New Years Nails

I titled this "New Years Nails" because glitter is involved and glitter is perfect for New Years, but this manicure can be done for any time.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of  Essie Penny Talk on all my nails.  I then took Maybelline Gilded Rose (which is a gold polish with rose gold pieces of different sized glitter it in.  It is SO pretty!) and dabbed it straight from the brush onto the tips of my nails.  I then lightly stroked some polish up toward my cuticles to give the glitter a gradient effect.  It was quite easy and quick.

I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I hope you all have a great New Year!!  I cannot believe how close 2015 is!

Christmas Presents

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone who celebrates it!  Even if you don't, I have a super cute present manicure to show you!  

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  This really protects your nails from stains!  I then painted two coats of Essie Good as Gold on all my nails except for my ring fingers.  I painted two coats of Sinful Colors Gogo Girl on them.  When that was dry I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to all my nails so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  

I then applied a slightly off-center cross of striping tape to each of my nails.  I wanted to create what looks like ribbons over wrapped boxes.  I painted Sinful Colors Gogo Girl over all of my gold nails, and Essie Good as Gold over my red nails.  

After painting each nail I immediately removed the striping tape with tweezers.  I made sure I remembered the order in which I put on the tape so that I wouldn't pull the piece crossed under the other piece of tape.  That can ruin your manicure.

When the manicure was dry, I took a small nail art brush and painted on the bows.  I used Nicole Glitter in My Stocking on all my nails but my ring fingers.  On my ring fingers I used the same red that I had been using, Sinful Colors Gogo Girl.  To make the red bows a little more opaque, I went over them again after the first coat had dried.

My final step before my top coat and clean-up was to apply a gold 1.5 mm stud in the middle of each bow.  I used clear polish and a dotting tool to stick them on.  I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

I do not own any cuticle oil, but I wanted my cuticles to look a little more moisturized for my pictures.  So I used coconut oil.  It worked super well!  That stuff is great!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Glitter Snowflakes

Here is another snowflake manicure.  Sadly, it is raining at my house today.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then I applied two coats of Essie Borrowed & Blue to all my nails.  When that was dry, I used a dotting tool to put clear polish where I wanted to stick my small glitter pieces, and I used the same dotting tool to pick up the pieces of glitter to apply on my nails.  I got the glitter from Amazon.  It came in a pack of twelve colors.  All of them are holographic.  I used pink, light blue, and silver for this manicure:

It took quite a while to place all the glitter.  I made snowflake shapes on all my nails except for my pinkies, which were too small.  I decided to apply three clusters of three pieces of glitter to both my pinkies.  

To make the snowflakes, I put three pieces of glitter in a triangular shape in the center of each nail and then I put three to four pieces in a line radiating out from the center.  I made six of these, since all snowflakes have six points.  I then added a piece of glitter on each side of the radiating lines, near the tips, to give them the crystalline, feathered-out points.  

I actually did not know how I was going to make the flakes, so I winged it.  This is not a science.  If you try this, make the snowflakes however you want to!

After I completed placing the glitter on each nail, I applied a coat of Salon Perfect Cosmic Dust, a very fine, holographic glitter.  These nails are SPARKLY!

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Dainty Snowflakes

I have been on a roll with wintry/Christmassy nails!  Here's a manicure I did a few days ago:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White on all my nails.  After that I began stamping.  I used the two single snowflake images from Bundle Monster's plate BM-319.  I stamped on different colored snowflakes until I was happy with the effect.  

The shimmery darker blue is Essie Blue Rhapsody, the peach is Essie Haute as Hello, and, though you can't see it in the pictures, I also stamped on light blue snowflakes with Essie Borrowed & Blue.  The gray dots I added with a small dotting tool are Sinful Colors Cool Gray.  

There is a light blue flake in the lower left side of this nail.

I finished off the manicure with a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds to add sparkle and shimmer, and then I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

It is snowing at my house right now!  I love it!  It isn't really sticking, but it looks so pretty!

Classic Holiday

I love this manicure because it is just a really classic holiday look.  It is so classy and pretty and is really simple.  The key to a really classic Christmas manicure is gold and red:

Classic Christmas colors

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Revlon Forbidden on all my nails but my ring fingers.  I then painted two coats of Nicole Glitter in my Stocking on my ring fingers.  This is a really great glitter polish.  It has no pigments in it.  It is just red and gold glitter held together by clear polish.  The glitter is super concentrated, so it completely covers your nail in just two coats.  (I used the tin foil method to remove the glitter on these nails and it worked like a charm.  You don't need to worry about using glitter if you use that method.)

I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  I love how this manicure looks!  Red and gold is a great combination for the holidays!

Candy Cane Hearts

Whoa!  I have not blogged in so long!  I officially finished another semester today.  I am extremely happy to be done.  After my exams, as I waited for my sister to get out of her exams, I sat in the library and ate some fudge and a mini candy cane.  It was quite nice.  So, without further ado, here is a Christmassy manicure:

Candy Cane Nails!

My cuticles are a bit of a mess.  The dry weather is taking its toll.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then applied two coats of Revlon Rain Forest, a dark green, glittery polish.  The white part of the candy canes is white acrylic paint that I painted on with a small nail art brush.  The red stripes are Rimmel Stiletto Red.  I used a toothpick and applied the stripes with a stippling motion.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

This doesn't have much to do with nail art, but I don't know if you guys have heard of using coconut oil for skin care.  I bought a jar from Target for only a bit over $6, and was planning on using it to make a moisturizing lip scrub.  It comes in a jar like this:

It's solid, but melts really easily.  I saw people on the internet using it in lieu of lotion, so I wanted to try that out.  I have been using it instead of lotion on my face for almost a week and I am loving it!  You only need to use a teeny bit.  It absorbs really quickly and doesn't leave your face looking shiny and oily.

I have mild hormonal acne, but coconut oil is not supposed to make acne worse.  I have read that it is actually good for helping to control acne!  And, from what I have experienced so far, that is true!  I also started using it as eye makeup remover and I am never going back to using any other remover.  It didn't even leave my eyes feeling blurry.  I used my fingers to massage it over my eyes until the makeup was all broken down.  Then I used a damp cotton ball to wipe off the makeup residue.  That worked better than any other makeup remover I have used!  I would highly recommend this!  I bought the same brand that is in this picture (Spectrum).  It's a great product with a ton of uses!