Half Moons and Studs

I love the color combination of rose and brown so I decided to do a manicure with those colors.  Gold looks good with that combination, so I added some gold studs:

I know my hand looks more yellow and pink than usual.  This is much closer to my actual skin tone.  I have been playing with the white balance on my camera so I can show you the colors of the paint accurately.

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on two thin coats of Rimmel English Rose.  When that was dry I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  Then I put on hole reinforcements at my cuticles so I could achieve a half moon effect.  I cut the hole reinforcements in half so I can get more uses out of them.  I painted on Essie Don't Sweater It next.  I immediately removed the hole reinforcements on each nail after painting on the brown.  Then I dotted on some Dries Instantly to stick the gold studs to.  I got all of the studs from Born Pretty Store.  The square ones are 2 mm and the round ones are 1.5.  After everything was dry I painted on two coats of Dries Instantly.

Tricolor Gradient

Last night I was looking at my Olay Fresh Effects facial cleanser and I realized how much I liked the colors on the bottle.  So, I decided to recreate those colors on my nails by sponging on a gradient:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard To Get, a white polish (which I would not recommend, by the way.)  When that was dry, I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color as I stippled on the gradient.  When that was all dry, I took a triangular makeup sponge and put three lines of polish of different colors on the end.  I put a stripe of Avon Sunshine (a yellow), NYC High Line Green, and Essie Go Overboard (the teal) slightly overlapping each other on the sponge.  Then I started stippling that on to all of my nails, placing the yellow side at the base of my nails.  After every couple nails I applied more polish to the sponge.  After doing all of this, I cleaned up around my nails with a Q-tip dipped in acetone.  This was a challenge to clean up and it took a while.  To finish off the manicure, I applied two coats of Dries Instantly.

Homemade Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!  I got over two feet of snow yesterday and last night and I am currently having my second snow day in a row!  My nails came out a little less neat than I expected, but the effect totally reminded me of paper Valentine hearts made by kids!

Before I painted anything on my nails, I took ten squares of masking tape, pressed them on the back of my hand to take off some of the stickiness, folded them in half, cut out a half heart shape, and then unfolded them.  This created a heart shaped hole in the centers that I used as my heart stencils.  This was a lot harder to do than I expected.  Later I realized that it may have been easier if I had folded the tape with the sticky side out.  Haha!  Oh well.  Here is roughly what each piece of tape looked like:

For my manicure, I started out with one coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty, which I was happy with for my last manicure.  (That manicure lasted for five days without chips!!)  Then I painted on two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef as my base color.  After that was all dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  When that was dry, I applied the heart stencils.  I painted over them with Confetti Cherries Jubilee on my pinky and middle fingers and thumbs.  On my ring and pointer fingers, I painted the heart with Nicole Glitter in my Stocking.  The glitter hearts worked well, but the thinner polish leaked under the tape, even when I thought it was pressed down nicely.  I cleaned up the edges of the reddish hearts by lightly sweeping them with a nail art brush in acetone.  Doing this works because the acetone cannot take off all the other layers of polish underneath because you are not sweeping with force and going over the spots repeatedly.  I actually sort of like the rougher effect since it looks like homemade Valentine's Day cards!  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Dries Instantly.  

Squigglies and Gems

Today I bought some more scissors that cut fun patterns.  So, I decided to do a Valentine's Day-like manicure.  (The only reason I say "Valentine's Day" is because of the colors):

I started out with one coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty Base & Top Coat on all of my nails.  I don't know how this will do with preventing stains, but it didn't take too long to dry and it was very easy to apply polish over it.  (So, it is much cheaper and already better than that Essie Protein base coat.)  After the base coat was dry, I applied two coats of an L.A. Colors polish (the light pink) on my ring fingers and thumbs and two coats of China Glaze Designer Satin on all of my other nails.  I then applied light pink rhinestones on my pointers, middles, and pinkies.  I stuck them on with a dots of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  To finish them off, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

For my thumbs and ring fingers, I applied one coat of Dries Instantly so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  Then I applied the tape that I cut with my squiggly scissors where I wanted my light pink base color to show through.  I then painted over the tape with China Glaze Designer Satin and immediately removed the tape.  I finished off these nails with two coats of Dries Instantly.

Seche Vite and Essie Protein Base Coat Reviews

I am off from college today because I got eight inches of snow at my house!  I love snow days!  So, I did my nails today and they didn't turn out very well, so I decided to review a couple of products instead of posting nail art.  I will review Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat first:

I bought this a couple weeks ago from Amazon for $4.76, but shipping costed a couple extra dollars.  This top coat has some really great qualities, but also some not-so-good qualities.  The great qualities are that it dries super fast and it is really, really shiny.  Well, I guess there is only one bad quality, but it is pretty major:  this top coat shrinks the polish underneath it.  This means that, once it is dry, you will notice that it looks like you have worn the polish off of the very tips of your nails and if you missed a tiny strip of polish near your cuticle with the top coat, you will be able to see a very thin, blank crack-looking thing between that tiny strip and the rest of the nail's polish.  Here is an example from my last manicure.  It shrunk more after this picture was taken:

You can see the tiny divide between the majority of the polish and that small spot that I missed when I applied the top coat.  The Nailasaurus reviewed to coats a while ago and she said that when Seche Vite gets older it shrinks her manicures.(  http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2014/01/indie-top-coat-comparison.html  ).  Mine is new, but I don't know if I got a bad bottle, or something.  It really isn't that terrible, but I can buy Sally Hansen Dries Instantly anywhere and it is cheaper and it dries fast and holds up and does not shrink my manicures.  So, I will still use the bottle of Seche Vite that I have, but after that I think I will stick to Dries Instantly.

Okay, now for the other product:  Essie Protein Base Coat:

When I ordered my Seche Vite I decided to add another item to my cart while I was at it.  This was $5.87 and a couple dollars for shipping.  I had been wanting a base coat and I saw one person on the internet say that they liked it.  I should have done more research, though, because I am not happy with it.  I have used it twice so far.  The first time that I used it, I thought I hadn't waited long enough to apply my base color because the base coat made it very hard to get a thin, even coating of paint.  The first coat of base color was streaky and uneven.  Well, today I used this base coat for my second time.  I applied a coat in the morning and waited until almost 3:00 in the afternoon to do my manicure.  So, it had hours to set and was completely dry (I had gone outside in the snow and had worn gloves and the base coat still looked fine.)  But, when I applied my base color, it was extremely hard to get an even coat and if I went over an area more than once to try to get it evened and smoothed out, the color would streak horribly.  The next coat of polish covered all of the problems, but I do not want to be wrestling every time I try to apply a first coat of nail polish.  This product is very good on its own, but not very good as a base coat.

I hope this was a little helpful.  If any of you know of a good, not-too-expensive base coat, I would love to know what it is!  I hope your week is going well!  =)

Zigzag and Dots

A couple nights ago I was watching TV when a nail art idea suddenly came to me.  The idea turned into this:

Before I even started painting my nails, I took scotch tape and cut strips of it down the middle with a pair of zigzag scissors.
Then I applied two coats of Rimmel Caramel Cupcake to my nails.  (No, I did not apply a base coat.
Mostly because I didn't feel like spending even more time waiting for stuff to dry and also because this nude color doesn't stain.)  When that was dry, I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the tape wouldn't lift up my base color.  I then applied the tape where I wanted the tan to stay.
I used Milani Sail Away as my second color and I removed each piece of tape immediately after painting on the blue.  The Seche Vite was GREAT for taping over!  The base color did not lift up anywhere!  This top coat is living up to my expectations!
After all the taping, painting, and removing tape, I took a dotting tool and put a dot of the opposite color paint in between zigzags, if that makes any sense (look at the pictures and you'll get it.)  I love this because it looks like the two halves are stuck together like puzzle pieces!  I didn't need to dot on any white because the polishes I used are very opaque.
When everything was dry, I painted on two coats of Seche Vite.