Springtime nails!

These are my nails from last week. I haven't had time to post! But final exam week always gives me time :) Plus, these past few days it has been so warm and spring-y out that I had to make spring time nails!

This was a popular design last year and I really love how cute and simple it is. I tried using spring colors but I only brought about twenty or so polishes with me when I moved to college, so I didn't have as many choices as I would have liked. In fact, I'll do a quick paragraph about that at the end!



Thumb nail: Zoya Wednesday. Pointer finger: Sally Hansen Wet Cement. Middle finger: Sinful Colors Pull Over. Ring finger: L'oreal Penthouse Pink. Pinky finger: Zoya Arizona.





I love these polishes (which is why I happened to have them with me). I tried to be as spring-y as possible! I used my Art Deco White nail polish striper to draw lines on each nail (3-4 per nail). On my pointer finger, I finally used one of my dried flowers from the wheel that I bought over the summer. I LOVE THIS NAIL DESIGN!

The polishes that I brought with me to college.



If you want to know what they are, I can post it. As you can see, lots of polishes haha. China Glaze, OPI, Essie, Butter London. Some of them I haven't used yet though (surprise, surprise). But still! I store them in a small cardboard box on my desk.

Hope you like it! I do have a couple more nail art posts to put up, some product reviews that have been waiting for me. Off to study!

`Rakuzen

Nails of the week + A nail haul!

I actually got my nails finished early this week!

My pseudo-flower design. I would have liked if each of my nails looked more like the design on my thumbnail, but c'est la vie. The base is Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl. I love this color, except that it's extremely sheer and needs multiple coats to be opaque. And with each coat, if you accidentally nick it or make any type of imperfection, it will show through. But the color is so pretty that it's almost worth it. So, about three coats of Tokyo Pearl, then I used Seche Vite to dry it.

To make the designs, just draw the black outline with a black striper (I used L.A. Colors Black), then line the inside with a pink striper (I used L.A. Colors Pink).

Plus, my nail haul from last week. All Sinful Colors are from Walgreens (which had a 99 cent sale for SC), and the other picture is all from Rite-Aid. I know, 17 polishes sounds extreme. But they were all such a good deal!

From left to right: Sinful Colors Savage, Queen of Beauty, Nirvana, Boogie Nights, and San Francisco.

I'll update with the names later tonight because I don't have the polishes right next to me. As always, will swatch on request.

I love buying nail polish on a discount because, even if the color doesn't suit my skintone or tastes, I have friends who, knowing I'm a nail polish junkie, are always willing to take it off my hands.

And that's it! I'll have a new design hopefully on Monday, and maybe I'll get around to posting up all the nail art tools and decorations that I got off eBay (: 'Til then!

Star nail of the week

Heyy.

Okay, so I did do a nail design last week. And this week.

But I didn't post it because I am lazy. :)


Here is my nail art from two weeks ago. It came from a nail artist on Soompi, but I'm afraid that I did not write down who did it (I just saved the picture a couple of months ago. Regret.) I kind of failed.

The blue color is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dive Deeper. Sort of. When I put on the first coat, is quite sheer. And way too light for my tastes. So I frankened the entire bottle to be darker, by adding 4-5 drops of a Sinful Colors nail polish. Whose name (and bottle) escapes me, but I will find it and update it.

Anyways! Then I drew the design with a very dark blue glitter striper polish (okay, I know. That was doomed for failure). It was too liquidy and sheer, so it barely showed up. So I went over that with a silver glitter striper polish. Then I didn't like the way that looked. So I went over it with a purple glittery striper, and then outlined the purple with silver.

I spent way too long on such an easy nail art. And then I was patting myself on the back for that, and completely failed with the picture. Wow. I have no idea HOW I did not see that before I put my camera away (Oh, right. I'm too lazy to check! sob) I should really warn you, by the way, that you can click on the picture to expand it. But if you do, it's blurry. It kind of looks okay (from really far away and without expanding it. And if you just hit spacebar over and over until you get past it).

Anyways! There's a swatch too. One coat of Dive Deeper. (without any cleanup. As you can very clearly tell). It's such a pretty color in the bottle, I'm sad it's so sheer and light.



Any tips for how to get good nail shots? Sometimes I take them outside, but that usually makes them look worse as opposed to better. Here I was, thinking that I was getting better.

I was sadly mistaken. Till next time.

Also, I just cleaned my nail polish collection. And organized it. 30 minutes later and 89 polishes later, well... Just expect a post soon. :)

Nail of the Week + One old manicure

Since my flickr account is filled with pictures of my manicures, most of which have never seen the light of my blog... I'll be doing one manicure of the week (my current nails) and one of my old manicures every week, until they're all posted :)

Also, I love nail polish sales. And so I tend to buy a lot of nail polishes that sit, unused, in my box. In an effort to keep up with posting my collection, I'll be posting my nail polish haul from the week (or day...).

First up, my current manicure:



(Look at that. My picture actually turned out really well, not blurry, and true to color. In two tries. :)

I used China Glaze Recycle on my thumb, drew the design (four lines) with my black striper polish, and added a rhinestone. For my pointer finger, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On nail polish, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear The Real Teal for the dots. For my middle finger, I painted it in SH The Real Teal, then drew the lines with my white striper polish, added a white french to the tip, and drew the bow with my black striper, before placing a rhinestone in the middle of the bow. My ring finger has China Glaze Recycle on it, with simple white and black diagonal stripes and a rhinestone where I messed up (:P). I used White On on my pinky finger, drew an X shape with my black striper, and filled in two of the triangles with The Real Teal.

I really, really like the designs in this batch. Very simple, but they're pretty and I've gotten a lot of compliments on them. Plus, I love using rhinestones.

Now for a picture of an old manicure.



This is a couple of months old, from November. I was trying to do the "fun dots" nail art, but I didn't look at a tutorial, just some pictures of finished products.

Not such a great idea. As you can see, it was basically a fail. But I have since learned how to do it, so I'll try again soon.

Also, some exciting news (for me). I've found someone (a salon owner with a beauty license) who is willing (and happy) to supply me with nail polish-- China Glaze, CND, OPI, Essie, and more-- at cost. Which is a lot cheaper than at most locations (retail value for OPI is $8.50. But the nearest store is two hours away, so it costs more in gas.)

I lost my SD card (well, not lost persay, more like misplaced) that had pictures of my last nail polish haul and some swatches, but as soon as I find it I'll update with those.

Summer Cleaning

Yes, it's been awhile.

*hides*

I would blame school for this, except I've done a lot of nail art, even during school. It just takes so much EFFORT to take pictures (Yes, I am that lazy). But I do have some things for you to see.

I took pictures of my nail polish collection, categorized by brand. But that was about four months ago, and I have acquired several (beautiful) nail polishes since then, and I can't bear to post the pictures until they're all together.

So my first post will be an old picture. My first Frankenpolish. This polish was created by mixing a pea-sized amount of grey eyeshadow from my 120 piece Manly Eyeshadow Palette with fifteen drops of clear nail polish. I really wanted one to match a headband that I had, and this worked out perfectly. I was thinking it was close to Sally Hansen Gunmetal (a color I adore), but it was actually closer to a Maybelline polish... One of the 60 seconds one, that I can't quite remember the name of.



In the process of mixing. It was really easy, almost no thought (Phew) was involved.



The finished product. It was a little bit darker than the picture, but not by much. A gorgeous grey, if I do say so myself, and exactly what I was looking for. My only problem was that I didn't make quite enough, so it was streaky. I'd misplaced my bottle of Gunmetal, and happened upon the Maybelline Express match for this franken when I went to replace it.

In the next few days, I will be revamping my blog. Expect a lot of nails with dots on them, my blog expanding to be more than just a nail blog (I might just make it a beauty blog), pictures of my nail polish collection, and some checkered nails.