New Year's Eve Nails

A little late in the day to post this, but this is what I'm wearing tonight. We're going dancing in Hillcrest at Eden. Should be a fabulous time!

I used Zoya's Ginessa as the pearly white. Here you can see it before adding the embellishments.

Then I stamped with Black on Black from Sinful Colors. The plate was Konad's m64.

Finally, I glittered it up with Uninhibited from L.A. Girl, the Glitter Addict collection. By the way, I stopped by a Rite Aid last night for non-nail related business, and stumbled upon an entire display of these awesome polishes. I picked up a bunch, so in addition to the ones my sister gave me for Christmas, my collection is young, but large! If you live near a Rite Aid, see what you can grab, because these all rock.

Sapphire

Today's manicure is using two of the newest additions to my collection. Yesterday I bought a paint palette from Urban Outfitters containing some pretty awesome metallics and shimmers. I don't usually go for metallics, but these stuck out, so I bit the bullet. As you can see, they're all pretty gorgeous.

I used the unnamed blue you see in the package, and topped it off with something I had forgotten I wanted, Sapphire Sparkle from CND. Holy crap does this topcoat add some serious pretty to any polish.

I mean, the blue was great on its own, but one layer of Sapphire Sparkle really brought it out. You may have seen this beauty before, on Lacquerized and her post comparing the effect created by Sapphire Sparkle to a beetle. She's right! It's gorgeous!

I have Andy's mom's trainer, Robbie to thank for this amazing polish. She really hooked me up with some CND greats. You'll be seeing more soon.

You'll also get to see the haul I scored over the break, in full after I return, sometime after the third.

Don't forget that I want to host a giveaway when I reach 100 followers! I'm still deciding between glitter, and non-glitter as the prize. Any opinions on which I should go for?

Mermaid Slippers

These nails looked like mermaid slippers to me. If Ariel wore Cinderella's slippers, this is what you'd get. (Vacation still, excuse the weeny post.)

The teal is China Glaze's Four Leaf Clover and the glitter is OPI's Crown Me Already!.

Gettin' close to 100 followers! Then a giveaway is coming your way!

UPDATE (1/20/12):

A Tumblr follower asked me to create a tutorial for this look. So here it is!

 

Ahoy Glitter!

Another witty title, another short vacation post. Polishes used are China Glaze's Ahoy! and Essie's As Gold as It Gets, topped off with China Glaze's Matte Magic.

Also,  in other news, I will be hosting my first giveaway as soon as I hit 100 followers, which is only 10 away. I already have lots of lovely followers on Tumblr, and they too will be included in the giveaway, but since this is my main outlet for sharing nails and stories, I'll wait for this number to reach 100 before I start. Invite your friends, tell your loved ones. Old and new followers will be welcome in this upcoming giveaway. Stay tuned!

Glitzy Grinch

Another short vacation post, but with some pretty gorgeous manicures.

The first is one I did to celebrate both my birthday and Christmas. I used RA stamp #119, China Glaze's Icicle as the base (which you can't really see), Color Club's Sugarplum Fairy for the amazing glitter, and Black on Black from Sinful Colors as the stamping color. Init purty?

The second I did today, and will probably stamp on top of later, but I just couldn't touch Beige Blast (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri) yet. It makes everyone's fingers look elegant, albeit after four coats. It reminded me of Nugget, my little kitten, so I attempted to get a shot with me holding her.

This is the best I could do, given her wiggly kitten nature.

Finally, here's a little exclusion-ing via Photoshop to highlight that beige beauty.

Birthday Nails

Yesterday was my 24th birthday, so I needed to do a manicure I would love, regardless of what some readers might think of it. I've always loved bright colors, and pastel shades of those colors hold a special place in my polished heart. So I did a simple skittle manicure consisting of some of my new pastels from China Glaze's Up & Away collection. I love them all, but these won out, making a sweet little rainbow of colors on each hand.

I used:

• Sugar High from China Glaze on my thumbs
• Lemon Fizz from China Glaze on my index fingers
• Re-Fresh Mint from China Glaze  on my middle fingers
• Light Mist from Savina on my ring fingers
• Something Sweet from China Glaze on my pinkies

Just a sweet, simple little manicure I threw on before going out and getting a tasty breakfast with Andy. Later on I added black tips, but I didn't like the straightness of the tips enough to show you. I was too impatient to tape, so freehanded them. They don't look bad from far off, but up close they're not the best.

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas Manicure

Vacation's going great! It's beautiful in Encinitas right now. I'm drinking it all in, and today, finally had a little time for a manicure. It look longer than I expected it to, but it's pretty great. Unfortunately I don't have my usual light set up, so my pictures won't look quite the same. I hate that. But enjoy these nails!

I used Artsy Crafty (Color Club) as the base, stamped with Cherish (China Glaze) and then added the berries using Gleaming Red from My Nail Graffiti's collection. The stamp is a Bundle Monster one, from plate 14. I was upset, because originally I wanted to use the Red Angel holly stamp from plate 121, but I couldn't pick it up no matter how hard I tried. It was driving me nuts, so I gave up in favor of a different holly design. Sad to say it's the first time I've been unhappy with Red Angel. To be fair, it is the thinnest pattern I've ever seen.

Happy Go Lucky Circus

Drink in today's manicure because it will be the last scheduled one for a few weeks. I'll be travelling to land of beauty, sun and polish...Southern California. Andy's family and the majority of mine live there, so Christmas, New Years and my birthday will all be celebrated there. I've packed up my polish and supplies into a rather heavy to-go container, hoping I don't wind up missing a polish I left behind here in Boulder.

But like I said, with so much going on, I won't be dedicating every day to polishing. I'll do my best, and squeeze it in where I have time and feel like doing it, but today's may very well be the last until the beginning of January.

To celebrate the festive 17 hour drive we have to look forward to tomorrow and Sunday, I chose what some might consider to be an obnoxious amount of color. I absolutely love it, seeing as yellow's my favorite color. What're your thoughts?

I used China Glaze's Happy Go Lucky and Essence's Circus Confetti. It's so beyond fun to wear this manicure, and I'm a little upset I used it early. It's a totally appropriate birthday manicure, but when the day comes, I'll probably match my nails with what I'm doing.

So ladies, farewell until Monday at the earliest, January at the latest!

Polish on!

Reddit Secret Santa Haul & Love

Reddit alien!

This year Reddit is aiming to break a Guinness world record for the largest online Secret Santa exchange. I decided to take part in it this year for the first time.

Part of signing up means filling out a character limited profile of what you'd like to see. Of course, I put nail polish and nail art supplies.

My Secret Santa totally pulled through, and sent me a colorful and amazing rainbow of polishes I don't have in my collection yet. He also included a set of emery boards and some really unique clippers.

The clippers are shaped like a foot, with a heart-shaped piercing in the big toe. There's also a small filing pad in the middle, below the clipper handles.

So of course, I had to try them all out! What I ended up with was a pretty ridiculous set of hands, but I like them all, so they'll stay.

My Secret Santa also included a kind note, and his girlfriend made a color legend of each polish.

Thanks Secret Santa, xtremepado! You (and your girlfriend), both rock for sending these awesome colors! You made a girl very happy for Christmas.

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Clover

After yesterday's failed attempt to layer the different Kleancolor holos over black, I decided to use a base that more closely matched the colors within the holo itself. Today's is Chunky Holo Clover. It's layered over China Glaze's Starboard.

Nothing too special, but I can count it as a Christmas manicure right?

Fancy Fat Santa

Remember the Kleancolor swatches I planned on doing? Since I've never done swatches of an entire collection (or many solo swatches for that matter), I wasn't sure how to go about swatching efficiently. So I figured I'd start with a layered black polish for comparison. Since I wasn't too eager to do an entire hand of the same color, I opted for doing each nail a different color.

This is the result:

Yes...each finger is a different Kleancolor layered over black. Um...yeah...I think these are meant to be worn over their corresponding color. Maybe even white would be better, but I'm always iffy about that. Don't get me wrong, each finger looks awesome, they just all look the same.

So Kleancolor swatches have been postponed. Sorry about that.

Instead! Work tomorrow is having the holiday party, complete with a secret Santa/white elephant gift exchange. I bought my gift and wrapped it, then thought that some Santa nails were appropriate to hand it off to some lucky sucker. Hey...it is white elephant after all.

I Googled "santa nails" and, after scrolling through some designs I wasn't too keen on, I stumbled upon this great take on Santa's belt by Wickless & Polished. I liked it because there wasn't as much white as I've seen, and I'm always up (or down) for a manicure that makes my fingers and hands look a little delicate. Odd coincidence too that this is the design I liked, since I recently found out my own mom likes Scentsies! This cosmic world we live in man.

So this is my interpretation, snazzing it up a bit with some glitter. Maybe this is slutty Santa fresh from the Halloween store. Either way, I don't like it as much as the original artist's. Her nails provide a better canvas than my recently filed fingers.

The polishes used include Hey Sailor (China Glaze) as the base, Wet n' Wild's Rockin' Rubies for the glitter, and detailing using Sinful Color's Time Off, Bad Chick, and Flower Girl. My favorite of these polishes is without a doubt Rockin' Rubies. It's got little glitters and big glitters, technical nail jargon aside.

Shame on You Julep

This morning, my sister told me about a blogger faux pas, made by a company I'm sure many of you have heard of, Julep. I had already had my doubts about this company, because in my opinion, their "deals" seem like rip offs, and I'm not wowed by many of their colors. I feel I can get the same colors they have from companies I trust like OPI and China Glaze.

So last night, they made the fatal error of taking work from one of the most well-known nail bloggers, Erika at Chloe's Nails, removing her watermark, and placing her photo on their Facebook page, sans any credit. Girls went nuts and furiously commented about what Julep had done. Julep played it off by not only removing their edited photo and saying nothing happened, but also re-uploading the original photo (with watermark) by Erika, unapologetically saying they didn't mean to remove her watermark and not give her credit. Hm...odd.

I wasn't aware of all of this until after the incident, and after the photos had been replaced. Luckily, Katie at Paws to Polish snapped some screenshots and put them up for everyone to see.

This seedy behavior is unbelievable, especially from a well-known and constantly blogged about company. I'm not sure who was in charge of putting that post up, but they should be examined and repremanded. To think they could get away with putting such a well-known blogger, and honestly, well-known photo on their site without any credit is unheard of. It would be one thing if the polish used was Juleps, but it's not, as you can see in Erika's original post here. It's all OPI, if that weren't obvious enough by the bottle shot she used.

I haven't purchased Julep, but I don't think I will be from here on out.

As Katie said...shame on you, Julep!

Please feel free to link back to this post and spread the word about this misguided blogging.

Thank you to Katie for her informative post, and to my sister for the heads up! Show your support for Erika by leaving her a nice note. She's been going through some difficult times, but I'd love to show her how much we all care.

Fairy Mermaid

Last night I finally had enough down time to do, photograph, and edit my nail pictures. This weekend was swamped between skiing at Keystone, hiking, getting brunch, dinner with parents and traffic. I literally had bare nails all weekend. THE HORROR!

It feels so much better to have some polished paws. Even better than that, it feels good to have a manicure, complete with filing, cuticle cream and moisturizing lotion. Delicious, moisturizing lotion. I'm not sure if I've ever told my bloggers this, but my new favorite lotion is Burt's Bees Milk & Honey Body Lotion. It's nothing fancy, but a tiny drop of it goes a long way, and it works beautifully with their Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. I just put on the cuticle cream first, then top it off with a dot of lotion the size of a pea for my whole hand. Drink it in ladies, your hands will thank you.

Today's another Pirates by OPI manicure, with a little fairy dust sprinkled over it. The teal is Mermaid Tears (OPI) and the flecks come from China Glaze's Fairy Dust. The design is from Red Angel plate 105, and the black used to stamp is Sinful Colors Black on Black.

What I'd really like to do for you guys tomorrow is a bunch of swatches of that Kleancolor set I mentioned here. I got it in the mail, and it's gorgeous!

I've never done swatches though, so I'm unclear about how long it will take and how ambitious you need to be to swatch 9 different polishes for one post. That's my goal though, so hopefully that's what we see in tomorrow's post!

Ringing in the Red...and Green...and Glitter

I don't usually reach for standard colors when I do a solid color manicure (but let's face it...when have I shown you all a solid colored manicure). However, after applying the base to today's manicure, I know which polish is a new favorite of mine.

May I present to you in all her glittering glory...Ring in the Red from China Glaze.

She's the color so nice, I'll show you twice. I mean come on! It was so damn sparkly I ran over to Andy absolutely tickled! His words: "It's so...shiny!" Yes it is my man, yes it is.

I couldn't leave well enough alone though, and pumped it up with some holiday glamor. I stamped using Cherish, also from China Glaze, and Sinful Color's Fashionista adorned the half-mooned cut off point. The plate is RA-110.

I should also mention that beneath Ring in the Red I used one layer of Essie's Limited Addiction, just so I wouldn't be glopping on layer upon layer of that gorgeous glitter to get full coverage.

Look what's coming...

After seeing this post from Samarium's Swatches, I knew I needed Kleancolor's Chunky Holo Black. A single bottle on Amazon was ridiculous, with the shipping exceeding the price of the damn bottle by more than 100%. So I checked eBay, which I haven't used in ages. I spotted this set, and knew I needed it. Sorry, no time to add it to the Christmas list...I needed it now!

Purchased from eBay seller 27kitten

The layering possibilities are endless, and I can't wait to try a bunch of different options out. 

Now if I could only get my hands on Clairvoyant!!

Hawaiian Tropics

Temperatures here in Boulder finally reached above freezing. Naturally, girls were walking around in sun dresses and flip flops. Boys had on swim trunks, and there was a party to burn all our winter gear.

That's all entirely false, except for the above freezing moments of the day. Unfortunately, we've dropped back down to 30, but the veritable heat wave got me feeling a little frisky about my nails. I also drew some inspiration from The Illustrated Nail's Ankara Prints.

Tropical prints and the colors that come with it are too much fun not to play with.

The base layer is Pull Over from Sinful Colors. It's sponged with Flyin' High (China Glaze), then stamped with Hey Sailor, also from China Glaze. The plate's RA-109 (again). The outlining is Sinful Color's Bad Chick. I'm hoping for the holidays I find some nail art brushes in either my Christmas or birthday bags, because some of that outlining is hard to look at.

On a side note, starting with this post, I'm resizing my images to be the maximum width of my blog's text body. When Blogger resizes the photos for you, it loses color, and my hands end up looking more white and sad than they are in reality. Resizing outside of Blogger retains the color, and with the larger width of the body, the details aren't lost.

Damask Tapestry

I've been searching for an off-white color for a long time that I like, and can easily access. The bottle I truly long for is Illamasqua's Load, but in lieu of that, I got myself a little Insta-Dri from Sally Hansen that's a nice placeholder: Beige Blast. Under the right light, it looks like your run-of-the-mill white, but paired correctly, the muted, more natural beige appears.

Pairing it with Savina's Grape really brings it out, and makes me so happy! The design is from the Red Angel plates, #109. The combination reminds me of a fancy wallpaper. I see gold accents and orchids adorning the room. And there is probably a maid required to keep the place so spick and span.

Perhaps more approprietly, the manicure today matches my free beauty bag I ordered from Target. It was full of samples (body wash, shampoo, styling cream) when it arrived, but now it houses all of my nail tools (files, stampers, scrapers, clean up brushes).

Slimming Black

You're recovering from your Thanksgiving gluttony...what dress or blouse do you reach for? Your black one. My favorite slimming black blouse is this Converse 3/4 length button-up.

It works wonders for the middle!

For my nails, I felt like elongating them with a little optical trickery. To do that, I reached for Time Off (the Sinful Colors nail art brush), Flyin' High (China Glaze), and I Lily Love You (OPI).  I quite like the effect.

Flyin' High was deepened and tinted purple with I Lily Love You. Made it a much more muted sky blue than the bottle appears sans-effects.

Like the non-dominant hand striping skills? How about the new stamp for my photos?

Worn Out

After a day of skiing hard after not skiing for an entire season, this is exactly what I felt like. Apologies for not posting yesterday.

I did however, lay face down in the snow to get a picture for you guys.

Also, that's my jacket that I matched my nails to in my last post.

Gnar Pow

These bright nails are inspired by fashion. Not high-fashion fashion though, or anything you'd normally wear. This is season-specific fashion appropriate in only some places. No, it's not black tie. It's ski season chic!

Tomorrow morning is the first ski for me for the season. I just got brand new skis, boots, beanie, face mask, socks and jacket. I'm ready to go out, enjoy some snow, or as my friend Mable calls it, "gnar pow", and come home absolutely exhausted from it all. I'm by no means anywhere close to being a good skier, but I enjoyed the first times, and probably about 4-5 times I've gone (all last year from January to May). Now with a season pass and gear in hand, it's time to start getting good and comfortable out there.

My jacket, as shown below, is bright yellow and purple. My new nails, match it perfectly. Too bad they'll be in gloves all day.

Click for more life-like coloring.

The colors I used include:

• Lightening from Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
• Senorita Bonita from China Glaze
• Bubbly Bombshell from ORLY
• Bad Chick from Sinful Colors nail art brush

The thumb in the first picture was actually inspired by this morning's miracle hangover cure, Snooze. If you don't live near a Snooze, I feel sorry for you. Their food is absolutely some of the best breakfast food I've ever eaten, and breakfast is my favorite meal. I mean come on...red velvet pancakes? Breakfast pot pie? De-licious.

Nude Nails Revisited & a Little Holiday Cheer

The very first post I did on this blog featured my nude nails.

Since it's been almost 2 months, I thought I'd share the progress my nails have made. They're longer, a bit stronger, and overall, I believe they're healthier.

True color I never achieve, because there's no way I could get this kind of sun normally.

 They're also obnoxiously bright in this photo because we had a big snow yesterday, and with the sun out, the albedo effect is out of control.

Our view of the famous Flatirons in Boulder, CO.

With the snow falling, the lights going up, and the endless loops of Christmas carols playing in every single store you walk into, it was obviously required that a holiday manicure accompany the merriment, gaiety, and joy.

Today's interpretation was done using Glittering Garland from China Glaze, and three polishes from the Sinful Colors nail art collection-Bad Chick (white), Flower Girl (gold), and Be My Valentine (red). Patience was key here, as it is in most manicures. I didn't realize how long it took, until after I noticed I had watched an online episode of a one hour show and another of a half-hour episode. Oops.

Time well spent though before the festivities tonight. Friends have told me that there is an ugly sweater beer crawl in downtown Boulder. After some thrifting and this paint job, I'm all set.

Non-nails: Makeshift Vanity

My apartment that I share with my boyfriend is tiny. We only have one locking door besides the front door (the bathroom door). The rest is sort of one large area, so I guess it's technically a studio apartment. We make do though, but it requires creativity.

I'm not big into makeup, but I do like to have a place to do my morning routine. My solution to this is what I'm showing you today.

Everything is on top of my dresser or slapped up on the wall behind the dresser.

On top of the dresser I have everything I need. Makeup (all Bare Minerals), necklaces, unused necklaces, earring backings, bracelets, lotion and deodorant. This pretty much completes my routine.

On the wall behind the dresser I attached four corkboards that I stick all of my stud earrings in. The backings are placed in a little tupperware. It's a pretty effective system, and lets me see all of the earrings I have.

Also on the wall, I attached a mirror from Ikea. It's adhered with sticky strips that came with the four-pack of mirrors. The one thing about the location of my dresser is that it's dark, and directly under the bar that shirts and dresses are normally hung on. Leaning in to look at the mirror makes my face really dark, so putting on makeup can be rather obnoxious. I mean, I'm already exhausted enough, so squinting in the dark doesn't help.

My solution was to get a small pack of battery-powered Christmas lights with a switch I can turn on and off. Did I mention there are no outlets in the wall of the closet?

So now, when I lean in close, there's a great ring of light around my face, and my reflection is much brighter! The switch to turn the lights on and off is also really easy to get to.

The battery box is also adhered to the ceiling of the wall the bar for clothing is attached on. It's a simple setup, but it makes life a hell of a lot easier!