Tropical Gradient

I couldn't wait to do my nails any longer. I am also really in the mood to blog, so I couldn't even put this post off any longer (I did it yesterday)! Haha!

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get, a white polish. After that was dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the stippling motion of the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color. I then took a makeup sponge and painted on five different colors. I overlapped each one slightly so they would blend into each other. I had to reapply the polish to the sponge multiple times. Starting at the cuticle, the colors I used were Revlon Dreamer, Essie Borrowed & Blue, Avon Sunshine, NYC Spring Street, and Rimmel Stiletto Red.

I stippled on the color until I was happy with how vibrant it was. I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds, a very fine, iridescent glitter, over top so I could have a subtle sparkly effect. (I LOVE this polish! It isn't even hard to get off because the glitter is so fine!) After sponging, I didn't wait very long to apply it because if it smudged the manicure, it would just blend the gradient together even more. I then took a while to clean up my fingers with a Q-tip dipped in acetone and then a nail art brush dipped in acetone to clean up closer to my nails. Then I applied two coats of Dries Instantly. I cut off the painted end of the makeup sponge with a large pair of scissors so I can get many uses out of the same sponge.

Doily Nails

I actually did this manicure months ago. I remember the day I did this I had been wanting to do something super feminine. I wanted pink, but I must have been in strange lighting, because this orangy polish looked a lot more pink than it came out:

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get and then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. Next, I applied half a hole reinforcement to each nail so I could achieve a half moon effect. I then painted over them with Essie Haute as Hello and immediately removed the hole reinforcements. After all that was dry, I took a dotting tool dipped in Hard to Get and made a row of dots along the edge where the two colors meet. After that was dry, I took a smaller dotting tool dipped in Haute as Hello and made a dot in the center of each white dot. I wanted a lacy effect. This manicure was not as great looking as I had hoped it would be. It was fun to do, though! I have not painted my nails for a while because my nails keep peeling a little on the tips. I don't know what is causing it, but I thought I'd experiment with letting them stay natural for a while (I don't think I can go much longer, though. Haha!) I will paint my nails again soon, hopefully!

Memorial Day Water Marbling

I wanted to do a nice, patriotic design for Memorial Day, so I decided I would try my hand at water marbling again. I have only done it once before, and not for years. I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get (white) on all of my nails. For the nails that I didn't want to water marble, I used a dotting tool to apply some Dally Hansen Double Duty to stick my red, silver, and blue loose glitter to. I just made diagonal rows of the glitter. I will now try to explain how to water marble, but you can also watch videos on Youtube about how to do it. It is time consuming, but not too difficult: You will need a plastic (preferably disposable) cup of room temperature water. The temperature of the water affects how the polish reacts to the water. You will also need scotch tape and a toothpick. Oh! And at least two different colors of polish. I have heard that the newer and runnier the polish, the better. The polish I used today wasn't super new and thin, but I got it to work. Just don't use super old polish. I used the scotch tape to cover a lot of the tip of my finger so the clean-up process would be a lot easier. I then unscrewed all of my polishes so that I could work fast. Speed is something you will need, but still be careful. I then began holding the brushes around an inch or two above the surface of the water and dripping the polish onto the surface. It should spread out. I only put three drops on--a drop of each color (red, white, and blue.) You can do more, though. (I dripped the next color in the center of the previous spread out color.) I then quickly took my toothpick and made lines and swirls in the polish to make an interesting pattern. I am not too great at this. Then I put the nail that I wanted the marbling on face down in the spot of the pattern that I wanted to be on my nail.

I held it in there for a few seconds and then began gently blowing on the surface of the water to quickly dry the remaining polish. I left my finger in the water and then took the toothpick and swirled it in the dry polish on top of the water to pick it up and remove it from the water. I finally took my water marbled nail out of the water and carefully removed all the tape. I then used a flat nail art brush dipped in acetone to clean up the excess polish on my finger. There was barely any, since I used tape. Oh! Don't try to dry the nail off! It will air dry! I repeated this for four of my nails. (The blue is Sinful Colors Into the Blue and the red is Rimmel Stiletto Red.

I finished off this manicure by applying two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. Something that can go wrong is the polish dripping off your brush and settling in a blob at the bottom of the cup. If this happens, just adjust the distance you are holding the brush above the surface of the water. You may need to drip it higher or lower. Just experiment. I am no expert at this technique and I ended up with five blobs of polish at the bottom of my cup. Also, sometimes the polish does not spread out on the water. It sits in a small circle on top of the water. If this happens, just blow on it so it will dry and then swirl a toothpick around it to wrap it up and remove it. I may have had some of these problems because some of my polish was a little thick. I did get it to work, though. The hardest part for me is dragging in a neat design and placing my finger in the right spot. One of my nails on my right and is super boring because I misplaced my finger. (Haha! That sounds super weird!) I hope I explained this so you guys can understand, at least, some of it!

Multicolored Striping

So, since I have been done with college for the summer for a week, I have been able to do my nails a little more often and am enjoying posting more. I have seen multiple manicures like the one I have done, but usually black is the color that goes over everything since it is so opaque. I wanted my design to look more bright and springy, though. First I applied a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I am really liking this. (I have noticed that my nails are still peeling, so I think Sally Hansen Double Duty is fine. They are probably still recovering from a dry winter. They are better than they were.) After the base coat, I applied a stroke of Sally Hansen Coral Reef down one side of my nails and Sally Hansen Jazzy Jade down the other:

After that was dry, I applied a stroke of Rimmel Wild Orchid down the center of each nail.

After that was dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the striping tape wouldn't pull up my base color. I then applied striping tape in random patterns on my nails. I made sure most of the tape was going in some horizontal or diagonal direction on my nails because vertical striping tape wouldn't show off the tricolored base. I then painted over the striping tape with China Glaze Designer Satin and immediately removed the tape. (Remember to remove the tape in the opposite order you applied it in. You don't want to be pulling a piece that is under another piece and ruin your work.) This isn't completely opaque, so the base colors show through a bit. I like the effect, though:

I applied a coat of Dries Instantly at the end and then a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy. Matte polishes always remind me of wax. I actually messed up my ring fingernail a little because I bumped it on my paper towel right after removing the striping tape. I always get very aggravated when I mess up a nail, but I have learned to be calmer about it. You will probably be able to fix small mistakes. Just relax. I touched up the smudges with a nail art brush with the appropriate colors on it to go over my mistakes to make the lines clear again. Also, people do not notice little mistakes in your manicure. They generally look at the entire effect. So, don't sweat the little mistakes!!! =)

Music Video

I was a bit bored one day, so I decided to watch a music video on Youtube. I watched Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" video, which is quite bizarre, as are most music videos. Then I saw this:

I paused the video and stared at these nails for a bit. I loved them! So, I decided I had to recreate them!

I started out with two coats of Essie Protein Base Coat. I have been having issues with peeling nails, and I finally pinned down that I think I have only been having them as long as I have been using Sally Hansen Double Duty. Don't hold me to that because I may be wrong, but I am experimenting. I had hated Essie Protein Base Coat last time I used it because it had been hard to apply polishes over it. They streaked a lot. This time, though, that did not happen at all. I have no clue why. Now I am reevaluating it. It worked really well this time. I don't know what happened the other few times I used it. So, anyway, after the base coat, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Golden-I. When that was dry I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I had been planning on using tape as guides to make the blue triangles. I ended up freehanding the blue (Covergirl Out of the Blue), though. I used the brush from the bottle to apply it. I got some on the sides of my fingers around my nails, but a nail art brush dipped in acetone corrected that problem. If I messed up with the blue on my actual nail, I would take a brush dipped in acetone and gently brush it on the nail to remove the blue and NOT the gold with it. That works really well, especially if you have many layers of polish under the color you want to remove. Just don't go over the same spot too many times, because that will start to remove the base color too. If that happens, as it did to me on my right hand, just take some of your base color and dab it on the bare patch. The top coat will smooth everything out at the end. I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly.

Forget-me-not Nails

I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and yesterday I noticed that the Forget-me-nots at my house were out!  So, I incorporated them into my manicure!

They came out looking like old, pressed flowers!  At first, I wasn't very happy with the result, but if I think of them as being old, pressed flowers, they are really cool!  (Any time you aren't happy with a manicure, try to look at it differently.  That can make me like almost any manicure.)

Before starting the manicure, I collected the tiny flowers.  Many had already fallen off of the plants, so I collected almost all of them from the ground.  That was easier than trying to take them off of the plant because the flowers are very fragile.  I collected more than I needed in case of accidents.

I started out with three coats of Revlon Pale Cashmere.  Then I painted on another coat where I wanted the flower to go.  (I would suggest painting on a fourth thick layer all over the nail.  On some of my nails you can see a more sheer coat of nail polish where I didn't apply the fourth coat.  They look better when the color is completely uniform.)  I then used a dotting tool dipped in top coat to pick up the tiny flowers.  I carefully placed them onto the wet polish and very gently smoothed them down with the dotting tool.  As you can see from my pinky, this could be challenging at times.  You should paint the fourth coat of polish on and immediately put on a flower, instead of painting a coat on all ten of your fingers first.  The polish has to be very wet for the flower to stick.

I noticed that almost as soon as I applied the flower to the wet polish, the bright blue color of the flower vanished.  That must be an effect of the chemicals in the polish.  At first I was a bit disappointed, but I still think they look cool because they look exactly like old, pressed flowers.  After letting the polish dry and the flower set, I gently pressed on the flowers to push down the center of them to make them as flat as possible.  Then I painted on two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  Today is the second day I have had these on and they are holding up fine!  

Outer Space Nails

A while ago I did my mom's nails for her.  It was "space week" at the preschool/daycare she works at, so we thought it would be great for her to have space themed nails.  Kids really do notice nails.  I know they always notice and appreciate mine, especially if they have studs or gems on them.

I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Black Out.  I then used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Hard to Get to make random dots and star-shaped things for the stars.  If I was to do this again, I would put a few less stars on.  You really can put them on sparingly.  After that was dry, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds, which is a super fine, iridescent glitter.  It is so pretty and I really like it!  The glitter is so fine that it is no problem taking it off!  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Three Musketeers

My sister, my best friend, and I have always joked that we are the Three Musketeers.  My sister is Porthos, I am Aramis, and my best friend is Athos.  Today I was inspired to create a Three Musketeers manicure:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted two coats of Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl on my ring fingers, thumbs and pointer fingers.  On my pinkies and middle fingers, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard to Get (the white.)  When that was dry, I put a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on all of my nails.
 

When all that was dry, I took a toothpick dipped in Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver) and carefully drew on the script on my pointers and ring fingers.  I had to use a stippling motion at times.  Make sure you don't push when you do this, so you don't leave gouges in your base color.  My pointer says, "tous pour un," which is French for "all for one."  My ring fingers says, "un pour tous," which means "one for all."
 

I used a striping brush dipped in the same silver polish to make the three crossed swords on my thumbs.  I then used a dotting tool to make the handles.  For the crosses, I cut thin pieces of scotch tape and crossed them on my nails and painted Rimmel Blue Eyed girl over top.  I didn't feel like writing in script on my right hand, so all four fingers on my right hand have the crosses.  These crosses are similar to the ones that would be on the Musketeers' uniforms, which were blue.  I didn't make the crosses as fancy as they would have been because I wanted it to look neat.  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  All for one!  And one for all!!