Spring Gradient

I actually did this manicure months and months ago.  It's about time to post it.

My cuticles were not in tip top shape here!  Haha!  The great thing about humid weather (like the kind of weather we are having now in the almost summer of the north east of the USA) is that is allows your cuticles to stay much nicer.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat (which I will never go back to after OPT's base coat) and then applied two coats of a white polish.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to prevent my base color being pulled up by my sponge.

To the makeup sponge, I applied a stripe of L'Oreal Now You Sea Me, Pure Ice Shore Bet (a tan), and then a stripe of Essie Da Bush (an earthy green).  I stippled this onto my nails so the blue (Now You Sea Me) was at the tips of my nails.  I finished off with a coat of Essie As Gold as It Gets, which is flakes of glitter.  It is really not as exciting as it sounds.  You can see that it is barely gold at all.  I finished off the whole manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Negative Space Stripes Re-Creation

Before anything else, I want to tell you that this manicure is inspired by a picture I saw online.  This is not original.  I saw a picture by So Nailicious and loved how her mani looked!  Check her out at sonailicious.com!  Here is the link so you can go right to her tutorial on how she achieved the look:

http://sonailicious.com/negative-space-nautical-nails-tutorial/

Okay!  On to my version of it!

I started out with a coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat.  I then applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I planned on sticking striping tape on next.  I didn't want the tape to lift up my base coat, and you cannot use Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as a base coat.  The formula does not stay put on your nails.  I learned from experience when I used it as a base coat and then my entire manicure peeled off in only a day.

I applied striping tape where I wanted my natural nails to be visible.  I then dripped small puddles of nail polish onto a piece of scrap paper and took small nail art brushes to fill in the stripes between pieces of tape.  I worked as fast as I could so the polish wouldn't dry too much before I removed the tape.  I used the brush from the bottle of polish to paint on the tips.  It was easier that way.

The colors I used are as follows:

Peach:  Essie Haute as Hello

Gray:  Sinful Colors Cool Gray

Teal:  L'Oreal Now You Sea Me

After finishing a nail, I removed the tape as soon as possible.  I finished everything off with two coats of Dries Instantly.  I got bored of doing this, so I painted my right hand with solid colors (the same I used for the stripes.)  I actually like how it looks to have both my hands a bit different, but still color coordinated!  Oh!  One last thing:  If you get any polish where it is not supposed to be, just use a small brush and acetone to neaten it up.  I had to do a lot of neatening up before taking these pictures!

Follow me on Instagram at popstermargie! 

Water Marbling Mani!

Hi!  I am FINALLY getting around to blogging!  I've been wanting to for days, but it just hasn't happened.  I only have three weeks of school left until I graduate with an associate's degree in childhood education!  I am so excited!  So, anyway, I have done water marbling twice before doing this mani.  I had never done it on all of my nails.  It was messy and time consuming, and I am still not perfect at it, but I was very happy with the result...especially on my thumb!  Here it is:

I started out with a coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat.  Then I applied two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  Oh!  Also, before doing anything I made sure I had a disposable plastic cup of room temperature water.  For water marbling, you can use any type of water, but it needs to be room temperature.  

I used scotch tape to make this process a little less messy.  I applied it all around my nails and part way up my fingers.  This majorly cuts down on the clean-up process at the end.  I think I'd use masking tape next time, because it is more flexible.  I then started water marbling.  Here's how you do it:

1--Open up the tops of all your polishes.  The runnier the polish, the better.  Thicker polishes are more difficult to water marble with because the polish won't spread out on the water nicely.

2--Start dripping drops of polish onto the surface of the water.  Hold the bush just a little over the surface and let the polish drip off.  Use as many colors as you want.  I used three.  You can create a pattern by alternating the drops of polish, or you can use more drops of one color than another.  Do whatever you want!

3--Take a tooth pick or pin or special water marbling tool (I used a tooth pick) and drag it through the polish on the surface of the water to create a design.  There are TONS of videos of people doing it on Youtube.  There are all sorts of designs you can create!  I learned all I know about water marbling from Youtube.  (OhMyGoshPolish does amazing water marbling manis!  Look her up!)

4--Dip your nail into the part of the design that you want on your nail and then leave it submerged in the water.

5--Blow on the surface of the water to dry the excess polish.

6--Take a tooth pick and move it through the water to grab all the extra polish.

7--Remove your nail from the water.

8--Remove the tape from your finger.

9--Clean up any polish on your skin with acetone or nail polish remover on a small brush or a cotton swab.

10--Apply a top coat.

Wow.  Sorry those directions are so lengthy.  I wanted to give a fairly good explanation of how I do this.  Watch a Youtube video!  That is much easier to understand!  Anyway, I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Essie Loophole, and L'Oreal Now You Sea Me for my water marbling.  

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

My favorite nail in this manicure!

I was really excited about how my thumb turned out.  Water marbling is still a learning process for me.  It is super fun!  I can't wait to experiment more!

Beach Nails

Yesterday I had such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to paint.  I considered not painting my nails at all, but I wanted them to look nice, so I chose a color I had never used and went with it.  I ended up with this:

I started out with a base of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on two coats of an L.A. Colors polish (the sheer, sparkly, tannish color).  When that was dry I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the sponge wouldn't pick up my base color.  I took three small chunks of a makeup sponge and, with tweezers, dabbed on the color of the waves.  I made sure I dabbed off the excess polish from the sponge on a piece of paper before applying it to my nails.

First I dabbed on Sally Hansen Hard To Get (the white).  I applied it near to the top of my nails and all the way down to the tips.  I made sure not to make it perfectly even on the top because waves don't go on to a beach in a perfectly straight line.  When that was dry I dabbed on some L'Oreal Now You Sea Me a teeny bit lower down than the white.  At times I made it go completely over the white so that it didn't look perfectly straight.  I didn't bother bringing that all the way to the tips of my nails on all of my nails because I was going to go over it with a darker blue.  When the middle color was dry I took my third piece of sponge and dabbed on Essie Go Overboard.  I tried to make it a little more opaque towards the tips of my nails.

To bring the design to life a little more I painted on a star fish with Avon Blossom and a scallop shell with Revlon Impulsive.  I used a small nail art brush for both of these.  I did not like how my scallop shell came out, but I made it a teeny bit better my adding three small lines of Rimmel Wild Orchid to detail it.  I finished off with two coats of Seche Vite, which has already chipped a lot, even though I have only been wearing this design for one day.  Not impressed.  I am a little hard on my hands and I did work today (I did some cleaning at my job), but I would do those same kinds of things with Dries Instantly and that would not chip.  I actually am really happy with the finished product, though.  Having pictures of my manicures makes me feel slightly better when they get ruined.  At least I will be able to look at them when they were first done and still looking perfect.

Dotted Design

Sorry I haven't posted for a while!  School has been busy.  At least the wait allowed my new base and top coats to come in the mail!  My top coat just arrived today...just in time for this new manicure!

I started out with one coat of Essie Protein base coat.  I don't usually apply base coats, but that is because I did not have one until yesterday!  Haha!  Also, my nails are getting a bit stained, so I will apply a base coat when I have time.

After the base coat was dry, I applied two coats of Revlon Impulsive.  This polish looks awful after the first coat, so you definitely need at least two coats.  Two coats looks okay, but three would probably be better.  I don't usually have time to put on three coats of a polish , though.  Once all that was dry, I used a dotting tool to dot on white dots (I used Sally Hansen Hard To Get).  The way I kept these "S" shapes about even was by first putting a dot in the center of my nail and then dotting a curve going one way and then one going the opposite way, if that makes sense.  When the white was dry, I dotted on L'Oreal Now You Sea Me over top of the white dots.

Today I used a Seche Vite top coat for my first time!  I have seen so many nail art girls using it and I finally ordered some through Amazon.  I am very happy with it!  It dried about as fast as Sally Hansen Dries Instantly dries.  I think it is shinier than Dries Instantly, though.  I only applied one coat of Seche Vite and it looks great!

The weather is very dry, which always takes a toll on my cuticles.  They are suitably pushed back, but some are peeling around the sides of my nails.  Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream works wonders, though.  I use it every night.

Color Combinations

I took a long time for me to pick out this color combination, but I love it!  I decided to make a nail polish swatch book.  It was super fun and it made choosing color combinations easier than going through all my nail polish bottles.

I first used L'Oreal Now You Sea Me and painted on two coats.  Then I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  When that was dry I applied squares of masking tape to my nails where I wanted the base color to show through.  I then painted Sally Hansen Espresso over top and immediately removed the tape.  Once all that was dry I applied 2 mm light pink studs from Born Pretty Store with some Dries Instantly.  I finished it off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Sponging For My First Time!

Today I finally tried sponging for my first time.  I had always said that I will never sponge my nails because it makes too much of a mess, but I finally broke down and bought some triangular makeup sponges from Target.  I cut a small piece off mine to do the sponging with:

My first attempt didn't come out that well, but I'll get better with time:

I just sponged my ring fingers and thumbs.  It came out a bit blotchy and I covered almost all the tan on my ring finger.  The tan is Rimmel Caramel Cupcake and the blue is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me.  I painted the very tips of my sponged nails with the nail polish brush to get them more opaque.  I used Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.  Applying that soon after sponging smooths it out a little.  Cleaning the nail polish from around my nails after sponging was not a pain.  I just used a Q-tip dipped in polish remover.

I want to add something else quick to this post:

For the past month, possibly, I have been using this on my cuticles at night.  I generally watch some Netflix before I go to bed and I apply lotion to my hands and this cuticle cream to my cuticles and wear cotton gloves.  I didn't expect my cuticles to get any better (they have always grown up with my nails and they would peel and I always have to push them back.)  I still do carefully push my cuticles back with my towel after I get out of the shower, but my cuticles are staying very nice and pushed back lately and I am pretty sure that it is from this cuticle cream.  I highly recommend it to anyone who has annoying cuticle problems.  It has totally fixed mine!