52 Week Challenge Week 17: Earth Appreciation

Like I mentioned in my last post I decided to give Sinful Colors Happy Ending a shot on its own. Result? Love it! It's a great grass green with a pretty shimmer, and application was a breeze. Since Earth Day was my next scheduled mani I topped this with some OPI DS Magic, which is a great blue shimmer (glass fleck maybe?) with some magenta in it. Amazing! Another color I need to wear as a full mani. I think this combo looks a bit like a giraffe pattern.
I also got Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB:2012 yesterday and I have another blue to try, along with my dusty hunt find of Kaleidoscope Him Out. I'm thinking blue skittle toes for my wedding. Is that strange? I want to wear the holo because that's what I wear for weddings. For the wedding I was in last week my toes were pink holo, China Glaze Don't Be A Square. My polish obsession actually started with holo wedding nails, Sand-erella! So it's only fitting I keep the holo goodness up. I'll let you all know what I decide to use. I may even post pictures of my feet.
Enough of my wedding nails stream of consciousness. Enjoy my Earth Day nails!

52 Week Challenge Week 16: Dotticure

I have no idea what the difference between polka dots and a dotticure is. So, I did polka dots using my dotting tools. As a base I used NOPI It's All About the Glam, another k-dash polish. It took four costs to get opaque and I've noticed that it's turning sort of pinkish and chipping/peeling off in an odd manner. It's super pretty though and a great alternative to a stark white like OPI Alpine Snow. The polka dots are Lex Cosmetics Peabow, a nice blurple. Sonia Kashuk Fatigued, a khaki green cream. Finally Sinful Colors Happy Ending, a bright green shimmer. I'm definitely going to have to give this color a go as a stand alone mani, it's purdy. As I was doing this mani I started to wonder why they are called polka dots. What do they have to do with dancing and music? Did other cultures not have patterns of dots other than eastern Europeans (the area I associate polka with)? Ah, the ramblings of a tired mind.
Enjoy!

52 Week Challenge Week 11: St Patrick's Day

For my St. Patrick's Day mani I used Sinful San Francisco on all my nails and OPI Fresh Frog of Bel-Air on my ring as an accent. I love the shimmer in Sinful Colors San Francisco, it's green and blue and subtle. Enjoy!

52 week challenge week 4: plaid nails

Welp, I procrastinated on this week for a while. This spring I went to get a pedicure and asked for plaid. What I got was not plaid, it was lame. So that put me off of plaid nails. Plus, I didn't know what pattern to do. Then it hit me: my mans tartan. I crocheted him an afghan with it (holy hard! I really love that man!) so I'm intricately familiar with it. This is the Duncan tartan, my crochet version of it and my nails. I used Nina Ultra Pro in Salsa, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Thinking of Blue, Kiss Nail Artist in white and OPI OPI Red (not a typo, they call it OPI red) topped with ProFX Quick Dry Top Coat.

52 week challenge week 2, French mani

Week 2 challenge is French mani. Now I'm not normally a big fan of French tips but I saw this on Copy That, Copycat and decided that this was French I could do. Well, it turns out I'm not so good at French manicures and really I just sort of half-a$$ed it after I realized that. I started off with Julep's base coat followed by a coat of Nail Envy. I then covered the yellow of my nails with Zoya Bela. For the tips I started off with Zoya Charla then dabbed Sally Hansen The Real Teal followed by Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be A Millionaire. It was pretty but not very mermaidy. It was also at this point I realized this is NOT nail art I'm good at so I said meh and finished. I used my Bundle Monster plate with Orly Silver polish for the scales. Topped it all off with ProFX Quick Dry Top Coat (which deserves its own post) and there we have it. Quite possibly the sloppiest french anyone has ever seen!
Til next week!
Loves!

Mint Chocolate Nails

I want to eat my fingers today! I recently embarked on a new "diet" called The Belly Fat Cure that limits carbs and sugars. Not eliminate, but cut down on them. So, being a week in I'm still craving all the crap I used to eat. However, the numbers on the scale and my waistline are motivation enough to keep going (plus, like body builders do, I'm allowing myself one cheat day per week). It's really easy and for the most part I don't feel like I'm giving anything up, although I know there is about 3 dozen unbaked cookies in my freezer and they are just calling my name. So, I decided to use an untried to make something yummy. I will probably use this technique to do a Dexter inspired blood spatter mani using white and red.

Ok, enough rambling about my panza. Here's what I did:

• Base coat of OPI Nail Envy
• 2 coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet.
• One coat of INM Out The Door topcoat
• Nubar Milk Chocolate Créme on the tips in a wavy, wonky sort of line, using a dotting tool to make the drip marks
• Another coat of INM OTD top coat

As far as application:
Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet was streaky on the first coat and leveled out opaque on most nails on the second coat. It's very highly pigmented and covered well. The color is a lovely mint green, maybe a shade or two lighter than ice cream. It doesn't have any blue leanings, it's a beautiful creamy, minty, grasshoppery color. Apparently Xtreme Wear doesn't have the same wide rounded brush that I'm used to with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure but no complaints about it. Formula was spot on, not too thick or too runny, although it is on the thicker side of the scale.The color reminds me of old doctor equipment, specifically a dental chair. I have no idea why I would make that association though. I don't understand how my brain works.

No flash, pretty color accurate

No flash

the most color accurate picture

Nubar Milk Chocolate Crème is fun. It really does look like milk chocolate. This is only my second time using this (the first being the leopard half moon fail) and both times as an accent. To achieve the drip look I just painted across the tips and a little strip or two down each nail, using my dotting tools (that I got on eBay for seriously about $2.50) to smooth out the brush marks on the drips. I am going to have to properly wear this Nubar on it's own some day. After I work my way through the rest of my Sally Hansen untrieds though.

So, what do you think of my dessert nails? Are you headed to your local ice cream store now? 

Flash

Flash

My favorite one! No flash

Picture taken with my phone outside, it was overcast so no sunlight.

Loves!

REMOVAL EDIT: Creams are always so easy to remove! Like buddah!