Scary Halloween Nails: Bloody Scarred Nails

My last Halloween nail art was nice, but it wasn't really scary. So this time, here's my shot at trying to scare you, LOL!

This was actually quite easy to do, and I imagine anyone could do it, really! For the base, I used a mannequin hands shade (a shade that matches your skin colour closely - it was all the rage back a couple of years ago), Nails Inc Basil Street, one of my all-time favourite polishes ever. I guess you could use any shade for the base, but I wanted a skin-like colour that would stand out against the red blood layered over it.


For the "blood", I sponged on some red nail polish. In this case I used Eyeko Saucy Polish (also previously blogged about before), and sponged it over my nails for that gradient effect. For this, a rougher sponge with larger pores would actually work better for the "splatter" effect than a finer sponge. I really just used a sponge that I had on hand for polishing shoes. LOL!


Lastly, I freehanded on the scars with a black polish and a long skinny nail art brush (I got mine from Born Pretty Store, I wrote about them in a previous Chinese New Year nail art post. I didn't really think too much about where I was placing the scars, which is why perhaps the placement isn't always optimal for all nails. But still, it was cool. Lastly, to keep in the scary Halloween theme, I deliberately didn't cleanup the nail polish, so it's supposed to make my fingers look bloody and gross, LOL!

So I guess my nails are all ready for Halloween! Now all I need to do is dress up like a mummy or something, and I'll be ready to go!

Spring/Summer Pink Nail Art: Neon and Neutrals Colourblocking!

One of the trends this Spring/Summer season has been the contrast of nudes and brights! On the runways this has translated into colourblocked outfits juxtaposing neutrals and bright shades, but there wasn't really any parallel for nail art.

I saw a couple of nail bloggers bringing this juxtaposition to nail art, so I decided to give this a go too! I colourblocked a light neutral pink with a neon pink, and decided to make it my own by adding - of course - some bling!

For the light pink base, I used RBL (Rescue Beauty Lounge, for those who don't use acronyms) Lulu, which is a pretty neutral pastel pink. For the neon pink, I used one of my favourites, Eyeko Punk Polish, and painted it in a reverse-Chevron shape. Eyeko Punk Polish is a retina-searing, neoner-than-neon hot pink, which I love. For old-time readers of the blog, if this looks familiar it's because I've actually used Punk Polish before for a Valentine's Day manicure. I then used some white striping tape to outline the V-shape, and topped it off with a pink gem!



The great thing about this manicure is that even if you aren't great at nail art (like me, for instance), this is still easy to look good. When you're painting the Chevron shape, you don't have to worry about the edges looking neat, because the striping tape will cover that. And when you're sticking on the striping tape, you don't have to worry whether the two pieces of tape will meet nicely exactly in the middle, because the pink gem will cover that. So each step covers the mistakes made in the previous step, leaving you with a pretty good-looking manicure, if I do say so myself. Seriously, aren't I awesome? LOL. (And yes, I totally plan out my nail art to cover up my noob skillz as much as possible. It's how I make my non-existent nail skillz look good).



Anyway, other than hiding my non-existent nail skillz and making them look awesome, I really like this manicure. I went for an all-pink look, of course, but I feel like I should repeat this look with different colours, and perhaps with contrasting colours, even! I mean, the all-pink look is nice, but it can get a little dull.



Anyway, I love this - it's pretty, girly, and Spring-y. And it's actually pretty easy to do, although you'll need to set aside some time to do all the nail polish layering and striping and sticking on the gem. But at least you know it'll turn out looking good!

Winter Silver and Blue Half Moon Manicure With Nail Bling!

So in conjunction with my Winter white and blue eye look, I decided to do a Winter-ish silver and blue nail look! While I wanted something winter-inspired, I didn't want it to be like, snowflakes and snowmen, because here where I am in Singapore it's summer all year round, so wearing it out may be a tad odd. But I figured why not use winter colours?

So for this nail look, I did a blinged put half-moon manicure! I used Eyeko Rain Polish for the lower part, and China Glaze Millennium for the upper part. It looked good, but I was feeling decorative, so I added in some pearls and heart-shaped crystals. I got the pearls from Born Pretty Store, and if you want I've reviewed their nail art pearl set before. The heart-shaped crystals are my own.



This manicure was a little more time-consuming than I usually do, but it wasn't all that hard (given my skills, if I can do it, generally it isn't that difficult). I first painted my nails with a coat of Eyeko Rain Polish (I've swatched Eyeko Rain Polish by itself before), and then painted China Glaze Millennium over it in a half-moon shape. I used those hole reinforcment things to help get a nice half-moon shape, but if you're gonna be layin' on the bling, the shape doesn't have to be perfect, really.



After painting my nails, I used the smallest sized pearls from my Born Pretty Store nail art pearl set, and my crystal hearts. I actually placed the hearts in the center first, and then sort of maneuvered the placing of the pearls around the hearts. That worked out to about 3 pearls per side per nail. I used the good ol' wet toothpick trick to pick up and place the pearls and crystals on my nail. Basically, you dip a toothpick in water, touch the gem you want to place on your nail with it, and the gem will stick to the wet toothpick. You can then place the gem down on your polished nail, and the gem will un-stick itself from the toothpick and stick to your nail instead. Neat, eh? The wonders of surface tension!



Anyway, one thing I noticed was that next to China Glaze Millennium, the Eyeko Rain Polish looks positively blue (it's actually more grey if worn by itself). I guess it's just a matter of relativity. But nevertheless, I'm absolutely loving this nail look, and I think it's so pretty and feminine. I just wish I had better nail skillz so pretty designs like that wouldn't take me so darn long!

(Born Pretty Store and Eyeko product was sent for review. All other items were bought by me. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Halloween Nails: Cobwebs and Blood Splatters

Halloween, one of the few times of the year you can get complimented for dressing absolutely crazy! Since outrgeous and scary costumes are de rigueur for Halloween, I took the liberty to do some Halloween nails! I thought nothing could scream Halloween better than cobwebs and splats of blood, so I attempted to incorporate both of them into my NOTD (Nail of the Day).

In the nail look below, it consists of two red blood splatters and a black cobweb on a white background. I don't know about you, but I kinda feel like this isn't quite as scary as I'd have liked. I really wanted to spook everyone out with my nails, but I actually ended up getting compliments on them - twice! At least, they thought it was nice until I explained how those cute designs were supposed to be spider webs and blood...Oops.

The photo below shows what I used for this look. The white base was Wet n Wild White, the red blood splats were created by konading with Eyeko's Saucy Polish, using Konad Plate M21. I used the design of two paint splats on the M21 plate. The cobweb was created by using Wet n Wild Black, and my new favourite plaything for nail art, my nail art brushes.



I've never actually tried freehanding nail art with a brush before, so using the nail art brushes was totally new to me. I got mine from Born Pretty Store, and these are being sold in sets of three each, for the awesomely cheap price of US$2. Here is the link to the nail brush set that I bought.



You get nail brushes of varying lengths, so these are perfect for drawing lines, curves, or, if you're skilled enough, I can imagine them being used for french tips and other similar nail art. I personally didn't notice much difference between using the longer or shorter lengths, but some others might - it really is personal preference. The bristles are thin and flexible, so you can really draw both thick and thin lines with these.



For the cobwebs on my nails, I used the shorteset brush, dipped it in Wet n Wild Black, and basically just freehanded the lines. I did the straight vertical lines first before doing the horizontal lines. It's definitely not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at using nail art brushes! Here is a close up shot of my nails so you can see the lines created.



I painted on the cobwebs after konading the blood splatters. I used Eyeko Saucy Polish for the konading of the blood splats because in my previous Eyeko Saucy Polish NOTD, it was opaque in pretty much one coat, so I thought it would be ideal for konading as well. Turns out, the blood splats looked a bit pinker than I'd like, but well, it does look like blood splats!



Although I have to admit my Halloween nail art is a little bit noob-ish, I'm still enjoying it! I had never thought of doing nail art for Halloween before, but I was just so inspired by seeing all the different Halloween nail looks around the blogosphere. I'm so glad to be rocking my own Halloween nails!

(Bornprettystore product was sent for review. All other items were purchased by me. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Girly Punk Valentine's Day Nails: Neon Pink and Black Roses

Nothing says girly punk like hot pink and black. And nothing says romance like roses. So when I decided to do Valentine's Day manicure, I decided to combine these two aspects, although I'm not very girly, punky, or romantic. I keep seeing all these sterotypical reds, pale pinks, and sheers coming out near Valentine's Day, and I keep thinking - why shouldn't I do something different?

So here you are: neon pink, black, and roses. The horror!



To be honest, I didn't quite like my nails when I first wore them. I thought they were ugly (and I'm sure some of my readers will think they ARE ugly), but for some reason they grew on me, and I can't quite figure out why either. Maybe I got used to the ugliness. Or maybe the hot pink colour matched my funky Valentine's Day eye look. LOL. But it did grow on me, and yes, I was walking around with blinding hot pink nails with OTT rose designs. Yeeha!



For the neon pink base, I used Eyeko Punk Polish for Neon Nails, which is a one-coater if you're careful. Like other Eyeko polishes I've used before, the consistency is a little on the thick side, so if you prefer a thinner polish consistency, one or two drops of thinner would be more than sufficient. Oh, and this polish is NEON. Like eyeball searing, highlighter pink kind of neon. I know it doesn't look like it in the photos, but that's because I just couldn't capture the blinding neon-ness of it on camera.

For the black roses, I used my favourite konading black of all time, Wet n Wild Black. It's dirt cheap (if you don't count the cost of shipping it outside of the USA), easily available, and opaque in one coat. Perfect for konading!

The konad plate used was M65. I figured I could get away with such an OTT rose design only around Valentine's Day!



So this isn't your traditional Valentine's Day sweetheart manicure. But I have those too! If this is making you puke, feel free to try some other sweetheart, Valentine-appropriate posts: there's one with girly chic, a feminine pastel purple that's holo to boot, a nude with a touch of flowers, and the near classic jewel pinky-purple holo. Probably more traditionally Valentine Day-ish than this sad excuse to wear hot pink, LOL!

I'm not much of a romantic, and I really couldn't care less for Valentine's Day. But I figured, since it was the occasion for it, why not go all out in dressing up my nails? It's the perfect reason to get away with whatever I want!

(Eyeko product sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)