Mint and blush dotted skittlette

Hello my sweeties! It’s only Monday and I am EXHAUSTED! I think they need to make weekends at least 3 days – who’s with me? Shall I start a petition? I just started working out hardcore, which took quite awhile to get motivation back.

So yeah, every fiber of my body aches. But at least I’ve got pretty nails! My personal trainer always compliments me on them – we talk polish as she kills me with lunges and mountain climbers. It makes it a little less painful! Anyways, onto today’s mani!

Mint and blush dotted skittlette

I just love this simple yet gorgeous look! As I’m sure you know, the whole mint/ teal/ aqua/ turquoise range is my all-time favorite. And I realized I haven’t used this particular holo in a really long time, so ta da! Mash them together and have a transitional accent nail with dots!

Mint and blush dotted skittlette

I really think my dotting game has been on point recently! Practice makes perfect and all that.

Polish My Life 1950s Mint Fridge with dots of ILNP Champagne Blush

I was so happy that the holo I used worked so well with the dots! It comes off a bit on the sheer side on the first coat on its own, so I was worried it wouldn’t be pigmented enough for dots. But it totally worked like a charm!

And a closeup of the holo accent:

I Love Nail Polish Champagne Blush

Yummy!

Polishes used:

• Index & middle finger: Polish My Life 1950s Mint Fridge… This beauty is from the new PML All Things Vintage collection, and I adore it! As I’ve mentioned, PML hands down has the best formula for pastel cremes I’ve found. This mint is no exception! I love it so hard!
• Ring finger:
  • Base: Polish My Life 1950s Mint Fridge
  • Dots: I Love Nail Polish Champagne Blush… this holo as mentioned above is a bit sheer on the first coat, but it builds up so nicely and is opaque in 2 coats. It’s a gorgeous pink rose gold linear holo with some golden shimmer that catches the light every now and then.
• Pinky (& thumb): ILNP Champagne Blush

What do you think? What’s your favorite way to mesh 2 different colors with a transitional accent nail? And if you work out, how do you keep your motivation up?

Aaaaand now here’s your daily David Tennant! It’s a classic 🙂

Coral and Fuchsia Skittlette Manicure

Hello my sweeties! Are you excited for spring and warmer weather? I SOOO am! I need some sunshine in my life again soon! So while the PA weather gods won’t give me real sunshine yet, I need some brightness on my nails!

I saw this amazing swatch video from jessFACE90 on YouTube on the new China Glaze Electric Nights collection, and I got so excited!! Like Jessie Spano on caffeine pills excited:

She’s so… scared! 😉

I had been drooling over the extremely hard to find PipeDream A Night In Vegas neon cremes and after seeing that swatch video, I was really hopeful that the Electric Nights cremes would satisfy my neon craving. I realized I have gaps in my collection when it comes to neons. So I decided I needed to pick up a few of the Electric Nights polishes – specifically the purples, the pink, the red-orange coral, and one of the blues!

So obviously I needed to use the neon I was anticipating the most – the fuchsia purple neon!

My coral and fuchsia skittlette

This is what I came up with – another little mishmash mani! I love how coral and fuchsia go together! Especially when they’re as bright as pretty as these two!

Coral and fuchsia skittlette

I have to say, I adore the color of this China Glaze neon! But I don’t think that they’re a replacement for the PipeDreams – from everything I’ve seen and read about those, they have such a perfect pigmented formula. The formula on this particular polish was a little runny. It does get opaque in 2 coats (without a white base), but the polish tends to slide towards the sides of the nail a little bit. I think a 3rd coat would fix that issue.

And, ahem… do you see the pinky nail?! That topper is divine! It’s one of I Love Nail Polish‘s new holographic multichrome flakies. AND I was able to get some good photos of that little sucker!

Closeup of ILNP Neon Rosebud (H) over China Glaze Violet Vibes

BOOM baby! I got it! I may have wished on a star, stood on my head, and sacrificed a virgin… but I finally got a good picture of the multichrome flakie! It shows off the gorgeous shift from pink/purple to gold and green, AND you can see how much depth the scattered holo gives it! Yay!

Polishes used:

• Base color for all nails: China Glaze Violet Vibes… as described above. Hopefully the formula of the others I bought are a little better. But I’ve most definitely come across worse neon formulas for sure! Oh, and since I hadn’t seen this collection in stores yet, I bought mine on Head2Toe Beauty.
• Index finger (and thumb):
  • Topped with ILNP Neon Rosebud (holo version)… check out the closeup shot above to see just one coat of this beauty! The holo in the flakie topper does give the base polish you use a bit of a silvery tinge. But only a little bit.
• Middle finger:
  • Dots of Polish My Life Coral Fedora… this is a gorgeous pink-leaning coral that’s a very bright pastel. The formula on this is perfection! I have yet to come across a bad Polish My Life pastel. They all have amazing formulas and are so pretty!
• Ring finger:
  • I used a chevron vinyl from NailVinyls.
  • Topped with Polish My Life Coral Fedora

What do you think? Do you have the PipeDream neons? Or do you know of dupes?

And now for your daily David Tennant! This is from the amazing Girl in the Fireplace episode!!

Holo Humpday: Superficially Colorful Omaticaya

Hello sweeties!! I’m feeling “writers block” right now. I’m like Michael Scott here:

So yeah, I’m going to keep it short and sweet and just show you a pretty holo! I scrounged around my collection to see if there were any older holos that haven’t been shared, and I came across my Superficially Colorful Lacquer’s A Life on Pandora collection (aka a neon holo Avatar-inspired line). I realized it was high time to share others! I previously posted Atokirina, Toruk Makto, and The Sacred Tsaheylu. So without further ado, I give you Omaticaya!

Superficially Colorful Omaticaya

Huminah, huminah, huminah… drool, drool, drool – SO PRETTY! Doesn’t that pic look extra saturated or altered? Well, it’s not… because this polish is that gorgeous!

Superficially Colorful Omaticaya

Omaticaya refers to the nationality of the people living on the planet, Pandora. If you’ve seen the movie (or even just a poster or trailer), doesn’t the polish look identical to the skin color of the Omaticaya?! #iamaginormousnerd

Superficially Colorful Omaticaya

Yeah this blue is ridiculous! Here’s a closeup:

Closeup of Superficially Colorful Omaticaya

Whoa baby. Just WHOA. Isn’t that stunning?! What do you think? Did you check this collection out? If not, it’s totally worth it! I own the whole collection, and love each one!

And now for your daily David Tennant!

Elie Saab inspired manicure: March’s NCC #4

Hello sweeties! I hope everyone had a good weekend. I didn’t do anything too exciting – there was some overtime at work, bingewatching The Killing (anyone else watch that?!), and some sleep. But hey, you can’t go wrong with a relaxing weekend! Anyways, today I have the last fashion-inspired manicure for March’s Nail Challenge Collaborative theme!

I browsed pictures from the recent New York Fashion Week, and I came across some beautiful dresses in the Elie Saab Spring 2015 Ready-to-Wear collection. It was full with aqua, teal, pops of bright orange in a cool tie-dyed/ marbled pattern.

Dress from the Spring 2015 Elie Saab collection

How gorgeous is that?! I just knew I wanted that on my nails! I had also recently watched a video from Young, Wild, And Polished on YouTube where she did a manicure that ended up with a very similar effect. Despite using saran wrap before, I had never done a mani like that! The way that I usually use saran wrap is by wadding up a little ball and dabbing on the extra colors.

My Elie Saab inspired manicure

I think it came out pretty darn similar to the actual dress! I really loved this manicure! It’s not really a day-to-day wearable manicure with the middle finger accent, but I definitely love the marbled/ tie-dye effect!

Marbled/ tie-dye manicure inspired by an Elie Saab dress

Polishes used/ how I did this:

• Base color: Essie Mint Candy Apple… a beautiful bright minty baby blue
• I blobbed on a few dots of 3 polishes and then took a small piece of saran wrap. I pressed the saran wrap to the nail and rubbed it in a small circular motion to create the marbled/ tie-dye effect.
  • Color blobs:
    • Essie Mint Candy Apple
    • Barry M Watermelon… my favorite deep teal polish!
    • Formula X Uber… a gorgeous bright red-leaning orange creme.
• Middle finger:
  • I freehanded stripes of Rica Whiteout and Rica Blackout in the same pattern of the dress’ neckline.
  • I took a small brush with acetone and removed the polish between the stripes to emulate the skin peeking from the neckline.

I really want to use this technique again – for a full mani or even as an accent nail or two. Maybe you’ll be seeing that on me again soon 🙂

What do you think? Have you used saran wrap or a plastic bag this way? Did you have a more interesting weekend than I did? And do you watch The Killing?! Talk to me if you do 🙂

And here’s your daily dose of David Tennant/ Doctor Who:

Love that grin!

Check out more fashion-inspired manicures from the NCC ladies:

Aqua flakie skittlette

Hello sweeties and happy Friday! If you have read my blog pretty much at all, I’m sure you know I luuuurrve I Love Nail Polish. It was my first indie brand, and I am a loyal fan of pretty much everything Barbra puts out! When the multichrome flakies were released, I went all grabby hands and got pretty much every single one (I won 6 in an instagram giveaway, aaaand then I bought 6 more lol). I haven’t featured them on my blog a lot because I have such difficulty photographing them! They’re like little shifty ninja polishes!

Like these ninjas:

Get it? hehe

Yeah, the multichrome flakies want to show up about as well as the ninjas at their parade!

Anyways, I wanted to use one of the flakies for this manicure and decided to pair it with more springy colors. And then I freehanded some odd spiky flowers on top!

Aqua flakie floral manicure

I kind of just started doodling with those flowers – they weren’t supposed to look like anything in particular. I do like how the middle finger came out!

Another pic of this mani

I tried and tried to get a good picture of how great I Love Nail Polish Supernova looks on the nail, but it was just so shy and didn’t want to play. It was totally gorgeous in real life though!

Closeup of ILNP Supernova over KBShimmer Shore Thing

Supernova was even shy for her closeup too! These pics don’t do it justice at all. So here’s a bottle shot:

ILNP Supernova bottle shot

I mean right?! Look at all that shiftiness! It totally looked like that on the nail in real life, and I really loved it over that KBShimmer aqua. In the past I’ve paired the ILNP flakies over darker colors, but I really like it over this bright pastel aqua!

Polishes used:

• Index & middle fingers:
  • Base color: KBShimmer Eyes White Open… I still totally want to call this Eggs White Open – no idea why! And this time I’m not hungry haha! The more I use this, the more I love it! It’s such a great white creme.
  • I then freehanded those odd spiky flower things with KBShimmer Shore Thing… this is a gorgeous bright aqua that I got as a gift. And I love it! Spring is such a great time for these beautiful teal/ aqua/ mint polishes, and I’m so happy to see this color back on everyone’s nails! It’s my favorite!
• Ring finger:
  • Base color: KBShimmer Shore Thing
  • Topper: ILNP Supernova… as you can see from the bottle shot, it’s chockfull of multichrome flakies that shift from teal to emerald, kelly green, blue, fuchsia, purple, and even gold. It’s stunning!
• Pinky: KBShimmer Shore Thing

What do you think? Are there any spiky flowers out there? And if you’ve photographed these multichrome flakies, what are your tricks you wizards??

And now for your daily David Tennant (and Donna, because she’s the most important woman in the world!):

I volunteer!

Holo Humpday: KBShimmer Ins And Sprouts

Why hello again my sweeties! It’s time for another Holo Humpday, and I am SO excited to show you this one. I took a chance with this polish from KBShimmer because chartreuse has the potential to look terrible on me. But I don’t own ANYTHING like it, so I had to buy Ins And Sprouts from the recent Spring 2015 collection!

KBShimmer Ins And Sprouts

I mean, WHOA baby! And this totally deserves a Joey from Blossom “Whoa!” C’mon – you 90s children know what I’m talking about right?

So yeah, this polish is amazing! Surprisingly enough, I adore the color. I’m usually not a huge chartreuse fan, but this baby called to me when I first saw swatches of the Spring collection. First, Christy was calling this an ultra-holo and how on earth could I deny myself an ultra-holo?! And then the beautiful swatches came – it seemed like it looked perfect on everyone! So I had to try it!

KBShimmer Ins And Sprouts

YAAAAS! It’s this odd light yellow-green chartreuse, which doesn’t sound beautiful. But dayumn, it really is! It’s like the kind of chartreuse you’d see in the iridescent yellow-green Easter basket grass, but it’s so flattering and unique on the nail.

KBShimmer Ins And Sprouts

And that holo! I think this totally qualifies as an ultra-holo. The linear flame is crazy intense – I mean I had no sun to work with, so all these pics are indoors and the holo is still amazing!

Check out the closeup too:

Closeup of KBShimmer Ins And Sprouts

Love. Just plain love this! Plus the formula is perfect – it’s opaque in 1-2 coats depending on the thickness. The 2nd coat intensifies the color and holo effect.

What do you think? Did you pick up any of the KBShimmer ultra-holos or any of the other Spring polishes?

Ok off-topic now… my husband just stole my computer when I left the room and added some lovely notes lol. I debated deleting it, but I wanted to show you how adorably silly my man is. In case you’re just here for the polish, feel free to stop reading and just appreciate the pretty pictures! I’ll leave you with the daily David Tennant, and then Mr. Doctor Crafty’s note will be below 🙂

I’ll take that job!

[DR CRAFTY’S CRAFTY HUSBAND-ALIVE PERSON HACKS WORDPREZ WWW]

Evil-Joyful Laugh! Hello, Everyone! Your friend is in the other room doing other-things. I wanted to say two thoughts about my special lady friend:

1. Dr C hardly ever lets me touch her laptop. This is more laptop touches than I’ve had all month! This is the truth-speaking.

2. I wanted to say thank you for all the love you show Dr C. WHY? ??

When she started getting into nail art, well, at first I was skeptical. I thought it was, hmmm? “Why is this love person making very tiny paintings? Why does she not make me ham sammich?”

I have come to see nail art something akin to Tibetan mandalas, impermanent meditations that live in the moment. The designs can be beautiful, but fleeting.

I have come to see nail art as “real” art, highly creative and skillful. There are so many techniques, textures, tools, and techniques to consider. Within what I thought was a small niche, there is a world of possibilities.

I have come to see nail art as social – and this is where you come in. Dr C loves seeing what you have come up with, and sharing what she does.

IN CONCLUSION

Now that I have nail art, she even paints my toes!

Surprise Hooray!

So yeah, I married that man. Silly sweet man 🙂

Tartan manicure: March’s NCC #3

Hello my sweeties!! And a happy Monday to y’all! Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, so this week I wanted to do manis accordingly. Not truly festive, but festive-ish (so not a word, but shhhh). To combine that and the March Challenge theme of fashion, I decided to try out a tartan pattern on my nails. Yes I know tartan patterns are Scottish, not Irish. But people totally wear kilts in St. Paddy’s Day parades, so it’s kosher (how many cultural groups can I reference?!).

My tartan skittlette manicure

I did this really quickly, but I love how it came out! I’m usually pretty awful with freehand lines, but these were better than my usual. Obviously they’re not perfect, but I’m improving slowly! 🙂 I was considering doing a full mani with every nail plaid, but I think I like it better this way.

Another pic of my tartan mani

These remind me of a cozy flannel or fleece plaid blanket. I just want to grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate with this mani! This would be a good for fall, winter, or Christmas. Plaid really goes well with everything.

Polishes used:

• Accent nail: piCture pOlish Badass… This is a charcoal grey “bijou” holo. I don’t really know what bijou means (I guess I could consult Dr. Google very easily, but I’m feeling lazy), but this polish is a subtle scattered holo and is gorgeous. This is one of PP’s blogger collabs and is one of my favorites! Simple but beautiful!
• Tartan nails:
  • Base color: Zoya Sookie… Ugh, this is the kind of perfect red nail polish that makes me utter orgasmic noises when I put it on lol! It’s such a stunning cherry red creme with a perfect formula.
  • I painted on a hashmark design with OPI Malaga Wine, a beautiful burgundy creme.
  • I then painted the overlapping squares with Rica Blackout, the perfectly opaque black creme that works amazingly in nail art and stamping.
  • Accent stripes of Essie Good As Gold… the best metallic chrome gold ever! It’s easily opaque, so it’s perfect for nail art and stamping.

And now for your daily David Tennant! He’s Scottish, so it’s appropriate for this mani (and appropriate for anytime you want to look at something pretty).

Yummy yummy

What do you think? Have you done tartan or plaid manis before? Any fun plans for St. Patrick’s Day?

Check out more fashion inspired manicures from the NCC ladies:

WingDust Muskoka Sunset

Hello my sweeties! Today I’m showing you a polish that was one of my lemmings; I bought it awhile back and haven’t worn it until now. #polishhoarderproblems am I right? There are just SO many pretties out there, and I want them all!

I can imagine Veruca Salt hoarding nail polish, can’t you? Aaaanyways, I finally found and squashed my lemming – WingDust Muskoka Sunset! And then it sat with unused polishes for more months than I’d care to admit. Well, it’s finally time to put the beauty on!

WingDust Muskoka Sunset

Nice right? It’s so vibrant and colorful! Muskoka Sunset has a fuchsia-purple jelly base with loads of glitter packed in. There’s matte hot pink, blue, and tangerine yellow-orange hexes, iridescent purple and blue and pink circles, small purple bar glitter, and little purple and blue microglitter.

WingDust Muskoka Sunset

It even almost looks like there’s a bit of blue shimmer to the jelly base! Seeing this on my nails reminds me why it was such a lemming for me – it’s so stunning!

WingDust Muskoka Sunset

And a closeup:

WingDust Muskoka Sunset

When I had this on for a bit, I was reminded of one of KBShimmer‘s polishes from their Winter collection – Sugar Plum Faerie. That was another one I was drawn to and purchased but had yet to wear!

Here’s a quick comparison of the two:

L: WingDust Muskoka Sunset, R: KBShimmer Sugar Plum Faerie

So they’re obviously different. Sugar Plum Faerie’s base jelly is more cool-toned purple and is packed with smaller glitter. The glitter is also all iridescent where Muskoka Sunset has mostly matte glitter.

On a slightly negative note, I was not 100% thrilled with the formula of Sugar Plum Faerie. It looks like a crelly in the bottle, but it really is a true jelly. It’s very sheer, like VERY sheer. I painted 4 coats for the above swatch and you can still see patches and visible nail line. It is a stunning mixture of color, but I think I’ll have to layer it over a creme next time I wear it!

Anyways, I’m really digging Muskoka Sunset! I need to wear it again ASAP. It’s only my second WingDust ever, and I’m impressed.

What do you think? Do you like glitter-packed polishes? Do you like sheer jellies?

And now for your daily David Tennant (I’ve decided my blog posts are better with him in it 🙂 ):

Holo Humpday: Glam Polish Ladies Choice

Hello my sweeties! Today’s holo is Glam Polish Ladies Choice. From all the polishes in the recent Hairspray collection, this was the one I was most excited about. Teal holos are my jam!

Glam Polish Ladies Choice

This color is gorgeous! It’s a perfect teal/ turquoise, but it also has this lavender purple shimmer with a little bit of a duochrome feel. I have a ton of pictures of this baby because I was trying to capture every little shimmer or shift!

Glam Polish Ladies Choice

The holo is pretty strong too! I loved this when it first touched my nails – it’s such a perfect color for spring!

Glam Polish Ladies Choice

The longer I wore this polish, I began to notice that the lavender shimmer gives it almost a frosty feel in certain lighting. I’m not a huge fan of frosty polishes, and it made me sad that this beauty leaned that way.

Glam Polish Ladies Choice

And a pic that shows you the almost frosted look:

Glam Polish Ladies Choice

So yeah, if you’re not into frosts you may not like this polish. But it really only looks frosty in certain lighting. It’s otherwise pretty damn stunning!

What do you think? Do you like frosty polishes or ones that can lean frosty?

Oh and in case you’re suffering from midweek blues, here you go:

Because David Tennant makes everything better 🙂

Oscar de la Renta manicure: March’s NCC #2

Hello and happy Monday my sweeties! Today I’m sharing my second manicure for March’s Nail Challenge Collaborative theme. NY Fashion Week recently happened, so this is definitely the perfect timing to do manis based on fashion!

I was browsing Pinterest and stumbled upon Oscar de la Renta’s 2015 Resort line. It was filled with black and white, florals, and some pops of bright pink and purple.

A few dresses from Oscar de la Renta 2015 Resort collection

Aren’t those dresses gorgeous?! I don’t know what resort you would wear these to… I’m used to wearing bathing suits and beach wear to resorts. I guess Beyonce could pull off wearing a designer gown at a resort though. So maybe this collection is meant for Beyonce? They’re stunning no matter who you’re designing for or where you’re meant to wear the pieces!

I decided I needed to work on my freehand flowers anyways, so this was a perfect inspiration for a mani. I went with a dark shimmery green instead of black, and I had a perfect pink to match!

My Oscar de la Renta manicure

I tried cutting down the bristles of one of my nail brushes to get really thin lines, but they’re still a bit thicker than I’d prefer. I feel like I needed to cut it down to a single bristle in order to get the type of wispy lines I was going for with this manicure.

Another pic of my Oscar de la Renta manicure

Also, the pink photographed a bit more neon pink than it is in real life. In real life, it looks practically identical to the Oscar de la Renta dress above – a slighly purple-leaning bright fuchsia. My camera can be a temperamental little beyotch; it hates blurples, it changes neon pink to orange, it changes oranges to pinks, and it changes fuchsia to neon pink. Silly camera!

Polishes used:

• Index & middle fingers:
  • Base color: Barry M Racing Green… This is a beautiful dark blackened emerald green with some added shimmer. So beautiful!
  • Flowers: Rica Whiteout… As usual, this is my favorite white for nail art and everything else!
• Ring finger & pinky:
  • Base color: KBShimmer Beach Please… This is a GORGEOUS fuchsia – bright pink with some purple tones. The formula is perfection!
  • Flower on ring finger: Barry M Racing Green… This was not as pretty in nail art because it came out pretty sheer. Ah well.

What do you think? Do you sometimes want to swear at your poor little camera for screwing up colors? I feel like my camera never went to grade school and therefore never learned colors. Maybe I  should be more lenient with my poor uneducated camera – it didn’t have the advantages I did. 😉

Check out more fashion-inspired manis from the NCC ladies: