love snuggling up with in the winter. If it has leopard print on it, I want it. But, I've never done a leopard print mani before. I was always so intimidated by them. As it turns out, they're much faster, and much easier then I expected. The nice thing is, even if you don't have a steady hand, it can still turn out nicely.
The base color I used is Barefoot by Bonita. This is a really lovely nude color. The first coat is pretty transparent, but it evens out really nicely with the second. It's also really shiny - it reminded me of a jelly because of the shine. Maybe it's one of those creme-jellies. At any rate, it applies really smoothly, and I loved this color against my skintone.
You guys, I'm so happy with how these turned out! For the spots, I used Cappuchino by Santee and NYC's Black Lace Creme. Basically I just painted random blobs, and outlined those blobs in black. Like I said, I was so pleased with how easy it was. My BFF said they looked like printed nail polish strips, not something hand painted, so that made me happy. I'm more into natural leopard print colors, but I can't wait to play around with other colors on my nails. What's your favorite color combo for leopard print?
Recently, I ordered a plethora of things online to send to Nicole in an upcoming swap. I also got a few things for myself, because I have no self control.
I ordered a bunch of mini candles from B&BW. 3 for $5!
Sorry for the blurry photo. New B&BW scent, Kleencolor Winter Wonderland, NYX Carnical, Kleancolor Chunky Black Holo.
Today has been one of those days where anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. Murphy's Law at it's finest, folks.
It started when I woke up, and went to the Ulta website to partake in the fabulous Butter London buy one get one free deal. By nine o'clock this morning, they were completely sold out! Like, not a damn nail polish available. Not even a couple lonely reds. NOTHING. Okay, fine, probably better for my wallet - I moved on.
Then, since a friend's birthday is coming up, I decide to make cupcakes. I have one box of cake mix left, which had expired about a year ago. I figure, you know, it's just powder, no biggie. So I start mixing ingredients. It calls for three eggs. I crack the first egg, and as it's falling into the bowl, I notice the egg is bad. I've never had this happen before, but I could tell it was not like a normal egg. It was a weird consistency, and it smelled BAD. So that batch goes in the garbage. I'm feeling okay, because I can just make cake batter from scratch! That seemed to go well, but the cupcakes NEVER BAKED. Like, I had them in the oven for over a half hour, and they just baked halfway, and then got lazy and didn't want to bake anymore. UGH. No cupcakes for my friend. And no cupcakes for me. Lots of cupcake batter for the trash can.
Now we move on to the nail polish related shit. It's Day 12 of The Challenge, and that means stripes! I do a Google search for some inspiration (see below), put some Ghost Hunters on, and get to work. I decide to use a white base, and blue stripes. Well, my white has officially gone to shit. It needed three coats, which is pretty typical for whites, but it just would not dry. I think I smudged half of my nails! Then I added the stripes, which just did not go well. I quickly took it off. Then I decide to go with a soft pink instead of the shit-tacular white. And things went slightly better.
The pink I chose is the cleverly named Pastel Pink from Models Own, sent to me by Nicole at Top to Toe. This polish actually applies really well for a pastel. It's on the thicker side, but not oh my god so thick! It just takes two coats, and then it's nice and smooth! It's so cute! I wouldn't typically consider myself a pastel pink kinda gal, but there's something I love about this color against my skin.
After the pink base, I added blue stripes. I chose Ski Teal We Drop from OPI, one of my favorite polishes! It's not quite as stark of a contrast as it was against the white, but it still works. I then added cute heart decals, also sent by Nicole. You can see that the color smeared off the hearts because of the top coat. Bit of a bummer, but not as noticeable in real life. I do wish I had a steadier hand, but I suppose if I did stuff like this on a regular basis, I would. I did have to do a couple nails over - Murphy at it again! - but overall I'm pretty happy.
This is what I based my mani on. Pretty cute, right! Do you think those are striper decals, or does this person just have an insanely steady hand?! Or maybe they're those nail polish strips or whatever?
I was going to end this post with a video from the Brendan Leonard Show (which I'm sure none of you remember) about Murphys Law, but I couldn't find that. So, here's a different one!
