My mom and dad came down yesterday to visit and go see my brothers band, Angus and the Attiks play last night. The band did an amazing job as usual, and you should all go see their next show at Wicked Pissa (formerly Legends Rock Bar) in Gales Ferry, CT on Sat. Aug. 4th 9:30PM. Anyway, my mom asked me to paint her nails for her before the show, and she picked out Essie "Acton" which I reviewed earlier in the week. I thought this would be the perfect time to try this polish with a white base coat like I mentioned in my previous post. The results were much better!
I used Revlon Quick Dry Base coat, and then two coats of Sinful Colors "Snow me White". After that, I applied two coats of Essie "Action" and Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat. The white underneath the Essie shade really seems to bring out the neon in the polish, and it really looks much more like a neon highlighter, which is what this shade looks like in the bottle. I just wish that Essie had added something to the color to make it more opaque to begin with so that the white undercoat wasn't necessary. With the white underneath, this is a shade that I will probably wear more often.
What do you think? Do you like this shade better with or without the white base coat? Would you wear either one?
Well, I was so disappointed with how sheer Essie "Action" came out, I felt the need to do something to save this manicure. I decided that some bright leopard spots would be just the cure. These are super easy and super cute! See below for the tutorial.
1. Start with a base color of your choosing. When it is dry, take some of your acrylic paint, and paint little dots or c shapes on your nails. I used pink. I suppose you could use a nail art brush and some polish instead, but it will take longer to dry, and you will have a little less control over the paint than with the acrylics.
2. Next, take some black acrylic paint and paint little c shapes around the pink spots. For some of these I did c shapes on both sides, and for some I did a c shape along the bigger c and a dot on the others.
3. If you feel that you don't have enough spots, you can go in and add a few random spots with just black.
Thats it! So simple, and such a cute way to spruce up a boring manicure, right? Do you think you will try this?
Essie put out a neon summer collection called "Poppy Razzi" which contains 4 awesome summer neon hues. This collection is out in drug stores right now.
I picked up a shade entitled "Action" at CVS which I was very excited about! It is full of neon tangerine goodness.
Although I was excited about this shade initially, I was not impressed after I put on the first coat. It came out streaky and sheer. You could totally see my smile line, and also the few areas on my nails that area pealing a little.
Yuck! look at how sheer this is! You can absolutely see any imperfections your nails may have.
After the second coat, you could still see the smile line, plus it started to bubble a little. This could be because I was applying the color outside and it was hot out. I will talk in a later post about how to stop bubbles in your polish. Anyways, It took three coats to make this polish to look decent.
As with most neon shades, this polish dries matte. A top coat is a must to get the full potential out of this nail color! Overall, I was disappointed with the sheerness of this formula. I read some other blog posts that mentioned they used a white polish underneath and loved how the color came out. I would try this polish again with a white base first, but if that doesn't work out I can't see myself wearing this very often. Even though I love the color, this polish is just too sheer.
Has anyone else tried the other polishes from the "Poppy Razzi" Summer 2012 collection? What are your thoughts?
My spree of overnight shifts is over! This means that I finally have time for some nail art again. Today I am going to show you how to make some cool nail art decals. This is perfect if you want to make some geometric designs on your nails but don't have a steady hand.
My manicure with nail art decals
So, read below for how to make your own nail art decals.
1. Start with a sheet of wax or parchment paper. Choose your nail colors. Paint each color in thin layers on the paper.
2. Wait for color to dry, continue to paint more thin layers. I painted about 5. If you paint too few, it won't come off of the paper correctly. Painting several layers of polish will also make the colors opaque so that you will be able to apply them to a darker color base polish.
3. Wait for the colors to dry completely. I waited overnight.
4. Gently peal polish off of paper.
5. Cut into whatever shapes you want. Then, take thin paintbrush and apply clear top coat to back of decal and stick on nail.
6. Use nail scissors to cut to proper shape on nail.
7. Finish off with top coat over decals. I used Seche Vite top coat for this because it is thicker, so will cover up any bumpy-ness from the nail decals.
There you go! That is how I make some neat decals. I used the dotting tool to create some extra dots on this nail after I applied the decals. What do you think? Will you try this look?
Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days. I have been working the overnight shift, and it takes me a while to adjust, so the only thing I have been doing is sleeping and working. I am working on something really cool for you all though. I am going to post it in several parts, since it is kind of complex. Today, I am reviewing a new line of polishes by Maybelline. The line is called Color Show polish and it contains 40 different shades "Inspired by the Catwalk". This color called "Green with envy and is a creme mint green. The formula is smooth. It dries streak free after two coats. No clue about the wear yet, as I just put it on. I will update you in a few days. Overall, I think this color is very unique, and on point with summer fashion.
Today I went to my parents house to make jam with my mom. We made blueberry and raspberry flavors. It looks delicious and I can't wait to eat it tomorrow for breakfast. My manicure was inspired by our blueberry jam. Enjoy!
Blueberries on the vine!
For this manicure I used NYC Quick Dry in Uptown as the base color on both thumbs.
The next part is the secret to doing this manicure. Instead of nail polish for the design, I actually used acrylic paint. Thats right, regular acrylic paint like you can buy in the craft store. It is safe and non-toxic. If you mess up, just wash your hands with soap and water and it comes right off! Cool right? It is actually much more opaque than regular nail polish so you only have to do one coat. It is also a lot more firm, so it will not run while you use it .
My cheepo acrylic paints that I bought at the craft store for $4
I started off by making the dark blue dots for the blueberries. I used the end of the paintbrush without bristles, and just dipped it in the darker blue paint then pushed it against the nail with different pressures to make circles of different sizes. I used the paintbrush end because my dotting tool didn't make the circles as big as I wanted them. Next, I made a smaller light blue dot inside each darker blue one.
After that, I painted the vines. I used the darker brown paint and put some accents in with the lighter paint. Then, I used green to paint some leaves.
I used the blueberry thumb as an accent nail, and painted the other nails with Sur La Pointe Des Pedis Tip Toe polish in Navy. I got this in Old Navy last year. I think it is from the Sara Jessica Parker line. It looks black in the pictures but it is actually a really beautiful navy color. It also has great application with full coverage color in just one coat.
I also painted my moms nails for her!
The color is Revlon Teak Rose. As usual, I used Revlon Quick Dry top and base coat.
My my nail art design today was inspired by an awesome video tutorial from Juliatmll on youtube!
Click below to watch. Above is my finished manicure. Below are some other helpful hints on how to create this on your own.
1. If you read my post yesterday, I am sure that you saw the ugly white polish after one coat. It looked pretty streaky, but much better after two. Even though there were still a few streaks, I didn't paint a third white coat, because I knew I was going to paint the drips on top and I didn't want to make the polish too thick. After I applied the colored polish, the few white streaks were not noticeable.
2. I used a nail dotting tool for the bottom of the drops. You can see what mine looks in the picture below. It has a nail art brush on one end, and the dotting tool on the other. If you don't want to buy one, you can just use a pin head or bobby pin. I got my dotting tool at Sally's Beauty Supply. It was only a few dollars.
3. To draw the lines, I actually used a thin paintbrush which I got from the craft store. It is meant for acrylics. It is long and thin, and i found that this kind of brush was easier to make straight lines with than the shorter brush on the end of my dotting tool.
For this manicure, I used Orly French Tip in Softest White, Cover Girl Boundless Color in Candy Apple, Kiss Nail art paint in Beach Yellow, NYC In a Minute Quick Dry in East Village, and NYC In a Minute Quick Dry in High Line Green. As usual, I used Revlon quick dry base and top coat.
On another note, the first finger I painted was the red thumbs. I think it looks like dripping blood. Maybe I will use part of this for a halloween manicure. Do you think it would creep out my patients?
