Fuchsia tie-dyed manicure: April NCC #2

Hello sweeties! For my second NCC look of April, I recreated a gorgeous manicure from fellow Pittsburgher, Stephanie of A Little Polish (see her blog post here). She did this beautiful striped gradient look for a neon manicure, and it really called to me! I’ve been feeling these fuchsia/ bright purples and pinks recently, and this mani fits so well with that.

My fuchsia waterfall gradient

I love how this came out! It almost looks like a chunky neon tie-dyed manicure. Stephanie’s original was so perfect, and I think I came close at least in the color choice!

Fuchsia waterfall gradient

I do wish I had left more of the darkest shade of purple showing. It’s just so pretty, and I had enough nail canvas to work with to get all the colors in. But I got overzealous with my white stripes*.

*Not this White Stripes:

Hehe – that resting bitchface of Jack White’s gets me every time! But back to the nails…

Neon striped waterfall gradient

Polishes used/ how I did this:

• Base color: China Glaze Violet Vibes… This is a beautiful pink/red leaning fuchsia. It’s bright and vibrant and one of my FAVORITE shades of purple! Previously I had some issues with the formula (it tended to slide towards the sides of the nails and pool in those places), but this time I used thinner coats and had no issues. It did, however, take 3 coats to get opaque with this technique. I don’t mind because it’s my favorite shade of purple!
• Using a medium sized nail brush, I dabbed on a messy vertical striped gradient with the following colors:
  • First, a base of Rica Whiteout… The best white for nail art!
  • Then KBShimmer Beach Please… One of my favorite names for a polish! And it’s gorgeous too 🙂 This is a neon purple-leaning pink, and it’s an amazing formula. LOVE!
  • And lastly, Models Own Shades… One of the most amazing neon coral with slight pastel-leanings. It’s part of last year’s Polish for Tans collection, and it’s perfection!
• Top coat: Digital Nails Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That… one of my top 2 top coats!
  • Matte top coat: Essie Matte About You… this is the only matte top coat I’ve tried, so I have nothing to compare it with. But it works just fine.

What do you think? Have you tried a waterfall gradient like this? What colors would you combine for this?

And now for your daily David Tennant:

… especially if you’re David Tennant 😉

Scaled gradient and texture mani

When the weather started getting cold and grey, I had a strong need to brighten up my nails. So I broke out some vivid girly colors to make me happier! As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of wearing whatever color makes you happy… and this mani certainly did that for me. 🙂

My cheery Winter mani

I started out wanting to utilize Zoya Carter (that beautiful PixieDust), and I noticed that there was a nice pink sparkly accent. So my pink & purple color scheme was born! I also decided I wanted to try a scaled gradient again (I tried it in black and white here). Simply Nailogical is the master and creator of scaled gradients, and I hope to one day make mine look as pretty as hers!

Slightly different lighting – check out the complexity of that textured polish!

And a close up of Zoya Carter:

Zoya Carter

Isn’t that gorgeous?! I love the complexity that the texture gives this polish – there’s almost a blackened purple base with purple and pink sparkles. LOVE!

And a close up of Worlds Apart:

Ethereal Lacquer Worlds Apart

And this polish is another stunner! Ethereal Lacquer Worlds Apart is a bright purple jelly with pinky-red and gold shimmer. So gorgeous!

How I did this mani:

• Pinky and thumb: Ethereal Lacquer Worlds Apart
• Ring finger: Zoya Carter
• Index & Middle finger:
  • Base color: Models Own Shades… a beautiful hot pink/ coral. This baby is opaque in 2 coats!
  • Gradient with MO Shades and OPI Do You Have This Color In Stockholm? I taped it off using nail vinyls, did the gradient at the base of the nail, then top coated it and let it dry. Then I taped it off again with vinyls and did the same gradient on the tip of the nail.

I loved this mani so much!! Do you like it too? Have you tried scaled gradients? What’s your favorite thing to do to your nails to lift your mood in the dreary Winter?

Neon stripes and roses: August NCC #3

Here comes manicure #3 for August’s NCC theme of Tea Party! For this one, I decided to basically recreate a recent favorite of mine – stripes and flowers. I imagine an outside tea party in a garden with a trellis of vines and flowers. Since I’m obsessed with neon, I also used my recent Models Own purchase.

Gorgeous right?? I love this type of manicure. Paulina’s Passions does it perfectly, and I just plain strive to make my flower nails like hers!

This manicure was actually from awhile ago… I had it on my nails when the August theme was announced, and I knew it’d be perfect for the tea party theme!

Polishes used:

• Pinky, thumb, and neon stripes: Models Own Flip Flop
• Base color: Rica Whiteout
• Roses: Orly Frolic (bright orchid purple), OPI Vant to Bite my Neck? (dark purple accent), Illamasqua Collide (sheer neon pink to brighten the roses up)
• Leaves: Revlon Posh

What do you think? Do you wear neons year-round or just in the warmer months? I think I want to wear neons forever 🙂

Check out the other tea party-themed nails by the NCC:

 

Tropical Flower Manicure

Ummm, I’m super excited to show you guys this manicure – I think this is probably my all-time favorite freehand manicure so far! Prepare to feel major nail envy!

I mean, right?! How pretty is that? I’m pretty proud of myself, if you couldn’t tell already! Instead of using nail brushes, I ended up using a small dotting tool for the details. I think using something that has such a firm tip (heh, heh, heh… yes, I have a prepubescent boy’s sense of humor) really helped in drawing nice, crisp lines and leaves. I then used a larger dotting tool (cause we all like larger tools, am I right ladies? 😉 ) to add the bright flowers.

Here’s a pic showing my mani at a better angle:

Colors used:

• Base color: Essie Mochacino, a gorgeous darker nude brown with some subtle silver shimmer
• Base leaves: China Glaze Four Leaf Clover
• Top leaves: Models Own Flip Flop – one of my first Models Own! Part of the Polish for Tans collection, it’s a GORGEOUS neon yellow-green lime color! And it’s really opaque, so it doesn’t need a base of white to make it pop!
• Flowers: OPI Koala Bear-y (the darker pink) and Models Own Shades – also in the Polish for Tans collection… such a pretty neon coral pink

So what do y’all think? Do you like it as much as I do? Do you find using dotting tools for nail art is easier? And is your sense of humor as dirty and prepubescent as mine? 🙂

Recreating my first gradient manicure: July NCC #3

One of my favorite first posts was my first attempt at a gradient manicure. I called it an ombre mani, but I was almost a year younger and nail naive at that time. I’m older and wiser and know more in the world of nails at this point 🙂

This time, I switched up the colors and made it super bright and neon for summer:

Mmm I love neon! I could wear it year-round; it just makes me stare at my nails all the time! Plus, when you wear neon polish in the NICU, it GLOWS near phototherapy! Phototherapy is a treatment we do for jaundice where we put blue lights around the baby to make the jaundice go away, and it acts similar to UV lights so the neons GLOW.

I used 3 colors in this gradient: China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Models Own Flip Flop, and Formula X Radioactive (Oh, and I also used Rica Whiteout for my white undies). I then decided I need to spice things up since the last 2 recreations i’ve done were basically identical to the previous manis.

Spice it up – put a bird on it! (Any Portandia fans out there?!) I used one of my favorite MoYou London image plates, Suki 08, and stamped the bird design using Zoya Sailor (a nice navy blue creme).

Another pic:

And here’s a comparison to my old mani:

I really liked my old mani, but I think my gradients have gotten so much smoother and better-blended. And I really like the stamping over it too! What do you think? How else do you spice up a gradient mani?

And check out some other recreations: