Vote For Rosie Mendez!

This may seem like an odd blog post and I can't argue with that because it definitely is. What does a 17 year old girl have to do with the City Council for New York? Well I just so happen to know Rosie Mendez and since she is running again for Councilwoman of District 2, I thought that I would show my support for her reelection. If you don't live in New York you probably have no idea what I'm talking about but basically Rosie is a representative for part of NY and works hard, along with her staff, to resolve the problems that the constituents, who live in her District, are having.

I actually got to show Rosie and her staff my nails and they all loved it. Definitely made my day to know that they enjoyed it so much and Rosie actually put up a picture on her twitter!

 

VOTE FOR ROSIE MENDEZ :D

Mish Mash Challenge - Purple

This is the first challenge I am joining in on and I'm really excited! The ladies who put this lovely challenge together are absolutely amazing! I think its rather managable, one post every week so it seems like the right first challenge to participate in. I actually found out about this challenge yesterday so I quickly whipped something up.

The theme for July 31st is PURPLE. Like I said I found out about this challenge yesterday so I kept it simple and wanted to do something easy. What's easier than stripes? The manicure below is using 6 different shades of purple that I had hidden in my nail polish arsenal.

 *Middle Finger - Left to Right* 

Matteselite - Fucci-licious

Sinful Colors - Sweet Tooth

Essie - Lilacism

Jordana - Purple Punch

Revlon - Bold Sangria

OPI - You're Such A Budapest

I put a matte top coat just so the stripes can be seen a little easier in the photographs. The matte top coat I used for the pictures below is Warpaint Beauty - Mattify from Hot Topic: 

Sorry for the bombardment of pictures, it's just so easy to get good pictures when it's matte! 

Neon Stripes

This is a manicure I had on about a week or two ago, is it back I can't remember? I'm not quite sure how I feel about these, I was thinking of having a really soft looking manicure so I painted my nails with Essie Like Linen then decided I wanted something bright. I decided that I wanted to do stripes and just chose some fun colors. I would have done it over my entire nail but I didn't want to take off my nail polish so I ended up with this:

Blue Pop Beauty - Mint Magic

Green Klean Color - TLC

White Wet n' Wild - French White

Pink Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Coral Reef

Orange Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Sunkissed

Black Wet n' Wild - Black Creme

Off White Essie - Like Linen

Black with Glitter Forever 21 - Charcol 

Since I did these at night and my lighting isn't the best it could be I didn't really see the true color of my nail polish. My base looked brighter and whiter than it really was. I enjoyed how it looked when I was in my room at night but during the day it didn't really have the same effect on me. I wouldn't say I hate them but it definitely isn't one of the favorite manicures I've done.

Nail Nubs!

This past weekend I've been thinking of cutting my nails since they were getting too long for my liking. I was considering trying round nails for a change to see if it would give me the change I was looking for. After trying to round my nails evenly I got frustrated and cut them back down to squares. Unfortunately I cut them too short on my left hand. The nails on my right hand are a bit longer, the only problem is I do nail art on my left hand. I usually do a solid color or a simpler version of my designs on my right hand. I really don't like the length of my left hand right now so I'm holding back on trying any nail art for a bit but for the sake of this blog and my need to do my nails all the time I'm going to attempt some nail art on my right hand. I may end up just swatching a lot of my polishes but we'll see what happens.

This is the current length of my right hand, this is what I tried to get on my left hand but unfortunately went a bit too crazy with the nail clippers and nail file, oops!

NK Amarillo Swatch

I'm continuing on with my summer manicures and I'm really excited about this color. To everyone else it's probably not that exciting and just an ordinary yellow but that's not the case! Well kind of...the reason I'm so happy is because yellow NEVER looks good on me! I'm too pale to pull it off, it makes me look sick. Thanks to the summer sun for giving me some color because it finally looks nice on me, it's bright and vibrant, the way its supposed to look. I bought this a pretty long time ago and I usually don't see the NK brand in drugstores but I do see them in about every beauty suppy I go to, I believe they're a dollar but don't quote me on that! 

This is two coats and since I am a bit more than halfway through the bottle and it's more than a year old, application wasn't the greatest but it was still really workable. It is a typical canary yellow color, bright, playful and perfect for the season. 

No matter the lighting, the color always stands out, this is my go to yellow for my nail art, since I'm running a bit low I think I'll be testing out my other yellows to see how they compare to this one.

Revlon Plum Seduction Swatch

Last weekend my best friend had a party for her 17th birthday. I had to be there 2 hours early to help her out and do her nails. Because I'm the worst with getting ready early I ended up going over there with bare nails! I only brought nude colors for her cheetah print nails and I wanted something loud. I looked through her collection and found this beautiful revlon gem called plum seduction, and let me just say, it's absolutely beautiful!

This is two coats and is the picture most true to color. I wouldn't say this is necessarily a plum color, I think it leans more to a pink fuchsia. The formula is pretty thin, which makes it really easy to work with. 

In some lights it's a bit darker, like the picture above, but it's still looks bright on the nail. Like I said earlier, I used two coats, the first coat is sheer but once you add the second coat it becomes fully opaque and the brightness of the color really comes through. I was thinking of adding a third but decided against it, thankfully two was enough for this manicure.

I'm still debating getting this for myself, I really like the color but can't justify getting it for myself when I can just borrow it from my friend. Hmm, what to do...

Faith's Tattoo {Mirror's Edge} + Inspiration

I was really in the mood to paint my nails late last night but couldn't think of a design I wanted to do. Thankfully someone tried to help me out and sent me a picture of a tattoo from a video game called mirror's edge, isn't it awesome? I ended up falling asleep after I applied my base color since I waited what seems like forever for it to dry. This morning I added the detail and while it doesn't really look like my inspiration I think it still looks pretty cool. I want to attempt the same type of design but with a different base color, hopefully it happens!

Blue Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blizzard Blue

Black Wet n Wild Wild Shine - Black Creme

 

I wondered what this manicure would look like with a matte finish so I added my NYC matte me crazy topcoat and it looks great. I'm not sure which one I like more, my base is pretty shimmery so even though it's matte it still looks kind of glossy. The main difference I noted was that the matte nails were 1000 times easier to photograph since there is no glare.

And a picture of my inspiration: 

Subtle Striped Half Moons

I actually really like this design but I do wish that it came out a bit cleaner, either way I'm proud of them. I kind of got a dated feeling from them but not in a bad way! It just made me think of a color scheme I'd find at my grandmother's house. The stripes would be the wallpaper and the raspberry would be the color of the dreadfully outdated couch, am I crazy for thinking that? Hmm...

 Nude Maybelline Color Show - Canary Cool

White Art Deco Nail Art Striper - White

Red Essie - Raspberry

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Co-Bolt Blue Swatch

Blue is such a great color, I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't like some shade of blue. Since I was trying to go for a color that can be thought of as the ocean I thought of Co-Bolt Blue. While it's dark and doesn't necessarily scream summer it does shine and becomes irresistible to stare at when sunlight is directly on it. This polish smells a bit odd to me though, I'm not sure what it smells like but it doesn't have the typical nail polish scent and I usually hold my breath while applying.

 

I'm wearing two coats for the picture above although I think I could have gotten away with one since the formula is a bit on the thick side, I rather play it safe. It was easy to apply and while there are some that are in love with the wide brush that comes with the Insta-Dri polish others are not big fans, I'm on neither side. The brush works for me sometimes and other times it's a mess, I have no problem with it and I would say it makes painting my nails faster since it takes about two quick swipes to cover the entire nail.

Carnival Fun

Summer themed nails galore! It's going to be a fun summer. I'm trying especially hard to get as many manicures that scream summer as I can but I will have some miscellaneous nail art here and there. I thought these were especially fun since I've been dying to go to a carnival/theme park so I recreated the best parts on my nails. There's the roller coaster, the cotton candy (some say ice cream, whatever floats your boat), Ferris wheel and popcorn! They were incredibly fun to paint and i hope you enjoy them!

Ice Cream Manicure

It's summer so it's time to make sure to get as many summer manicures done as possible and what screams summer more than ice cream! I saw a tutorial on cutepolish’s channel and I fell in love, her “ice cream” was strawberry and since I didn’t want to use the same color I started to think of another flavor.  It seemed too boring to use white as vanilla or have brown on brown for chocolate, I decided to use the color that was already on my nails, pistachio (mint)! I thought it would be great to have a mint green and brown together and it was an amazing combination.

 

Mint Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Mint Sorbet

Brown Sinful Colors - Nirvana

Blue Brucci - JT's Ocean Blue

Green Brucci - Cali Cat

Yellow NK - Amarillo

Red Avon - Mambo Melon

Pink Warpaint Beauty - Pretty in Pink

Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Mint Sorbet Swatch

I bought this because of all the hype I was seeing with all the nail gurus I basically stalk. Everyone was saying how great this color is and naturally I had to get my hands on it. I was afraid it wouldn't work with my skin tone but let me say I had no reason to worry! I tried it on a couple people with different skin tones and it looked good on each one of us.

 

Two coats was all that was needed for an opaque and even manicure. I'm not sure why but I was expecting a bit of trouble with application but it was actually really easy to work with. It's a great mint color that I think everybody needs in their arsenal of nail polishes. 

I painted this color on a friend of mine and it looked even more amazing on her! I couldn't stop looking at her nails while she had this color on and she also got quite a few compliments on it. 

Avon Inspire Swatch

I had the opportunity to look through an Avon book and pick any item I wanted and my father would get it for me, naturally I picked a polish. This is Inspire and it is absolutely beautiful! I do think that this color does not work very nicely with my skin tone but I wore it anyway because I really did like this color.

I read some of the descriptions online from other bloggers that said this color is like a canary yellow but I'd have to disagree, it has a bit of a greenish tinge to it. Coverage was okay, I used 2 coats for the picture above. The smell of the polish was kind of weird to me though. I don't know why but it reminded me of pea soup, I've never smelled pea soup before but this polish smells like what I imagine pea soup would smell like. Does that make sense? Haha. 

Happy Fourth of July!

I usually do American flag nails for the 4th of July but I wanted my manicure to be simple this year so I just went with the melting nail polish in the traditional American red, white and blue colors. These were inspired by a pictorial I saw on Instagram by Madeline Daffron (@madelinedaffron). Hope you enjoy!

Base Essie - Sugar Daddy

Red Essie - She's Pampered

White Folk Art - Wicker White (acrylic paint) 

Blue Jordana - Smooth Blue