Carmine Combination Manicure

I have officially entered fall colors mode. While I don't believe in arbitrary rules about what colors are "appropriate" for a given time of year, I do find that the weather and other factors make me more inclined to wear certain colors than others. Fall is my favorite time of year in lots of ways, including the fact that I love all the rich colors usually associated with it, so I'm pretty inclined to want to wear them.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've taken on a second job, which is cutting into my nail art time. So, you should probably expect to see more accent nail mani's like this one. I find an accent nail is a quick way to add a little something extra when I don't have time for more elaborate decoration.

The primary color for this is China Glaze Mommy Kissing Santa, which is a rich, deep, red shimmer from last year's holiday collection. I would say its undertones are slightly cool, but but not by much. It applied easily; although it was very patchy and streaky after one coat, the second smoothed right out to a flawless finish. For my accent nail, I used Sinful Colors Rich in Heart. This is a dark brown (or maybe even black) base with tons of red shimmer. In the bottle it looks like the two are pretty separate, but on the nail, the overall effect looks like a very dark red. The shimmer is pretty much the same color as the shimmer in Mommy Kissing Santa, which made them a great pairing. This is one of those colors that I liked in the bottle, but love on the nail.

I know a lot of people like a very high contract accent nail, like an orange among blues, and I can appreciate that look as well, but there's just something satisfying to me about a nice monochromatic combination like this. What do you think? Do you like your accent nail to blend or pop?

Nail History - 1915 Edition

This is a small portion of a full page ad for the Davison-Nicholson Co., which billed itself as "Athens Busiest Store." The ad originally appeared in the October 15, 1915 edition of the Banner Sunday Morning. I really like the artwork.

Click to enlarge

The nail polish advertised here is still the powder or paste used to buff the nails and give them a shiny finish. The rice powder immediately following the nail polish may be a powder that was used under the free edge of the nail to make it appear whiter. I know that such a product was in use in this period, but I don't know what it was made of.

You can see the full page ad this is taken from here.

Nail Night: Moss Roses Manicure

First, some news. I've started a side job doing transcription, so while I've been trying to let my nails get a little longer, I had to cut them really short again. I'll be sporting these super shorties as long as I'm typing several hours a day. The new job may also slow down my posting a bit, since I'm there until a little late. I'm hoping that I can still post a few times a week. Now on with the nails!

It's been a while since my ladies and I got together for nail night; we've all been really busy lately. So, it was great to get together, do some catching up, and do some awesome nails.

I started with a base of China Glaze West Side Warrior, which is the polish I was most excited about from the Metro collection. It's a dark mossy green creme and is really rich and lush. The formula was a little runny, and I had to be careful not to let it flood my cuticles. On the other hand, it's very pigmented and was opaque in two coats. The sun peeked out from the clouds for a second while I was taking pictures, so the one below shows a little of the color in the sun.

On top, I stamped a rose and leaf pattern from a plate labeled B42 that I got on eBay using Sally Hansen Color Quick Gold Chrome. Based on my recent experience with the Turquoise Chrome from the same line, I was a little worried, but this one worked better. I was really happy with the final result. I liked that I used a really unusual base color, but still looked kind of understated and classy.

What about you? Have you picked up anything from the China Glaze Metro collection? Which is your favorite?

Fall Water Marble

I will admit to being intimidated by water marbling. I've loved the look since I first started reading nail blogs and became aware of it. It just seemed like it would be too difficult and messy. However, Colette of My Simple Little Pleasures helped me get over my fear with her fantastic series of tutorial videos. I started with her Blues and Purples water marble tutorial, which illustrates the basic technique and dipping several fingers at a time. She has some more advanced designs on her Youtube channel that are beautiful, but I'm not quite ready for those. So, without further ado, my first water marble.

For this pattern, I used one coat of OPI Bling Dynasty, a brownish gold shimmer as a base. Then I used Bling Dynasty, CND Cedar,  a really old reddish brown I have hanging around (hence the old fashioned bottle in the picture), and Revlon Hot for Chocolate, a dark brown creme, for the water marble.


There are some flaws in the pattern that resulted from my inexperience with the technique, but I loved it anyway. In these fall colors, it reminds me a little of the marbled endpapers in the front of old books. I also learned a few valuable lessons:

1. Use a cup deep enough that your fingers won't easily hit the bottom of the cup and mess up your tips.
2. Nail polish melts styrofoam. I can't say for sure that it impacted the outcome of this manicure, but I have my suspicions. Paper cups will be used in future.
3. Now I know why Collette has tape around her fingers in all her tutorials. I mean intellectually, I understood why before, but now I know. Along with paper cups, tape will be used in future.

Nail History - 1887 Edition

This is the first article in what I'm thinking about turning into an occasional series on the history of nail polish and nail care. I've done some research, and the thing I've found most interesting are the articles and ads from previous periods. To start off, I bring you the oldest reference I could find to nail care in the archives of my local paper.

This is an excerpt from the March 15, 1887 edition of the Weekly Banner-Examiner article "The Finger Nails: How Ladies May Keep Their Hands in Good Condition."

The polishing they mention seems to have involved just buffing the nails with a soft cloth covered buffer, and occasionally using a mildly abrasive paste or powder to make the nails smooth and slightly shiny (though a high gloss was apparently considered in poor taste). The full article, which you can read here, also discusses how to properly wash your hands and wearing gloves at night. I also found it interesting that they mention getting a manicure to "put your nails in order at first." I assume this means a professional manicure, and I'm curious to know when professional manicures became available and where they were given (hair salons? somewhere else?).

So, what do you think? Is this interesting? Would you like to see more like it?

Mystical Peacock Manicure

The theme of today's manicure was inspired by the name of the base polish, Cover Girl Nail Slicks Mystic Peacock.

Mystic Peacock is a dark teal that leans more green than blue with slightly lighter, subtle shimmer. This color is beautiful and not like anything else in my stash. Unfortunately, the application wasn't quite as perfect. It's quite thin and runny, and I had to use very thin coats to prevent it from flooding my cuticles. It's pigmented enough that it seemed opaque after two coats, but there were some bald patches that showed up at certain angles. So, I think I'll use three next time.

I stamped the peacock design from Bundle Monster plate BM15 with Sally Hansen Color Quick Turquoise Chrome on top. This is the second time that I've used this polish for stamping, and it didn't work as well as the first time. It comes in a pen shaped applicator, and the bristles on the brush were stiff despite my having stored it with the cap on. This made it harder to spread the polish on the plate, but the image of the whole peacock still stamped beautifully on my thumb. I decided to add just a little of the tail to each finger as an accent, which was harder than I thought it would be. The stamps aren't very crisp, but that can be attributed to operator error. The final look was still nice at a normal viewing distance.

I found Mystic Peacock at my local Dollar Tree for $1, so you'll probably have to be lucky to get hold of it (but if you do, it'll be cheap)!

Scintillating Purple Mani

I'm on my way out the door to Nail Night, but first, a quick post. I've seen a lot of example of layering glitters on blogs, so I decided to try it for myself in this manicure.

The glitter I chose for the first layer is Finger Paints Purple Palette, a light purple, very sheer jelly base packed with small medium purple glitter particles mixed with some small silver glitter. This applied very easily, sliding on smoothly and not running at all. Given the sparkle, it wasn't easy to see through after two coats. I think it would be basically opaque at three coats due to the density of the glitter.

On top of Purple Palette, I added one coat of ELF Golden Goddess, which has a clear base with small gold glitter and larger gold holo hex glitter. The layering made the purple of Purple Palette look a bit lighter and added the extra bling of larger particles and a flash of holo. I finished with two coats of Sally Hansen Quick Dry Top Coat, which is thicker than Out the Door. After two coats, this was totally smooth. As you'd expect all this was pretty hard to remove.

This combo was SUPER blingy and caught tons of light. However, Purple Palette is pretty sparkly on its own. Overall, I think Golden Goddess would be put to better use over a nice creme or subtle shimmer. Used that way, I think it would look great as part of a holiday manicure.