Matte and Shiny Nail Art

Hello all! Sorry it's been a minute :) We've been super busy with back to school prep, appointments, car troubles, and fall craft fair prep for me. I will have some back logged posts coming at you today and the next few days.

For today's manicure, I did a mixed finish manicure. I really like how this turned out.

After applying Zoya Lidia (purple), I applied a fast dry top coat and then added Zoya's matte top coat on that. Then I stamped on top using Barry M Razzle Dazzle and the stamping plate below. To keep the mixed finish effect, I left the manicure as that.
I will note that the stamping did flake off a bit since it wasn't protected with top coat, but the overall look was totally worth it.

On my pinkie finger, I just applied Barry M Razzle Dazzle and top coat.

Matte Lace Nail Art Design

For today's manicure, I went with a lace design. I love the look of lace manicures, but I rarely do them. I debated going traditional using a nude base with the black stamping, but I thought a colored base would be really cool.

For the base, I used Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine. It's much more of a pinkish leaning purple than it shows here. This polish is from the Megalast line so it has a huge curved brush. I have smaller nails so I'm not a huge fan of the big brush.

After applying the stamping image, I added a fast dry topcoat to seal in the design. After that was dry, I added Zoya matte topcoat. I haven't used matte top coat in a while, and I love how it looks over lace nail designs.

The plate I used is from Born Pretty Story, and is BP-L020. It's full of a ton of different lace designs.

Halloween Nail Art: Leopard Print and Stripes

I love leopard print nail art! It's such an easy go to design for me and you can really have fun. I did some for 4th of July this year so decided to do a Halloween version! 

I used almost all OPI polishes for this mani: My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Chop-sticking to My Story, and Don't Mess With OPI. The black is my standard Wet n Wild Black Creme. I used nail vinyls from Nailvinyls.com for the striped nail. Everything is topped with Essie Matte About You

Monday Mani: Black and White with ManGlaze

This week's Monday Mani theme is Black and White Only. It worked perfectly because I recently received two new ManGlaze polishes in the mail!

I used two coats of Matte is Murder and 3 of Mayonnaise. They both have shimmer, though you can't really see it in Mayo.

Fast and Easy Nail Art: Negative Space Flower Mani

And now I have an extra long title! I can't win at this blog title business!

BUT today's mani is as promised: fast and easy! I want my nails to look pretty, but as a mom that doesn't always happen.

Negative space manis are very on trend lately. What's great about them too is that you skip the step of laying down a color base or sometimes even a base color. That process itself lends to a fast mani, but how to make it faster? Use a matte polish! Matte polishes dry faster making this mani easily done in 15 minutes or less.

OPI Russian Navy Suede is unfortunately discontinued. But I still wanted to use it for this mani. You can do this look, just use another matte polish. Or even using a texture polish could make this fun too! So I used two coats of Russian Navy Suede on my middle finger with no base or top coat.

On the other fingers, I started with a base coat just to give a smoother appearance to my nails, but you could skip that. Then I dotted on flowers using Russian Navy Suede. I used OPI Push and Shove for the dots and flower centers just to keep this mani in the OPI family but also because Push and Shove dries so fast. You could easily use any fast dry silver or just a regular polish but wait longer to dry. And that's it! 

Monday Mani: Different Color on Each Nail

In the past, I've mentioned Monday Manis at Polish-Aholics Anonymous on Facebook. Well, they've been coming back!

This week, the voted in theme is to have every nail be a different color. We agreed that it only needed to be each nail on one hand, not all ten digits.

I had a few ideas in mind and had a hard time narrowing it down.

I ended up going with a mani using only (well, mostly) ManGlaze polishes. Starting at the thumb, the colors are Santorum, Fuggen Ugly, Fatty's Got More Blood, Nawsome Sauce, and ILF. The dots are Barry M Gold Foil. 

When I did this mani, I used the matte sandwich technique to help it last longer.

I applied two coats of each matte polish, then one coat of Rica Glossy Glam. Let dry. Then apply one more coat of your matte polish. I wore this mani for only two days, but I only had a tiny chip. That's good wear time for a matte mani and for me as well! I'm super hard on my nails.

And here's a bonus pedi I did.

Mixed Finish Half Moon

Happy Tuesday everyone! Just a quick post today. This momma is pooped! My baby has turned into a spider monkey and is climbing all over the place. I'm worn out.

I will have another post for you on Wednesday and Thursday though with some 4th of July designs.

I'm not a huge fan of half moon manis, but I saw some mixed finish ones and really liked the concept.

I started with a base of OPI Push And Shove and let it dry. Next I use paper reinforcement stickers to mark off the moon and painted on ManGlaze Fatty's Have More Blood. It's a beautiful red shimmery matte polish, though the shimmer is hiding a bit here.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 1: Sky

Over on Instagram, there's a pretty popular monthly nail art challenge.

What's great about this one is that it's spread out so much more easily doable. Plus the hashtag makes linking nail art doers easier than I think than blogging.

I posted mine yesterday on Instagram, but didn't have a chance to blog yet so here is my day 1!

I thought about going literal with clouds, but I've seen lots of daisy-like flowers and tutorials on Instagram that I've been loving so I went with that.

I only use nail polish for this design. Base is Barry M Blueberry. After topping the design with top coat to dry, I added a coat of Essie Matte About You. It does sometimes leave random white dots which can be a pain.

LynBDesigns TARDIS matte

Hey everyone! Super quick post here today. I've shown LynBDesigns TARDIS here before, but it's still one of my favorite colors. I wanted to wear it again, but in a fresh way for the blog.

So I just slapped some on and added Essie matte top coat. I love it!!! The mani lasted surprisingly well for how hard I am on my hands too.

Zoya Normani

Tomorrow, we'll heading out of town for the wedding (well, reception since they had a destination wedding) of two friends.

I wanted to paint something simple yet beautiful on my nails. I always wanted to lean more neutral. I saw this idea and was going to use a tan as the base. HOWEVER, I just got my Zoya order in and *knew* Normani would make a great neutral base without being boring. I was right :)

Zoya Normani went on great in two coats. I wouldn't recommend two because then the coat would be pretty thick and so it would tak longer to dry plus be more likely to chip.

I used China Glaze I'm Not Lion for the glitter. After topping with NYC In A New York Minute and letting dry, I added Essie Matte About You.

Bloody Splatter

Base: Wet n Wild Black Creme followed by Seche Vite to dry. Added Essie Matte About You on top.

Splatter: Zoya Isla and Zoya Sookie

Matte Graveyard

I did some simple graveyard nails using all matte polishes.

Base China Glaze Stone Cold

Gravestone ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly

Trees Sinful Colors Leather Loose

Grass Sinful Colors Rise and Shine

Roses Layla Fire It Up

Details Sinful Colors Cold Leather

Sinful Colors Cold Leather

Sinful Colors Cold Leather needed two coats. The first went on sorta sheer and dried quickly. The second took longer to dry. It has more of that latex/leather look than Leather Loose which was much more of a matte finish.

Sinful Colors Leather Loose

Sinful Colors Leather Loose from the new collection. This is 2 coats with no base or top coat.