My official Valentine's Day manicure

I had this idea in my head for a while, so I decided to finally try it as it was perfectly suited for Valentine's Day:


But it didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped! This is a base of Essie French Affair with the new Art Club Nail Glam full nail decal design Hearts of Gold on the ring finger. I originally wanted to put the designs on every finger, but I'm really glad I started with my ring finger. Now I know what you guys were saying about these. They're... not so great. They're extremely stiff and don't conform to the natural curve of the nail, so you end up with weird lumps and wrinkles like you see on mine. And they say to seal them with topcoat, but the decal covers the whole nail so it's really not sealing it to the nail, it's just coating it with topcoat, which means... it peels. Gah, what a disappointment. I loved the design so much, too. I wish I could have made it work.

The Essie polish was exactly the color I was thinking of for the base of the mani, so that worked out well!

But yeah, too bad about the Art Club Glam decals. I had really high hopes for them. *sigh*

So, how was your Valentine's day? So what if it's a Hallmark holiday! That does not negate the awesomeness of heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting! And sprinkles! Any holiday that advocates the liberal use of sprinkles is a winner in my book.

New Drugstore Nail Appliques- Broadway, Art Club and Sally Hansen

I was out scouring the drugstores this week looking for new 2011 beauty products and came across a bunch of nail art items that seem really awesome.

You might be familiar with nail appliques like Incoco or Inque (I'll be reviewing Inque appliques soon), and these are pretty much the same idea. I haven't tried any of them on yet- I have a lot of polish to swatch and I don't want to waste them because they're so cool! I'm so excited about these. I have a feeling we'll be seeing even more designs this year, too.

Here are the ones I grabbed:

Art Club Glam

Art Club Glam in Diamond Studded, Hearts of Gold and Vivid Zebra. These ones seem more like plastic full-nail sized decals more than stretchy vinyl-like or polish-like strips like the others. These had the best designs out of all of them- there were a bunch but I only grabbed these for now.

Diamond Studded. A clear base with black diagonal and chevron french tips and black leopard spots accented by pink hologram foil.

Hearts of Gold. A clear base with gold hologram foil in concentric rings, dots and hearts.


Vivid Zebra. Clear base with black and rainbow foil zebra stripes.

Gotta love Art Club!


Broadway Nail Dress

The Broadway Nail Dress ones were a little more expensive and came in only four designs. Two animal print styles and a silver fishnet style, nothing you couldn't do with Konad. These are the most intricate ones. They don't seem to have a name, just a number. This is what's inside the box:

Two sheets of stickers and a little emery board.


There's also a booklet of $1.00 off coupons on the display, so make sure to grab one!



Sally Hansen Salon Effects

The Sally Hansen Salon Effects had the biggest display but the least intricate designs. Half of them were just plain creme finish polish colors, a few were some decent glitters and the rest were nail art designs like this, but some of them could be duplicated with Konad. I almost got the Denim-print ones, but at $8.50 the Salon Effects appliques the least cost effective of the three brands. I don't understand why I'd pay $8.50- the price of a bottle of OPI at retail- for one manicure with a normal pink or blue polish like some of these Salon Effects... I would consider paying that much for the nail art ones as long as they were complicated enough designs. Anyway, this Laced Up style stood out to me, very sexy.

It comes just like the Incoco sets do; an emery board/buffer, a manicure stick, instruction sheer and sealed foil packets with nail polish strips.

Isn't this design pretty?

I can't wait to try these out on my nails. I think the Art Club Hearts of Gold might end up as my Valentine's Day mani this year.

Christmas Eve Mani

I really like how this one turned out. Very appropriate seeing that it just started snowing as I type this :)


This was:
Two coats of China Glaze Frosty
Konad m59 in Light Blue Konad Special Polish
Color Club / Art Club silver gems from the holiday gem wheel
INM Out The Door Northern Lights in Silver, fully shaken

I originally tried to do holo silver snowflakes but they didn't show up at all! So then I tried to do gold snowflakes (you can see it on my pinkie) but it looked to warm and un-snowlike. Finally settled on the baby blue Konad polish and it was perfect. Not much contrast, which I like for this design. Added the gems because it didn't look icy and sparkly enough for me and then the Northern Lights because it still wasn't sparkly enough.

I did fewer gems on the left hand just to see how it looked:

I think I like more gems better.

So, I guess it's not specifically Christmassy... More like a winter-themed nail art. Ooh, it would even make a great Hanukkah mani, too.

I'm thinking I want to do something with a green base on Christmas Day. Maybe start with China Glaze Jolly Holly, then do something with gold and red and jewels? Hm. Better start brainstorming.

Since I probably won't get a chance to post tomorrow, I want to wish you all a merry Christmas! ♥

Wire Stripper Konad

I was inspired to do some Konading the other day and I kinda like how this turned out. Maybe next time I wouldn't do the golden knobs on all four fingers (I skipped the thumbs and did a different design using the same Konad stamp), but I really wanted to try them.

The base is BB Couture For Men Wire Stripper with China Glaze Millennium as the stamp. I can never remember the plate numbers, so I don't know what plate this was.




And oddly enough, every day since this I've had some sort of nail art on my nails.

Happy Independence Day!

I was playing around with some of my Art Club striper polishes and did these two designs really quick:

Stars

Stripes

Lippmann Holiday , Art Club Blue Glitter, Art Club Silver Hologram, the silver stars from Love My Nails Glort, INM Out The Door Northern Lights Gold and Orly Prisma Gloss Silver.

I know, they're a little sloppy and uneven, I was just playing around a bit, but I think they turned out pretty cute! I might actually leave this on as my final Fourth of July mani. It's so sparkly, like little fireworks on my nails!

If I don't get a chance to post again, I wish you all a happy and safe fourth of July / Independence Day!

Nail Art: Art Club Technicolor Doll

Art Club is known for making some of the best nail art polishes on the market. They're what you call 'striper' (not stripper, that's another post for another time) polishes. They're called that because they have a very long skinny brush instead of a normal polish brush and it's perfect for making stripes and other nail art.

Art Club just released the Technicolor Doll nail art kit to coincide with the release of Color Club's Electro Candy collection for summer. The kit includes:

5 Neon Stripers: Technicolor Doll, Psychedelic Dream, Paisley Paradise, Electric Universe, Cosmic Creature
2 jars of sprinkles: Aqua Charms, Fuchsia Charms
3 Self-Stick Decal Sheets: Floral Decal, Heart Decal and Swirl Decal.

They paid so much attention to detail on the packaging on this kit, it's absolutely beautiful. They even made a really pretty handle for it!



The model for the advertisement has such amazing makeup, too. I never remember to take a picture of the advertisement. She has neon yellow and green eyeshadow with black double-winged liquid liner. Gorgeous, I'm going to steal that look this week.


Anyway, there's the whole kit. Let's move on to the nail art.

Anyone can do this nail art, it's not difficult. The only extra equipment required will be black polish and a dotting tool if you want to do the dots.


Let's start off with something extra simple:




I love the combination of neon and black, it reminds me of the 90's. The 90's rocked.


If that design isn't interesting enough, you can spice it up a little bit with your dotting tool:



But if you're like me and want something a little more over the top, break out the sprinkles! I used Fuchsia Charms:



One interesting thing about the charms- if you peel one of them off after your polish has dried, it will leave a flower-shaped hole in your polish. It almost looks intentional, pretty cool actually.


Let's try another design with dots!



A simple, bright look with a base of Color Club Volt of Light.

Not colorful enough? Try adding more colors.



And one more very simple design:

This is neon pink and green, but it came out looking more like Christmas with snowflakes! So, hey, why not sport a Christmas manicure in April? This one used the Aqua Charms.


Now here's something a little more involved.

Marbling. It's really not difficult at all, you just need to work quickly because these neon colors dry very fast. Start with a base of a color you like and then add as many colors as you want to the nail. Take a toothpick or needle (I just used my small dotting tool) and swirl the colors around.

And now that we've seen abstract, let's go back to something more geometric.



In 1995 I had a coat that looked like this.

I also had one that looked like this.

Of course, those designs weren't awesome enough for me so I had to take it one step further...

I added one of the 'swirl' decals (looks more like a butterfly to me) to make it more interesting.

I took these pictures while the polish was still wet, so please excuse the weird thickness of the polish. It goes away when it dries, I promise.


I really love nail art. I wish I was able to do it more often!


The Art Club striper polishes are perfect. The polish is opaque, it dries quickly and the brushes are just the right firmness. Since this kit contains neon polishes, you will need a topcoat if you want them to look shiny. I used Seche Vite, but I bet the Color Club Vivid Color Intensifying topcoat would work well on these too.

The Worst Manicure I've Ever Done

It started out innocently enough. I hadn't worn black polish in a while, and really wanted to do a shiny black mani.

I applied my favorite, Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Black Pearl, which isn't pearl at all, but a perfect, smooth, shiny opaque black.

As I admired my shiny black nails, I just couldn't help but feel that they were a little too plain.

So, I got out my trusty Konad and decided on plate m65 with China Glaze Adore from the Romantique collection as my stamp color.

It was just what I needed! It looked awesome.

Fast forward to the next day.

I had been cleaning with my hands in water all day, and by the time I was done I had serious tipwear. I didn't have time to re-do my manicure completely, so I resorted to my old lazy manicure trick: Cover up the tipwear with a french tip!

And so, a horrible monstrosity of a manicure was born.

Small children and those with weak stomachs, look away now.


I present to you, The Abomination:


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! MY EYES!!!!!!!!!! OH, THE CHUNKINESS, THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!

More Nail Art with Art Club polishes.

First things first, I want to apologize for being so slow in responding to your comments. I'm not ignoring you and I will respond to each and every comment! I have been trying to spend less time on the internet... I love reading blogs and commenting and posting about nail polish and reading all your comments, but I can easily spend the ENTIRE DAY doing it... Addictive!


Now it's time for pics!

I've been playing around with some Art Club nail art polishes lately and trying to come up with interesting designs, but I keep coming back to the same type of design.




The past couple of month, I've been in the habit of wearing a different color or design on each hand. It gives me a chance to 'wear' more stuff. Is that weird? I have serious nail polish ADD.

In these two pictures, it's China Glaze Calypso Blue with Art Club Gold Hologram and Hologram Glitter. The thumbs have a little Pure Ice Heartbreaker. Heartbreaker is one of the best polishes in the entire world- it can make anything look better. It'd consider it a must-have for sure.



Here's the silver blurred a little to show you how cool the hologram glitter is. For some reason, only blurry pictures show the awesomeness of glitter. Hmm.


Here's a little closeup of Heartbreaker over Calypso Blue.




Here's me playing around with a bunch of Art Club polishes... Malmsy, Orchistra, Aquarius, Titania Gold. I'm not sure if I like any of these designs, but they were fun to do! I guess the stripes and polka dots are pretty cute...

And here's the mani I ruined to play with nail art:




I love this one. It's so cool, I think I'll do it again, but I can't remember the polishes I used! I know the orange is OPI Osaka To Me Orange, but I don't remember what the rest are. Oops!

I think I'm going to keep playing with nail art- Art Club polishes are perfect for creating designs and it makes it really fun and easy to experiment.

Some requests and some nail art.

I don't have a whole lot of time to post this morning, but I'm really behind on my requests and I wanted to make sure I got these posted!

Here are a couple reader requests:

(As always, click the images to view full size. These puppies are huge!)


Index to pinkie: OPI Parlez-Vous OPI?, China Glaze Who's Wearing What, China Glaze Channelesque, Pure Ice Taupe Drawer.

They all look really similar in the bottle, but they're much different than I expected when you apply them! And, in all my infinite wisdom (*snort*), I forgot to include OPI You Don't Know Jacques and Sephora By OPI Call Your Mother and Metro Chic in the comparison! D'oh.


Thumb: (left) OPI Tickle My France-y (right) Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge
Index and middle: OPI Tickle My France-y
Ring and pinkie: Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge

Another great request for a comparison I wouldn't have thought of myself! These look nearly identical in the bottles, but as you can see, they're quite different on the nail. Both are gorgeous, do I don't know if I'd ever be able to pick between the two!




Urban Decay Book Of Shadows.

The eyeshadows are excellent. Absinthe is the standout color, a very bright golden green with shimmer. No complaints there. The packaging, however, is really crappy. The eyeshadows are in a pull-out drawer that fits so tightly it's a struggle to open. You have to open it by a tiny little ribbon, and since you have to pull so hard to get the drawer open, I can imagine that delicate little ribbon getting torn off pretty easily.

The brushes are floppy and useless. Bah. And, my major irritation with this is the stupid "pop-up" top flap.... WTF are you supposed to do with that?? It doesn't stay open so you can't use it as a mirror.... It's just.... useless! They should have put the shadows up there instead of in the stupid drawer!

So, final verdict: Awesome shadows, crappy packaging.


Chanel Rouge Noir.

I tried taking the picture in a different part of the house, but I think the lighting turned out weird. Hm.


Chanel Tulipe Noire.

That's it as far as requests go- I'm working on a really big project right now, but I think it will help me respond to requests a lot quicker! I know a lot of you are still waiting on requests, but I didn't forget about you, I promise!


And, for fun, here's a little nail art.





China Glaze Gypsy Girl, China Glaze Fairy Dust, Art Club Black Hologram. This was a touch darker in real life, and it looked awesome. Sparkly and eye-catching!

For some reason I can never photograph reds. They always come out looking weird and too bright and glowy. Reds, oranges and neons. I don't know what it is! Argh.



China Glaze Blue Sparrow, China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and Art Club Black Hologram.

I really like this shape- it's not quite a french but it's not quite half-and-half either. I love the way this looks when the light catches it too- tons of sparkle.