Whimsical pink and purple floral nail art

Hey everyone. Today I have nails from quite some time ago - a couple of months, I think. It's another whimsy floral design, nothing too hard to accomplish if you're looking to try this design out.

Taken with flash

I started out with Love & Beauty - pale blue as a base for all my nails. I used 2 coats. Then I used a nail art brush to create the flowers with different pink polishes (I can't remember what colors I used, sorry!). Against the blue base, the pink polish turned kinda purple as you can see in the photos.

On my ring finger, I planned on painting a field of tulips so I striped on Sally Hansen - Lickety Lime Split (also the same green polish I used for the leaves). I don't know why I decided to add black polish but after I did, I was like, What?! Why did you do that? >< It looks like spilt engine oil...

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

I covered the black polish up with a darker green polish which I also used to create some depth in the leaves. Then I dabbed on some random yellow, pink and red polish to create my tulip garden.

Part of the idea to paint a tulip garden came from an art class I took in college. I really enjoyed studying the Impressionist-era paintings; I thought the style was so me - big brush strokes, vivid colors, spontaneous painting. So the tulip garden was kind of my Monet moment, I suppose..? Haha.

Taken with flash

Taken under yellow lighting

Taken in natural sunlight

I love this last photo best. The sunlight wasn't too strong and it seems to be giving this ethereal glow which is so pretty!

What do you think of this floral nail design? If you'd like to see a tutorial, just leave a comment and I'll do a step-by-step.

Thanks so much for reading! :)

Random Gray and Snowcone Glitter Nails

I was bored so I decided to jazz up my nails with glitter.

Taken with flash

Here I'm wearing 2 coats of Maybelline Color Show - Impeccable Greys on every nail. I used Love & Beauty's Confetti Sprinkle on the middle finger, China Glaze - Fairy Dust on the ring finger and Milani - Hot Pink on the little finger. The pointer isn't layered with any glitter.

Taken with flash

I really have to start taking better pictures with flash. But until then, here's Orly - Snowcone and the same glitter polishes layered over it except my pointer is layered with a coat of Fairy Dust.

Thank you for reading! :D

Essie - Play Date

Hey guys! Today I have Essie - Play Date to show you.

Taken in natural sunlight (under shade)

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Essie - Play Date is a soft purple creme polish which is more beautiful in real life than in pictures. It is just the perfect summer color. The formula is excellent and the application was smooth. It's almost a 1-coater but I used 2 coats.
I know it looks like a pastel in the pictures taken with flash but it's not.

Honestly, if I had to pick one color that I would wear throughout the entire summer, I would have to say Essie - Play Date. I saw this question somewhere and I wondered if I could ever just go with one. After putting this on my fingers AND toes, I have found my perfect summer polish.

Here's a bonus pic of me wearing Play Date on my toes.

Do you have Play Date? Do you like it?

Thanks for reading! :)

Neon Tribal Nail Art using Orly Glowstick

Today I have a fun tribal design to show you.
I knew I had to do nail art with Orly - Glowstick because it's so vibrant; the black nail polish just seemed to pop against the neon base.

It's simple and I used a black nail art pen to draw the tribal design.
I used 1 coat of China Glaze - White on White before using 2 coats of Glowstick.

Taken indoors

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

You can see that it wasn't easy taking the pictures with such a bright base.

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

I personally like the design on my thumb and ring finger the most.

Do you like these neon tribal nails?

Thanks for reading.

Red jelly glitter sandwich, anyone?

Today's post is going to be short. I did these nails a while back... before I bothered cleaning up the excess polish on my skin completely.

Okay, so it's not exactly a jelly sandwich... It's more like crelly but... You be the judge.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

I used a red polish from The Face Shop (argh, can't remember the name/number off the top of my head) and Love & Beauty - Red (the pointer and ring finger) which I'm quite sure is a crelly (creme and jelly finish) and I was fascinated by that so I slathered on a micro-glitter topper and gold glass fleck glitter.

I really liked this glitter jelly/crelly sandwich and I plan on doing this again sometime when I don't feel like doing nail art.

Are you into red nail polish?

Thanks for reading!

Galaxy Nail Art

Once upon a time, I attempted to do galaxy nails but they turned out to be a flop. O-kay, they weren't that bad but after seeing tons of amazing galaxy nail art on other people, mine looked like unrecognizable splatters.

And me being me, the failed mani put me off trying it for a second time even though I'm kinda obsessed with space-related stuff and I really wanted to try doing it again. Then recently, I watched this great tutorial and decided to give it another shot.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Here are some pictures before I cleaned up. Haha, the white splotches are a bit big but I like them that way.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Can you say obsessed?! I'm in love with how these turned out! All I had to use was a sponge and a dotting tool.

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

The colors I used for this mani (and I used so many that I had to take a picture of the colors I used):
Base color:

• Orly - Liquid Vinyl

Galaxy print:

• Orly - Snowcone
• Sally Hansen - Flashy Fuchsia
• China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• China Glaze - First Mate
• China Glaze - Exotic Encounters
• China Glaze - Elephant Walk
• China Glaze - Fairy Dust
• China Glaze - Purr-fect Plum
• China Glaze - White on White
• Love & Beauty - gold glitter
• Random pink shimmery polish
• Random green glitter polish
• Random glitter polish (the bigger flecks of glitter you see on my nails)

Topcoat:

• Seche Vite

With Seche Vite, this mani lasted me 4.5 days straight with barely any chipping! I like playing around with colors so every nail had a different combination of colors sponged on.

Here's the awesome tutorial (in French - no, I wish I spoke it but I don't) that helped:



Thanks for reading and don't forget to follow me on Twitter.

China Glaze - Elephant Walk

This is China Glaze - Elephant Walk from the Safari Collection Fall 2012. It's a mysterious cool-toned grey with fine silver shimmer that can look greenish under certain lights.

I would say it's yellow-toned since I noticed that if you kind of let the polish sit, you can see a yellowish layer in the bottle. And I get some yellowish stains after removal of the polish so that's weird.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

I used 2 coats for full opacity. The formula was decent, the flow was good and it didn't get streaky. It dried to a semi-glossy finish. I wouldn't say it's super glossy... I didn't use a top coat in the pictures above.

I don't regret getting this polish since I love grey polishes (they're so hard to find here!!) but I'm not sure I like the yellow tinge. It is a nice shade of grey though.

What do you think? Like grey polishes? Own a ton of them or not really your favorite color?

Thanks for reading!

Essie - Naughty Nautical

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken in sunlight

This is Essie - Naughty Nautical and like the other Essie polishes that I have, this one is a keeper. It's from the Summer Collection 2013 and you just have to have it!! I'm so glad I was around in the US long enough to pick this up.

Anything that has the word nautical or is nautical-related, I'll most likely love it. I'm a huge fan of the ocean and ports and harbors and anchors and surfing and beach-going... you get the point. Not that I actually know how to surf but I wish I lived close enough to any kind of beach to learn how to.

I digress. I'm wearing 2 coats of Naughty Nautical, the formula and flow of polish are a dream, and the color is described perfectly on the Essie site as 'marine blue-green shimmer'. It's not an easy color to capture - the color leans towards green indoors and is wonderfully lighter under light (like shown in the pictures above).

I've been wearing this color a lot! It's the perfect blue-green polish to add to your collection. Please let this polish be put on the permanent line. It's too good a polish to not be sold anymore.

Hope you like this color as much as I do and thanks for reading!

Abstract brush stroke nail art - pastel and bright

I came across this abstract canvas brush stroke nail art on Gorgeois's blog last year, I think. She did a tutorial on it and it's brilliant so check it out over here. The first time I attempted it, I had too much polish on the brush and I wasn't very spontaneous so it turned out to be a splotchy mess.

This was my second attempt:

Pretty neat, huh? Obviously it lacks the subtle but mind-blowing beauty of Gorgeois's but I'm happy with how these turned out. It's definitely one of my favorite designs because I like spontaneous, carefree designs. No tools required either - bonus!

I used way too many polishes to be named so I'll leave that out. What's awesome about this design is that you can use any color combination you like and it'll probably turn out nice.

Up close, I really liked the pastel combination but from afar, it just looked washed out whereas the brighter colors were really eye-catching. I really have to do this design again with different colors!

Do you like the bold color combo or the pastel one?

Thanks for reading !

P.S: Don't mind the different fonts of the watermark in every picture, I was testing out fonts to see which one suits me best.

Maybelline Color Show - Impeccable Greys

You can never have too many grays in your nail polish collection. Or so I like to think. Which is why when I stood in front of the Maybelline Color Show nail polish shelf and I couldn't decide on ONE polish, I finally picked Impeccable Greys. I remembered seeing a nice swatch of this color anyway.

So what do I think of it?

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Maybelline Color Show - Impeccable Greys

The name is brilliant - love it.
The bottle is cute but I'm not sure I like gripping cylindrical bottles... I prefer to have some kind of grip - think Orly nail polish bottles.
I used 2 coats because the first coat was slightly streaky.
Overall, this polish is a keeper but what I can't stand is the brush! It's such a flimsy, skinny brush that doesn't quite spread the polish as nicely as I would like. You can probably tell from the messy cuticles... and I managed to get polish all over my skin hurhur.
I would definitely buy more polish from Maybelline but I hope that they'll make the brush flatter and rounder.

What do you think? Do you have Maybelline polishes? Like or hate the brush?

Thanks for reading!

Papaya leopard print nail art

It's summer! Well, there is no summer here but let's pretend that there is and all we want to do is relax by the beach with our perfectly manicured hands curled around a glass of mocktail.

What better color to paint your nails than a lovely shade of papaya?!

I am obsessed with my papaya nail polish from The Face Shop.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

I used 2 coats here. The formula is alright, like all other The Face Shop polishes that I own. The color complements my skin which makes it even better. I liked it just by itself but I decided to have a little fun with it and did a cute leopard print.

Taken indoors

Taken with flash (without topcoat)

Leopard prints are so versatile ! I love how easy they are to do as well. Just use any kind of dotting tool, splotch on the color, go around it with black polish and you're done.

What do you think of this papaya leopard print? Love it or meh?

Thanks for reading!

Retro neon nails - Sinful Colors 24/7

I did these nails while I was in the US. I brought zero tools, removers, polishes and cuticle care (yeah, smart of me) so I had to make do with whatever I bought.

Which will also explain the bad nail job done below. I had just gotten a bottle of Sinful Colors - 24/7 and I really wanted to use it right away.

I'm wearing Sinful Colors - 24/7 and Sally Hansen - Lickety Lime Split.

I really love Sinful Colors - 24/7. It's a gorgeous neon pink and the formula is just right. It dries semi-matte as you can see in the pictures but I prefer a glossy finish.

Here I'm wearing two coats of both polishes. I hadn't bought any white polish yet so these are without a white base. I would definitely wear 24/7 over a white base to make the neon pop. Or if you prefer a muted neon look, forgoing the white base is fine too.

Hmm, yeah, there was flooding at my cuticles... I painted my nails on the bed so my hands were shaking... Not a smart thing to do but what's a girl to do when she's got new polish and no table to paint her nails at?

I always have ugly ragged skin at my cuticles that I'm not sure what to do with. It's not the flaky dead skin that comes off when I push my cuticles back and if I don't kind of nip them, they'll just be there. Sometimes I just nip them, sometimes I leave them. Help?

I tried Googling for solutions but none of them addressed this problem. Maybe I wash my hands too often? Or the water here is hard therefore creating skin near the cuticles? Or maybe I just don't moisturize my hands enough...? Gah, I probably need to invest in some cuticle oil.

If you have any tips on how to get rid of the skin near the cuticles, pray tell.

Thanks for reading! :)

Summery Tribal Nail Art

Before I get to the tribal nail art that I did, I have to show you want I did on my right hand.

Taken outdoors

Blurry goodness, I love it.

Taken outdoors

I used China Glaze - Exotic Encounters for all my fingers except for my ring finger which was China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss.

Then I just slathered on two coats of China Glaze - Fairy Dust and a chunkier glitter polish to create a fun glitter fest. Give me glitterrrrr!

I striped on two coats of Orly - Glowstick over Kalahari Kiss because on its own, it doesn't complement my skin tone nicely.

And here is what I did on my left hand:

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken indoors under dim lighting

The polishes I used: Love & Beauty - pale blue, Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint, Orly - Liquid Vinyl, nameless red-orange polish and China Glaze - Elephant Walk (ring finger).

The first two pictures were without top coat so that's why they look a bit gritty. After one coat of Seche Vite, everything sealed in and looked smooth.

It was my first time using a striper brush. I always hesitated to use it because I was afraid that I wouldn't have a good control of such a skinny brush but I think the lines turned out okay for a first-timer LOL. No major crooked lines or such.

I just noticed that my tribal nails are always relatively uncomplicated. There's nothing too complex about the designs because I like them to be doable within a reasonable amount of time.

How do you like your tribal nails?

Thanks for reading!