Beach Vibes

I've been feeling the summer spirit lately. Even though it is already August, I have yet to make it to the beach and my legs surely show it, I could blind someone with how white they are. Since I haven't made the full effort to go to the beach, I decided putting the beach on my nails would be the next best thing!

30 Day Challenge: Splatter Paint

Woohoo platter! I love splatter nail art because it is such a fun look and so easy to do, not to mention it takes just a few minutes to complete. For this design I went with a neutral base and bright colors for the splatter. I'm 99% sure I saw this color combination for splatter nails somewhere on the interwebs but I'm not positive where.

30 Day Challenge: Ruffian

Hey there! So today's mani theme is ruffian/half moons/tips and I chose to do a ruffian manicure. The only issue is I think I may have cheated again haha. I wanted to make it a bit different and do a rose ruffian so instead of having two different colors, I have a soft neutral color as my base and then roses around my cuticle. This is the first time I have ever tried roses and controlling the size proved to be quite the challenge for me. I'm not sure if these can be seen as ruffian or not but I'm going to say they are.

30 Day Challenge: Gradient

Hey all! Guess what I have for ya today? A gradient! Gradients are always fun and it's a simple mani that seems really complicated and thats always great. I wanted to do a gradient with white and a bright color so I thought today would be a great time to do it. This mani is all kinds of perfect to me, its bright, playful and full of glitter!

30 Day Challenge: Shades of Gray

Hey! The theme today is shades of gray but my mani isn't as gray as I would have liked. I was planning on adding some more different tones of gray but I didn't have enough time so I decided to just roll with what I had and add a pop of color to my other nails. Does this still pass? Haha.

30 Day Challenge: Complementary Colors

Hey all! Today's theme for the 30 Day Challenge is complementary colors and I decided to go with yellow and purple since I found it the most challenging combination to work with and I was feeling up to it. I had a couple of designs in mind but I went with a leopard print since I felt like channeling my inner Chalkboard Nails.

30 Day Challenge: Secondary Colors

Okay I imagine some of you may be confused with this mani. The theme is secondary colors so what the hell am I doing with pink, blue, and yellow?! If you can guess why before you read the answer you are incredibly awesome! It may help to know that the colors I chose are magenta, cyan, and yellow, does that clear anything up at all? I used the secondary colors of light! I was having trouble thinking of a really cool mani with green, purple, and orange. Each design I thought up looked as if I was preparing for Halloween (which I kind of am because I love Halloween and will prepare for it 365 days a year). The only issue is apparently we were supposed to stick strictly to purple, green and orange! Oops! I don't have the time to do another manicure but hopefully this will be my only mistake haha.

30 Day Challenge: Holo Polish

Hey there! Today's theme is Holographic and I seriously need to get more, they are so fantastic! The polish I ended up using is China Glaze in Infra Red. I have seen many holographic polishes and I personally don't think that this polish is as holographic, if that makes sense. What I mean is there are other holographic polishes that are more in your face with the holographic glitter, although this may just be me.

Two Coats with Top Coat

Funky Pinstripe

Hey! I have some pretty fun nails to share with you today. I had no idea where I was going with this when I first started but I'm quite pleased with where I ended up. Gradients are extremely fun and easy and since I had only done one before, and it was only on one nail, I thought I should try it again. Blue and green seemed like the perfect combination for spring so I added that on and thought of what I could do next. My first thought was stamping but after trying and getting frustrated with my lack of skill I went with stripes, using striping tape I cut myself. I actually don't have any striping tape and am not really allowed to get anything online so I've been at a lost, until I found some at Ricky's but unfortunately it was overpriced and I'm usually broke so I rather save my money.

Mish Mash Challenge - Triangle

I'm not even sure what these nails remind me of. For some reason I think of really bright galaxy nails with not much detail, does that even make sense? Oddly enough the background of my nails was inspired by the krang ship on the newer version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle TV show, which my brothers are absolutely obsessed with. I've wanted to incorporate a piece of the ship into a nail design for some time now and since I was stumped with what to put as my background for my white triangles, it worked out perfectly! I really like the way these turned out although my friends think the design is completely random, which I would have to agree with but they shouldn't expect much more from me. 

Pink Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Razz-berry

Purple Wet n Wild Fastdry - Buffy the Violent Slayer

White L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer - White

Black L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer - Black

The way I achieved my "simple galaxy" background was using the saran wrap method with the pink polish as my base then added the purple as my second color.

Wet n Wild Tropicalia Swatch

I've been swatching some polishes lately although my broken nail on my pointer finger has been driving me insane, I've decided to ignore it. This is the Wet n Wild Megalast Tropicalia and this is part of their main line. I love this color and it is an absolutely gorgeous that's perfect for summer. I have been trying to hang on to the summer days for as long as I can because once fall rolls around I love to wear darker and more neutral colors and rarely do I wear bright preppy colors but I do have my moods where I decide to go bright and cheery.

I used two coats to reach opacity with no topcoat. I have run out of my Seche Vite and my Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat so I haven't been adding top coat to my nails. I will go on the hunt soon but I'm not sure which to get.

This is a pinky coral creme that I've had hidden in my shelf for about three or so months now and only wore it once on my toes, I loved it then and I am so happy it has finally made it's way up to my fingernails. 

It really stands out when the sun hits it but can be a bit more reddish with lower lighting, either way it looks great.

I also found that this was really easy to apply but I have mentioned before that the wide brush that this nail polish comes with has proven to be a hit or miss for me. It can be really great in some instances but a mess other times, it really depends on how careful I am when applying.

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.

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: 

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

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. 

Avon Strawberry Swatch

My cousin has gotten me a significant amount of nail polish a while back and has been very nice about helping my addiction. A lot of the polishes she as gotten/given to me are from Avon and they're all great colors. I've tried a some of them in a couple of designs before but I do want to try and swatch all of them individually. This is Strawberry by Avon and let me just say, I love it! I really like the way pinks and blues look with my skin tone and this is no exception.

It is a medium fushia, it isn't so bright that it is so in your face but it has some pop that gets your attention. The formula was really great and was completely opaque in two coats. I think it's such a gorgeous color and it has now become my go to darker pink color.

This is when the sun is streaming in from the window. The color is especially bright looking here and can definitely catch someone's attention. 

I was blocking the light with my body, casting a shadow over my nails. It looks a bit more red indoors and with low lighting.