Pink Ombre Mani

I've seen lots of examples of ombre nails over the last year or so, but it didn't seem like I had enough polishes in similar colors to do it. My best possibilities seemed likely to be blue or purple, since I have the most polishes in those colors, but the shades are all over the place. I was surprised to find, that I had a perfect line up of pinks, even though I don't wear pink nearly as often.

From pinky to thumb (lightest to darkest), these are Revlon Scented Cotton Candy, NYC Wall Street, Color Club Gum Yum, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Presto Pink, and Wet 'n' Wild Lavender Pearlescent.

I think I probably should have reversed the colors on my middle and ring fingers, but Gum Yum is so much brighter that it sort of reads as darker than it is. In fact, it was so much brighter than the others that I put a thin coat of the much sheerer Wall Street over it to tone things down a little.

Have you tried this? What colors do you have enough of to try it?

Wet N Wild Diamond in the Rough

Today, I just have a quick, basic mani to show you.

Meet Wet N Wild Diamond in the Rough. These indoor pictures, don't quite do it justice; it is SUPER sparkly in person. It's very pretty, especially for the economy price tag.

Geek Nails: Batman Edition

Pretty much since I started getting really into nail stamping I've been craving a few of the Chez Delaney series D plates. One of my most coveted was plate D25, which has Batman and Dharma Initiative logos. Well, I finally got it for Christmas, and it doesn't disappoint.

The base color here is three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow topped with two coats of Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Night Glow. I stamped the bat symbol on top with KleanColor Black. While the glow wasn't super bright, this did have the desired effect of glowing all around the logo, which was blocked out like the Bat Signal.

Coming soon: Lost themed Dharma Initiative logo nails.

Geek Nails: Drusilla Edition

Today's nails were inspired by the villainous Drusilla of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's not necessarily my favorite character on the show, but she does have the best nails. So, I decided to try to replicate on of her two main looks.

Since my tip color, Wet N Wild Smooch, is the lighter color,  I started with two coats of it. Then, I used French manicure guides to block the portion I wanted to leave cream and covered the rest of the nail with Nyx Girls Blach Plum. The only problem I had with either polish was the Smooch took forever to dry, but since I can't even remember when I got it, I assume that's because it's so old.

And here's a picture that shows the look I was going for:

Purple Glitter Mani

Sadly, today's mani is not one of my favorites, so let's just get on with it, shall we?

The primary color in this mani is Confetti Happy Birthday!, which has a purple jelly base with pink micro-glitter. This polish applied easily, but is lightly pigmented, so even after three coats, it's a little patchy. Also, on the nail, the glitter doesn't really appear pink, but does add a nice shine.

For my accent nail, I used one coat of Happy Birthday!, topped with two coats of Wet 'n' Wild Back Alley Deals. This polish has a sheer purple base with small purple glitter and larger fuchsia hex glitter. I had to be careful not to drag the hexes off my nail during application, but otherwise it went on easily.

This mani chipped really quickly, and I think I would have been happier wearing Back Alley Deals alone. Also, I got a lot of shrink with Happy Birthday!, as this photo was taken less than 24 hours after application. I seem to have that problem with almost any jelly regardless of what top coat I use, so I'd love some suggestions on how to avoid it.

Halloween Mani I

I love Halloween, which seems to be a pretty common "affliction" among beauty bloggers. Speaking for myself (and I suspect more than a few others), it gives me a chance to dress up in the kind of over the top stuff that get's you funny looks the rest of the year. Plus, as I've already mentioned, fall is my favorite season, so a super fun holiday in the middle of fall?! Love it! I haven't had time to do quite as many Halloween manis as I'd like, but I do have a few that I'll be showing y'all over the rest of this week.

As an opener, I have this simple accent nail mani using a fun Halloween polish. Fantasy Makers Creepy Pumpkin is an orange jelly base packed with fine orange and yellow glitter (mostly orange). It went on easily and had a medium dry time with Out the Door on top. It's pretty sheer, as I used three coats here and you can still see through it a little. I think I'll use a similarly colored base next time. For my accent nail, I used three coats of Creepy Pumpkin over one coat of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme.

Creepy Pumpkin and Night Glow are the only Fantasy Makers polishes I picked up, as the others seemed to be just plain dark colors or glitter in black. Am I missing anything? Were there others that you loved that I'm over looking?

First Half Moon Mani

I'm behind on blogging right now because I'm on day three of a miserable cold. Something just feels wrong about having a cold in the summer. Bleh. I'm feeling a little better today, so I'll show you some nails from earlier in the week before I was stricken.

I've wanted to try a half moon manicure for a while, but kept forgetting to pick up hole protectors to use as guides. I finally remembered, and behold.

I started with a base of OPI Bling Dynasty, which is a dark, brownish gold shimmer. This polish applied very smoothly with no running. It was mostly opaque after two coats, but if I were going to wear it on it's own, I'd want a third to make sure it was completely even. Once Bling Dynasty was dry, I placed the hole protectors over the lower portion of my nail, then applied one coat of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme over the rest of my nail. Black Creme is exactly what is says it is. It applies smoothly, is opaque in one coat, and dries quickly. I finished with one coat of Out the Door.

I'll definitely need more practice placing the hole protectors and making this neat, but I really like the look. In this color combination, it looks sort of art deco. It's very striking in person; I think it would look great with formal wear.

After some research, I found out that in the 1920's and 30's it was considered "correct" to leave the half moon portion of the nail unpainted. At times the tip was left bare as well. I'm not really into recreating vintage looks, but I do like reinterpreting them and even subverting them. I also found it interesting to learn that there were bolder polish colors like green, silver, gold, and blue available back then, even if they weren't widely used.