Gradient Fail

I tried to do black/gray/white gradient nails today, and they turned out bad. Ugh. I'm posting a picture here so ya'll can see my fail.

I'm not even going to go into what I used because it's not worth it. You'll see some glitter on the pinky finger because I hoped that might help, but it didn't. This is my right hand (normally I take pictures of my left since I'm a righty) so sorry for the weird picture -- it's hard to use a DSLR to take pictures plus I didn't care about getting a good picture. I just wanted this off.

Any suggestions for how to do gradients in the future?

More polish!

So I earned some extra money this weekend babysitting, and my wonderful husband let me use it to buy nail stuff.  Some of the stuff I got what on my wishlist so I was pretty excited.

 I still have plenty leftover so I think I'm going to buy some stamping plates from Amazon or Born Pretty. Any suggestions?

Revlon Starry Pink and Blue Mosaic

 I got both of these at Target. I would have gotten Facets of Fuchsia too, but there wasn't any :(

China Glaze Blonde Bombshell, Trendsetter, Twinkle Lights, and Sea Spray

 These are my first China Glazes! I got them at Ulta. These are a bit expensive for my taste (I know, I know! but I'm a cheapskate. I'm not sure how I'll ever be able to shell out the money for the Illamasque or Debroah Lippmann's on my wishlist), but there was a buy 2 get one free sale, and Sea Spray was on clearance for 3.99

L.A. Colors Jewel Tone & Art Deco 24K Glitter

I got both of these at my local dollar store. I'd heard the other bloggers sometimes find polishes there so I thought I'd check it out (plus I needed to get some shelf liner). My store had about 10 colors of the full size polishes, plus 6 different strippers. These were the only 2 that I thought were unique to my stash.

Pumpkin nails

I decided to paint some pumpkins on my nails. They kind of fit in for Halloween, but they work well for fall too, especially since I made them regular pumpkins and not Jack-o'-lanterns

With flash

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Nirvana (after my base coat, of course!). I used two thick coats to get full coverage. Sorry for the messy job, but I was going to add more and only wanted to do one clean up job.

With flash

Here's what I did on my nails. I didn't take pictures of the steps, but I put down white polish first. The orange is Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up. The stem is Essie Little Brown Dress. For the vine, I used a Migi nail art pen. The highlights on the pumpkin were done by mixing the orange with yellow and red/black.

Without flash, artificial lighting

Swatches

Here's some swatches of the newest polishes that I've gotten.

Nina Ultra Pro Purple-xing

I got this color about 2 weeks ago at Sally Beauty. It's a super awesome 1 coat purple glitter. If you look at the polish, it is super textured and definitely needs a top coat (which I didn't put on since I was just going to take it off). Like the other Nina Ultra Pro polishes that I have tried, it goes on super great.

Julep Alfre

This is a swatch of Julep Alfre that I got in my Julep Maven box. It went on really great in two coats. It seems a little light in this picture, but it's not really the color. It's actually a bit darker. I've had nothing but cloudy weather here so photographing anything is awful. I would best describe this color as a metallic silver with a hint of purple.

Julep Cameron

I'm really not a big fan of this color. Bright, almost neon pinks like this are not my thing, nor do I think it goes well with my skin tone. It went on pretty good in two coats, but probably could use another coat.

Finger Paints Paper Mache

 I got this color at Sally Beauty this week. I really needed a white polish to use for nail art. All I had before was my Migi nail art pens, E.L.F. White that takes forever to get opaque, and french tip white. This is two coats. I know that whites can be streaky, but this one looks pretty good for two coats.

Sally Hansen Flirt

I got this color at my local grocery store. It was on sale for $2.79, plus I had a $.50 off coupon that doubled making this only $1.79! I'm not sure what's going on with this picture though. I put on two coats of the color, and it looked completely opaque. In this picture, though, I clearly needed a third coat! It looks pretty red here, but I'd say it's more of a maroon-ish, dark purple with a hint of shimmer.

Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat

This has been on my wishlist! I was at Sally's this weekend and saw it by the register so I snapped it up! Luckily I did because the cashier said it was the one of the last 4 they had! It's this beautiful micro glitter with crazy shine! I probably won't wear this by itself (it does have top coat in it's name, lol), but I wanted to show you'll what it looked like on its own.
Then I layered it over all the colors I just swatched above to see what it could do.

Finger Paints Paper Mache, Sally Hansen Flirt, Julep Alfre, Julep Cameron

So I was not a big fan of Cameron plain, but with the Sparkle Top Coat I like! I also like Flirt this way. I don't think there's much distinction when it's over white so I don't think I'll do that again.

Which one is everyone's favorite?

Mustache nails!

The TraceFace Philes (along with other bloggers/nail people) have organized a Moustache Mani Monday in support of Prostate Cancer awareness in November.

Here's what I did. I did 6 different mustaches, 3 on each nail, along with stripes on the thumbs and dots on the pinkies. I chose to put the mustaches sideways so I could be silly and use them as fake mustaches, hehe.

My left hand

Right hand

Base coat: CND Sticky
3 coats of Revlon Minted
I drew the mustaches and dots with Sinful Colors Black on Black and use Sinful Colors Time Off stripper for the black lines.

New Polish

I got some new polishes this weekend.

Sally Hansen Flirt, Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat & Paper Mache, California Mango  Miracle Cuticle Remover

I got these at Sally Beauty supply, except the Sally Hansen which at got at my local grocery store.
Here's a close up view of some of them.

Sally Hansen Flirt

Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat
So pretty!!

I also got my first Julep Maven box!

The box

Inside was a cute little gift bag with all my goodies

All the goodies including 2 polishes, Facial for Hands, and 2 samples (Facial for  Hands & SPF 30 hand cream)

A close up of the polish. Alfre is on the left and Cameron is on the right.

For those who have never heard of the Julep Maven program, here's some information straight from their site:
"Being a Maven, gives you exclusive access to COLOR!  You get it first, and YOU decide how often you want to receive your beauty editor Sneak Peek Box
You receive over $40 worth of trendsetting polish colors and cutting-edge treatment products each month customized in a gift-able Sneak Peek Box
Each Sneak Peek Box features new, never before released colors and treatments FIRST to you, before anyone else
Your box also includes hits and cult favorites - the products we like to keep on the top of editors' minds

20% off all julep.com purchases
FREE shipping on ALL your purchases
Each box also comes with a surprise and delight element- something to look forward to!
Receive additional membership perks throughout the year."
Each box costs about $20. They send you a preview email, and if you don't like the colors that are being offered you can request a new shelf pull, send it to someone else, or cancel it for that month. 

Wolf half moon

I was inspired by this post by Sonoma Nail Art and decided to try my hand at it. Her's is a lot better than mine.

To start off, I painted my nails white using my Migi nail art pens (there's a brush as well as a pen there and I don't have any other whites). Then I used page reinforcement stickers to block off the moon and painted over it using Rimmel Play Fast Chill. I had to use several coats of it, and it was still splotchy! Maybe the color would have worked better if it didn't have to go over another one.

In this moon on the ring finger where I added the wolf, I used Maybelline Express Finish Sunshine to add some highlights.

Close up of the wolf

This wolf was super hard to do! I tried practicing it a bunch of times of paper and could never get it quite right. Then I decided I needed to trace it somehow. I remembered this post by Nails in Nippon showing you how to make your own nail art stickers. I ended up cutting out a piece of plastic and placing it over my netbook screen and then traced over the design with a Migi nail art pen in black. Finally I filled it in and placed on some top coat.

I really like this technique to make my own stickers. The only problem I had is that I didn't put on a thick enough top coat or let the whole thing dry enough so that made application a bit hard. I'm not the most artistic (and it's hard to do my right hand when I am right handed!) so I plan on making my own stickers in the future.

Nina Ultra Pro Swatches

Here's some colors I got from my last trip to Sally's. I haven't had a chance to use them yet in a manicure, but I wanted to test out the formula before I decided if I buy more this weekend (don't judge! I have coupons!)

This brand is called Nina Ultra Pro. The price is really good at $3.79 a bottle with your Sally Beauty Card. As far as I know, it's only available at Sally's (either in person or online), but I'm sure you can find it other places as well.

Ink-ling and Mossy Britches, picture taken with flash

The color went on in two wonderful coats. The formula on these was super nice. They went on kind of thin for their first coats but were completely opaque in two coats.

Artificial light, this is more true to the colors.

Ink-ling is purplish-smoky gray. I love grays and think they go super well with my skin tone. 

Mossy Britches is a sort of olive green with lots of gold shimmer in it. You could probably compare it to Chanel Peridot, but I'm not sure since I don't have the Chanel. 

I've heard other bloggers say that the brush is on the thin side, but it's also nice and flexible (not floppy though). I like the thinner brush because I have small nails so I was able to get a much neater manicure with these.

Overall, I really loved the application of these, the true-to-the-bottle color, and the price. I will be getting more for sure. Has any one else tried this brand?

Trying out some new things

So I actually got bored with my manicure from yesterday already. I think I may have a problem, LOL. So I decided to play with things before I took off the color.

From L to R: with Pure Ice White Crackle, Jordana stripper in Star Designer just on the tips, and Essie Matte About You on the pinky

And here's my thumb on that hand. A half moon manicure with Rimmel London Wild Orchid

And here's my left hand with: Pure Ice Black Crackle, Rimmel London French White Tip Pro,  and 1 coat of Wet n Wild Gray's Anatomy

I really like the silver tip on the navy blue, and kinda even dig the Gray's Anatomy. I think I would like the white tip better if I did it a bit neater. I didn't feel like doing things super clean because I was just taking it off anyway. I'm not a fan of the half moon, but it's just those colors because I did a different one that I really like (I'll show you all tomorrow!)


What do you think? Which look is your favorite and which is your least favorite?

I love nail art, but I wanted to do something a little less time intensive today and play with some new polishes that I've gotten recently but haven't had a chance to use.

I started off with a base coat then used 3 coats of Savvy Deja Blue. The polish seemed a bit thin and definitely need the full three coats. Perhaps you could get away with 2 thick coats.

Ugh, I apologize for the clean up. It looked better last night. Also, blue is so hard to clean-up, any tips?

I love the look of this bottle.

To have a little fun, I put on two thick coats of Sally Girl Chunky Silver Glitter.  I followed everything up with 1 coat of Seche Vite.

Taken with flash. It's so cloudy outside that it's hard to get a photo of anything without a flash. This photo also shows the true color and the tiny bit of shimmer the color has.

Has anyone else tried the Savvy brand of polish? I found it at Sally's and also got a glittery red (Ruby Pumps) for my mom, but I'm thinking about getting one for myself too.