Black and neon splatters

I saw a similar design in a nail design book as well as in Seoul Diva's blog and decided I wanted nails like that too! I couldn't for the life of me "splatter" paint on my nails because it was way too thick, and when I tried to drip the nail polish from high up, it'd either miss my nail or just blob on, so I decided to put dots on my nails and dragged the blobs of pink and orange with the edge of a peice of paper...it didn't take too long and I LOVE how they turned out! They didn't look as nice as Seoul Diva's though haha but I'm happy with the first attempt =)

Water Marbling for the 1st time!!

So I decided to try out water marbeling for the first time for fun...man...i shoulda definitely wrapped tape around my fingers before I did it because clean-up took me about 2 hrs to clean all the nail polish off...my friend had suggested I just wash my hands with soap and water but I figured, what would a guy know?!? Turns out I shoulda listened to him because when i used soap and water, the nail polish fell off in layers haha...anyway here they are:

By the way, click on the pics to enlarge em so you can really see the colors more accurately

Rococo - gold leaf topcoat

I was at bloomingdales and saw this awesome topcoat that has 24ct gold leaf in it and just HAD to buy it...it was a bit pricey at $35, but it was so unique I figured it was worth it

the clear part of it gave my nail polish a really glossy nice topocoat, and the gold flakes look AMAZING! esp on the dark colored base...the next color i'm gonna be trying it on is a nice greyish-creme, i figure it'll look good with the gold flakes

Deborah Lippmann Wicked Game + Don't Call Me Baby

So I'd originally gone to Nordstrom today to pick up Marquee Moon and to check if they'd by any chance gotten Happy Birthday...no luck =( But while I was there, I noticed Wicked Game and Don't Call Me Baby. Actually...my guy friend noticed the two since he thoguht Wicked Game looked unique and mentioned Don't Call Me Baby must be a really nice color since it was almost all used up in the sample bottle.

Anyway...so I tried on Wicked Game and was honestly quite suprised and pleased. I generally like cremes, but this color made my nail look like a pearl! I tried some other colors on my nails and kept looking back at Don't Call Me Baby, and decided to paint the tip of my thumb (which already had Wicked Game painted on it) with Don't Call Me Baby. Since DCMB is so sheer, it went right over Wicked Game and made it look like a gradiation. I've been OBSESSED w/ gradiation, and since the pink in DCMB blended in so perfectly w/ the lilacish pink of Wicked Game, it made my nail look AWESOME!

I apologize for the picture spam but I just wanted to get diff pics of how Wicked Game changes colors under different angles/lighting...its SUCH a gorgeous color! Notice how it changes between green/gold/purplish/pinkish?

Barielle Shades - June Bug

So I've been wanting to try this shade out for so long, but there's been so many new nail polishes that just keep comin out that I kept pushing it back...I finally got to try it out since I bought it over a month ago and i LOVE this color! I love the pink sparkles in it as it makes it really unique, but it's just such a unique color in general. In the bottle, it resembles Barielle U Concrete Me, which is a slate grey, so I was actually a little dissapointed when I received June Bug, thinking that the color would be more grey. But oncee it's on the nails, the blueish turqoise shimmer makes the whole color look greyish tuqoiseish...it's sucha unique color!!!

I put a comparison pic between June Bug and U Concrete Me just to show how in the bottle it looks greyish, but on the nail it looks fantastic and shimmery. You can see in the last pic how much more vibrant it is on the nail than in the bottle.

Studded nails with American Apparel Passport Blue

So after a week of bright, colorful nails, I wanted something edgier so I decided to put little metal balls and rhinestones on top of American Apparel Passport Blue. I wanted to go for a studded, punky look.

This was my first time using these little balls and they were a lot more difficult to work with than I had imagined. I also didn't add a top coat on them initially, and when I woke up the next morning I had about 2 little metal balls left so I ended up redoing them and layering like 3 coats of topcoat to make sure I wouldn't have to redo them again. If you enlarge the pics, you can see they heavy coat of topcoat I put over them to make sure the suckers aren't going anywhere.

!st & 2nd pic: Right and Left hand. They're slightly different...

Gradiants

So after 2 days of the nails that I last posted, I got tired of them and decided to play with different gradiant options on them before I was gonna remove em.

I used one of those brushes that u put eyeshadow on with, and just dabbed the gradiant color onto the tips of my nails...suprisingly they turned out pretty nice in my opinion. I noticed the closer the two gradiant colors are, the more they blend well. However, they don't stand out as much as opposite colors.

China Glaze Up & Away + Essie Candy Apple

So I went out and bought a couple bottles from China Glaze Up & Away collection and was so excited about wearing all the new colors I'd bought that I decided to paint each nail a different color.

I chose light, creamy, pastrel colors to make my nails match/look more coherent and used: Something Sweet - a pale pink. Happy Go Lucky - a bright, taxi yellow. Peachy Keen - a bright, cream peach color; I also decided to throw Essie Mint Candy Apple into the mix.

I put a rhinestone on each nail and repeated Peachy Keen twice on my nails just so they would look more coherent than just a random splashing of different colors.
I got lots of compliments on em and they looked really cute and stood out with a white tshirt.

Party Toes

I was up at 5am from jetlag, and decided I wanted my toes to look funky and glittery. I didn't have any one nail polish I particularly wanted on my toes so I decided to paint them with Essie Midnight Cami and topping it off with Sally Hansen Hard as nails Rockstar Pink which is a pink glitter that also has bits of red, blue, and gold glitter. I figured the dark blue of Midnight Cami would serve as a good base for the pink glitter and also enhance the bits of blue glitter in Rockstar Pink.



























Overall I really love the color. The picture doesn't do it justice! It's sparkly, glittery, pink/purple/blue and it matches all my flipflops! I've noticed this color is fantastic to match with everything. It's like a glitzed up, unboring black that goes with everything!

Superbowl Colts nails

I decided it would be fun to paint my nails for the Superbowl and figured I'd go with the colts since they had funner colors to work with.

My idea for my nails was to have several different designs, but have the recurring theme of blue and white (I ended up doing lots of blue+silver though).
I ended up with three nail designs I really liked, a silver to blue gradiation, a blue and silver stripe, and a cool color that I made layering two existing colors I had.

My fave nail would be the silver to blue gradiation. For this nail I first painted it with a silver base (Sally Hansen hard as nails Celeb City). I then painted one coat of China Glaze Dorothy Who? Then I painted the tips of my nails with another layer of Dorothy Who? This color is great for building up a gradiation since it's sheer but builds up color intensity with every coat. I then added some silver glitter with a fine brush just at the tips of my nail bed.

My second fave nail was a color I mixed by painting one coat of Essie Midnight Cami and topping it with a coat of China Glaze Dorothy Who? and adding a rhinestone on top of it.

My third nail was a blue and silver striped nail. I used Essie Midnight Cami and a thinbrushed silver glitter to paint the stripes. I thought this nail was ok and nothing out of the ordinary.