Dotted Christmas Trees

As I said in my last post, my original Christmas nails chipped before Christmas :( Of course, I couldn't have chipped nails for the holiday, so I did some new nail art.

I'd seen some dotted Christmas trees on some other blogs, and I loved the look of them. So I tried my own!

I started with a base of ORLY Au Champagne, a white with a soft shimmer. I used various size of dotting tools and some green polishes to make triangle shapes on each nail. The greens I used were China Glaze Glittering Garland, China Glaze Running in Circles, and Sinful Colors Exotic Green. I added some red "ornaments" using China Glaze Hey Sailor. Then I topped each tree with a dot of Sinful Colors Pull Over for a star.

I think this design is easy enough for nail art beginners to do if they're looking for a holiday look, but it's still really cool! I love the abstractness. It feels artsy :)

HARE Holiday Hoopla: Christmas Trees

Merry (belated) Christmas to all of my readers who celebrate! I'm so sad that Christmas is over already, but I'm still going to my grandparents' house on Sunday for some more holiday celebrations :) My Christmas was actually rather quiet, but still nice.

I have some holiday nails to show to you today, featuring one of HARE's limited edition holiday polishes. I did these the Saturday before Christmas; I had hoped that they would last until Tuesday, but they wound up chipping the very next day! No bueno.

Even though I only wound up wearing them for two days, I love how these nails came out! I started out with a base of China Glaze Holly-Day, a forest green creme that covered in one coat. Then I added just one coat of HARE's Holiday Hoopla, a limited edition holiday polish and their first glitter topcoat.

Holiday Hoopla is a mix of red, pink, and gold glitters in a clear base. There are various sizes of hexes and squares, and some nice shimmer in there as well. As usual for HARE, it's a very complex, dense glitter. It's really lovely; I think the edition of pink really helps make this a unique holiday glitter.

For the accent nail, I started with two coats of OPI Goldeneye. I waited for that to dry, then I used tape to section off a triangle section. I painted the triangle first with Holly-Day, then a coat of Lynnderella New Year's Eve Eve for "ornaments". Then I added a silver star-shaped rhinestone that I got from the Born Pretty online store to top the tree. And voila: Christmas trees! I think the tree is super cute.

I really loved how these nails came out! Christmas nails are so fun. I'm excited about this new HARE polish as well, since it's their first glitter topper. Holiday Hoopla is limited edition, but it's still available on Llarowe at the time of writing! Get it while you can.

Happy holidays, everyone :)

Snowman Nails

As of yesterday, I am officially on winter break! I have lots of unpacking to do, but I'm home :) In honor of the occasion, I have some wintery nail art.

Isn't the snowman cute? I decided to just do an accent nail, and I made the other nails look like snowy skies. For those, I started with a base of China Glaze Frostbite. Then I used a dotting tool and ORLY Au Champagne to make some snowflakes, and I topped that off with a coat of China Glaze Snow Globe.

For the snowman nail, I again started with a base of China Glaze Frostbite. I used ORLY Au Champagne and a dotting tool to make two circles for his body and head. I used a small striping brush and China Glaze Chocodisiac for his arms, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed for his nose, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out and China Glaze Hey Sailor for his hat. The eyes, mouth, and buttons were also done with a dotting tool. I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust for some sparkle!

I'm totally pleased with how these came out. They're wintery, festive, and fun!

Pokeball Nail Art!

Happy Saturday! I keep forgetting what day of the week it is. I find it hard to remember without the routine of classes. Not that I'm complaining :) Anyway, today I have some fun nail art for you. Pokeballs!

Growing up, Pokemon was one of my favorite things. I had a ton of action figures, trading cards, videogames; I even woke up early on Saturdays to watch the cartoons! These days, I'm still into Pokemon, despite being a junior in college. I recently bought the latest game for my Nintendo DS :D Always embrace your inner child.

To make my Pokeball nails, I started with a white base - two coats of China Glaze White on White. Then I painted the top half of my nails red using China Glaze Hey Sailor. I freehanded it since the lines don't have to be super clean; they get covered up anyway. Next, I took a striping brush and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out and painted lines where the red and white met. Then I used a dotting tool to make a big black dot, and then a smaller dotting tool to make the smaller white dots inside. And that's it! Fairly simple, but I think it's totally awesome.

Pokeball nails are a great way to celebrate your inner child. I got lots of compliments on them too. Even from strangers! I'm sure I'll do these nails again - I just love them so much.

Gotta catch 'em all!

Nude and Maroon

Hello all! Today I have some nail art for you. I really love the way this came out.

I started with two coats of Kalahari Kiss by China Glaze, a nude beige creme. After that dried, I taped off the top half of my nails and painted on a coat of Purr-fect Plum, also by China Glaze. Then I took a dotting tool and made some Purr-fect Plum dots on the nude half of the nail. Simple but very pretty.

I really like this design...I'm sure I'll be repeating it!

Enchanted Polish: Magical Mystery Tour + Glitter

Happy Friday! Today was my last day of classes for the semester. Next week starts finals, and then I go home :)

Today, I have an Enchanted Polish for you. It's from the Beatles Collection, which I had to have as soon as I saw. Beautiful holo duochromes named after one of my favorite bands' songs? Yes please! This one is called Magical Mystery Tour. I also added some glitter to the tips, but I'll get to that soon.

Magical Mystery Tour is a fabulous duochrome with scattered holo - it shifts from warm and cool purple to blue to an almost gold. I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out because I wanted to conserve polish. Then I added just one coat of MMT. I wanted to add a little more sparkle, so I sponged some glitter on the tips. It's called Sapphire Masquerade by Maybelline Color Show. The name is pretty odd, since the glitter is purple and pink. Pretty nonetheless.

It looks so stunning in the bottle! I couldn't stop moving my fingers around to look at all of the colors.

It looks cool purple here.

This is the warm purple.

You can see the blue in the center of my nails here.

You can see a little of the gold in this picture.

Anyway, I think Enchanted Polish did a fabulous job on these polishes! You can purchase Enchanted Polish from Llarowe.

Zombies and Elvis' Pink Cadillac

Sometimes one color just isn't enough. Today I went for two - Zombies! by Pirate Polish and Elvis' Pink Cadillac by Pretty & Polished.

I layered them to conserve polish. I started with bases of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet and Bubblegum Pink.

Elvis' Pink Cadillic is a pale pink creme/jelly with matte black hexes in various sizes. The glitter was denser in this than in Zombies. I used two coats, and the formula was easy to work with.

Zombies is basically a mint version of Elvis' Pink Cadillac, which is why I chose to pair them. It did have less tiny hexes. I used two-three coats, depending on how much glitter came out on each finger.

Pirate Polish is available on their Etsy store, and Pretty & Polished (formerly on Etsy) can now be found in their own website.

Flakey Patchwork Mani

I just got back from Student Health Services - I accidentally sliced open a knuckle (and on my photographing hand too)! Luckily, no stitches are required. I just have to try not to bend it too much. I just painted my nails yesterday, so hopefully it heals up a bit before my next manicure. It'll be hard to take pictures without bending my finger!

Anyway, today I have some nail art for you! I bought a bunch of Sinful Colors before I came back to school, but I never got around to trying them. So I did a patchwork mani to test some out.

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Winterberry, a dusty purple. Very pretty! Then I freehanded a thick striped of Sinful Colors Mint Apple and let that dry. I did a final stripe of Sinful Colors Innocent, which was really thick and goopy :( I decided that wasn't enough, so I added a coat of Finger Paints Flecked, which is a clear base with blue-green flakies.

I think the thickness of Innocent made it a little messy, but it's still came out okay!

Lynnderella: Inner Space

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did - but now it's back to school for the last few weeks of classes (and finals) :(

I currently only own a few Lynnderella polishes. Her polishes are quite pretty, but they're much too expensive (and I'm not a fan of all of the controversy, either). I decided that the ones I bought should be the most versatile type possible: glitter topcoats. My very first Lynnderella is called Inner Space. And man, does she nail it.

Inner Space is about a million different kinds of glitter in a clear base. There's hex, circles, bars, squares, even some stars!

This was just one coat of Inner Space over three coats of Rose Among Thorns by China Glaze (which looks pinker in real life). Lynnderellas are known for being very glitter dense, and I'm definitely sold. Really it's a shame these are so hard to come by (and so expensive) - the formula was perfect, and it's so pretty!

I have to say, I'm really glad I picked up this polish. It's so interesting, and it does remind me of space! It's especially appropriate since I'm actually taking Intro to Astronomy this semester :)

Lynderella polishes can be found through her eBay store, but I bought mine from another eBay seller.

Hare Polish: Afterglow

Happy Thanksgiving Break! I'm all done with class until Monday. I get to go home tomorrow morning :) Yay!

Today I have another fabulous Hare Polish: Afterglow.

Afterglow is a mix of purple and orange hex glitters of various sizes suspended in a navy blue base.

To conserve polish, I layered Afterglow over Fashionista by Revlon, a navy creme that covered perfectly in just one coat! I used two coats of Afterglow for this mani. As usual, the formula was excellent.

Hare Polish is available through her Etsy store or from Llarowe.

Ninja Polish/Nail-Venturous: Floam (Bonus Accent Nail Art!)

TGIF! I've had a particularly long week, so here's to a great weekend :)

Today, I have Floam by Ninja Polish (formerly by Nail-venturous).

Floam is a mix of tiny, matte lime green and turquoise glitters suspended in a clear base. Which makes it pretty much perfect in my eyes - two of my favorite colors!

I started with a base of Turned Up Turquoise by China Glaze (I've actually put quite a dent in this polish). Then I layered on two coats of Floam. I decided I wanted to do a little bit of nail art as well, so I skipped the Floam on my ring finger. When applying a thick polish like Floam, give it some time to dry between coats so you don't wind up messing up the previous layers. I didn't have any problems with application; I think the formula was pretty good!

As for the accent nail, I let Turned Up Turquoise dry, then used triangles of tape to block off the top. I added a layer of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out and let that dry. Then I took more tape triangles and blocked off the turquoise and most of the black, and used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy for the last layer. I used some Seche Vite to smooth everything out!

I'm really happy with this polish - it's so fun!

You can buy Floam directly from Ninja Polish. They have other colors of Floam; collect them all :)