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Showing posts with label Zoya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoya. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Golden hearts

Today's manicure started out with a base of one of my most favorite red polishes - Zoya Carrie Ann.  It's a sparkly fire engine red and it just flows over the nail like a dream.  I used two coats for the base and let it dry thoroughly before I stamped it.

I told myself I wasn't going to pick up the Essie mirrored metallics.  One - because I tend to not like Essie's formula, and two - because I thought I had dupes of most of the colors in my stash.  (By the way, my boyfriend says I shouldn't call it a "stash" because it's way too big.  I should call it a 'hoard' instead - LOL)  I saw some of this line being used to stamp with though, I changed my mind and picked up 4 of the 5 colors available.  Bad me.  Bad.  I need to put myself on a makeup/nail polish purchase moratorium.   

Anyway, my first experience stamping with Essie Good as Gold was successful and here is the result. The stamp is BM 317 from their 2012 release.   Oh, and on the thumb I added some sparkle with Milani Red Sparkle One Coat Glitter.  I really love this glitter, but my bottle is half gone and it's starting to thicken a little.  Might be time to look for a backup bottle.  Let's face it - I just love red polish!





Well, I'm off to work for what's sure to be a brutal 'last day of the month' Tuesday.  Have a good one everyone!



Sunday, July 29, 2012

Fairy butterfly wings

I have been wanting to do a manicure inspired by my tattoo for a few weeks now, but never really had enough time to implement the design.  This is my interpretation of fairy butterly wings.

I started with a 2 coats of Sally Hansen Green Tea, which is a dusty light mint color.  Green Tea is a finicky polish and doesn't like to be overworked, or it can become patchy and streaky.  Then I lightly sponged Sally Hansen Insta-Dri  Blue Away and Orly Charged Up over the top of Green Tea and let that dry thoroughly.  I then finished the design off with a black striping polish, Wet N Wild black creme and a small paintbrush; and Zoya Purity and some dotting tools.  Purity is my favorite white polish because it is so opaque.  I'm about half way through my bottle and had to thin it down a little today with some Nail Polish Thinner.  When everything was dry I top coated with SV, because I wanted it to dry super fast so I didn't ding it.  It would be a shame to do all that work and have to redo it because of a dent! 

What do you think of my take on fairy wings?







And just for fun here's a pic of my inspiration - this is the tattoo I got about 3 years ago and is my first and only tattoo.  (I'd like to get another tho!)  I wanted to incorporate my love of fairies (I collect them!) with a more mature tattoo.


Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Pink checkerboard

After a failed manicure earlier in the week I wanted something simple and fast.  So I did a quick mani yesterday morning with Zoya Lolly, a lovely pink matte color.   I chose the matte polish because I wanted to do my nails in the morning before work and matte polish dries fast.  The first coat drags a tiny, bit but everything should level out by coat #2.

As I was showing my boyfriend the color he mentioned it would be cool if you could do a french tip fauxnad (of course he didn't know that there WAS such a thing!)  So at his suggestion, I added a checkerboard fauxnad tip using white konad special polish and plate M56.  It took me a couple tries to get the tips straight and even then the stamp didn't transfer perfectly.  But I think it looks cool.




Thursday, July 12, 2012

Dino Spots!

I have recently returned from a trip to Indiana where Amanda and I got to spend 5 days together including a fun pool party at a family member's house for the 4th of July.  I got a fabulous haircut from my cousin, Marcia; and she was kind enough to send me a care package of some high end hair products in the mail last night.  So here's a shoutout to my awesome cuz!

I picked up Zoya Trixie several weeks ago at Ulta and have been wanting to use it since then but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it.  So as I was looking through my folder of nail stamps last night my eyes fell upon the dino spots design and I thought the contrast of black spots would look good with the silver polish.

As Amanda and I sat down to do our nails together over Skype, I highlighted a few of the spots with Zoya Charisma and Studio M neon green.  I'm wondering if I should have just left the spots all black.  Neons are notoriously sheer and I knew it would take more than one coat to cover the black.   It's kinda cool looking though - looks like nail stickers!

Trixie went on just beautifully.  Zoya rarely lets me down in the quality of their product.  I used two smooth coats here then waited for it to dry before stamping with Konad special polish in black and plate BM211. 





Tonight I'm off to the beach to a sand sculpting festival.  I hope to have picture for you by early next week!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Sparkly Summer Butterflies

Hi ladies, it's been in ill minute since one of us has posted, hasn't it? Well, Mama was in town for the week of the 4th so we were spending lots of time together. Hopefully you can't fault us for that :)

I wanted to sit down and do some nail art with some pizzazz this weekend, but OF COURSE I didn't know what color I wanted to use or what I wanted to do! So what did I do? Settle for one of my most FAVORITEST colors ever -- Zoya Jacy.

This color just makes me drool. It's vampy and berry all mixed into one and it's formula is awesomesauce and *le sigh* I just love it. Do you have it? No? Go get it. Now!

I used two coats of Jacy and topped with a coat of Revlon Quick Dry. I gotta tell you, I've given up on Seche Vite.  You see, I sat down and did this UBER sparkly mani Friday night... it was a light golden pink shimmer with a few coats of Teenage Dream, and it was AWESOME. But without fail, about ten minutes after I top-coated with SV, I experienced the worst tip shrinkage (giggity) that I've ever had. So I think I'll be giving some love to the other top coats I've neglected during my love affair with SV. Sorry SV, it's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun. Peace Out.

ANYWAY! I sponged Zoya Faye on the tips for some nice sparkliezz. Then I used the little butterflies on Konad plate m78 and one of my Sally Hansen Chrome pens. Those things are AWESOME for stamping, and you can get them at the dollar store!

I finished up by adding some little microbeads with the butterflies. I think it looks kinda like a flight path!  Mama also got these at the dollar store during her visit. It's a little pack that comes with 8 colors. Pretty cool! I think they look nice, but boy they sure were a biatch to get on and I doubt they'll stay on long. I'll probably end up picking them off when I get my hands stuck in my hair.

Anyway, here are the pics :)



Hope you all have a great weekend!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Welcome Summer!

This is a manicure I did over the weekend because I wanted something with a little ZING to really shine in the sunlight.  We haven't had many summery days here in Boston - I actually find myself missing those 90 degree days from Indiana!  Oh - and it's supposed to be 97F today here in Boston.  Wish I could go to the beach instead of work!!

I started with a base of Zoya Charisma, which is a beautiful neon magenta color. The pictures make it look pink, but it's actually a deeper red violet color.   Charisma is lovely on her own and will be featured again in an upcoming mani I have planned.  Over the top of Charisma I applied 2 full coats of Orly Bubbly Bombshell.

OBB is a clear base packed full of small magenta colored glitter.  Take her out into the sunshine and she burns your retinas with her glow!  The depth of this glitter is really unique too.  Bubbly Bombshell has been sitting in my stash unused for months and I'm glad I finally took her for a test drive!






Friday, June 15, 2012

Zoya Sooki Funky French

Hi all. I'm alive!

Today I have a funky french for you guys. Since I rarely have the time (or motivation) to do my nails these days, I've been building on plain color manis as a refresher so I don't have to remove the entire mani.



This started with two coats of Zoya Sooki (any True Blood fans here?) which is the SEXIEST red in all the land. I love it. It's just like...UNF!! Then I taped on a diagonal and used Zoya Kelly to make a funky french. I stamped with a Sally Hansen chrome pen and Konad plate m73. I usually have problems with this particular plate design but it worked pretty well with the Chrome pen.



Sorry for the short post, I hope you all are well! Until next time, see ya :)

Monday, June 11, 2012

Rolling in the deep

Today's post is mermaid nails!

While at Ulta this week I picked up the lovely Zoya Charla and wanted to do some sort of nail art with it.  Since the color (aquamarine shimmer with flashes of green and gold) reminded me of a mermaid's tail I decided to go with a mermaid theme.

This is actually 3 coats of Charla.  I could have done 2 but due to some user error, I needed a third to even things out.  :)  I let it dry thoroughly then stamped over it with Konad Blue and Red Angel plate RA-111 in the fish scale pattern.

It came out a little more subtle than I expected, but I really like it!  When the sunlight hits Charla she really shines like POW! look at me!  The pictures lean a little more blue than Charla does in real life, but alas - I am heading out the door for work and no time to color correct them..




And here's the lovely Charla on her own.  She actually has a little more green and gold sheen than the picture represents.  It just doesn't capture how beautiful this polish is.


Have a great week everyone!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Gradient tiger

Hello readers!  Did you think that Amanda and I fell off the planet?  Well I'm back today with a fierce tiger mani for you.

You have probably noticed our lack of posts.  Both Amanda and I are struggling right now with a little blogger burnout, but trying to post at least once a week to keep things going.  We had a death in the family last week.  A cousin of ours who has been very sick for about a year died at age 47 to brain cancer.  We were both devestated and will miss her very much. 

Amanda is working a full time job during the week and has a long-distance boyfriend that keeps her traveling on the weekends.  I'm also working a 30 hour week, but try to do my nails in the mornings before work.  The last 2 manicures I've done I hated, and removed right away without taking pictures.  Plus, I admit that Diablo 3 is taking up quite a bit of my free time.  Grr it's so addicting!  If you play - look me up (Zoya#1115)!

So enough with personal stuff and on to the mani.  I actually really like this one.  I've been trying to master the art of the gradient mani, but apparently am a slow learner :)  Here we have a base coat of Sally Hansen Kook-A-Mango with Zoya Jancyn and Sinful Colors Pull Over to make the grade-IENT.  (haha).  Then I stamped it with Konad black polish and plate m57.  Please forgive the tiny bit of streaking as I was rushing out the door to make it to work in time! 

Hope you enjoy!





Friday, April 27, 2012

Sunny half moons!

Today's mani is my interpretation of Pantone's "Color of the Year".  I started with a base of Zoya Jancyn, which is a soft orange creme which applies and levels like a dream and dries fast.  I did use two coats for full coverage and opacity.  I let my base thoroughly dry, then applied a coat of SV to protect it before I applied the half moons.

The half moons here feature Wet N Wild's 9 0 2 1 Orange - which is just the most gorgeous shade of orange glass fleck I've ever seen.  It's nice and smooth and just radiates sunlight :)  It might be overcast and dreary outside but my nails are full of warmth and light!

Hope you enjoy!















Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Beginner Nail Art - using your dotting tool

Perhaps the easiest nail art there is, is to use your dotting tool for flowers.  Dotting tools can be purchased at nail art, craft supply stores and online; and come in a variety of sizes.  Mine are actually embossing styluses that I bought years ago in the scrapbooking section of Michaels.


Start out with a thoroughly dry base color. Dot a small amount of your color on a scrap of paper. Using your dotting tool, dip it into your color then gently dot it on your nail. Be careful not to press too hard or you can leave a little dimple in the middle of your dot. Another tip - use just a small dot of polish on your scrap of paper because as the polish air dries, it will get tacky and sticky. This will cause stringing of your dots and you don't want that.  Here you can see I've applied the center of my daisies to my nail with a large dotting tool.  The base is Zoya Lolly.


Repeat the above step with a medium sized dotting tool for the petals.  If you want to add topcoat to seal in your design, let it dry thoroughly first.  I have foregone topcoat on this mani because I want to keep the matte finish.


Really easy.  I actually did this design this morning before work - which is why my cuticles aren't conditioned and I forgot to clean up my pinky.   Running late for work, still need to do my hair and makeup!  Have a fabulous day!
x

Saturday, March 17, 2012

St. Patrick's Day mani

I have been having trouble getting motivated to do my nails lately and have been busy trying to get prepared to start my new job and Amanda has found herself so busy with work that she comes home exhausted every night.  We hope you will bear with us as we struggle to keep the blog going during this busy time in our lives.

I knew I wanted to do a green St. Patrick's Day mani but wasn't up for nail art or a complicated design.  As I was looking over my collection of green polishes I couldn't decide between my 2 favorite green shades.   Both happen to be Zoya - Ivanka and Verushka.  So I decided to use both!

The lovely Verushka is featured here with Ivanka as a highlight nail.  I used 2 coats of Verushka just for full coverage but it really covers pretty well in one coat.  Ivanka is a bit more sheer, requiring 3 thick coats to achieve this level of opacity.  Both are fabulous formulas, go on smooth, dry fast and just look stunning.  Hope you enjoy today's mani.




Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Green stripes


Today's mani is just a simple green stripe pattern for St. Patrick's Day.  I started with one of my favorite greens - Sally Hansen Grass Slipper.   I like the formula on this one.  It flows and levels well and the pigmentation is good with no streaking or dragging.  But it stains your nails REALLY badly so you might want to double up on your base coat before wearing this.

The stripes are done with a striping brush and Zoya Verushka and acrylic paint.  Looks kind of a like a watermelon doesn't it?






Oh, and some exciting news!   I got a job!!!  I've been looking since I relocated to Boston 3 months ago and am really happy with the place I found.  It's going to be SO nice to have money again!  Bye bye no buy!!! :-))))

Monday, March 12, 2012

St Patrick's Day funky french

Today's mani is a mint green funky french in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  My base color was 2 coats of Sally Hansen Green Tea, which is a slightly dusty mint green.  This one can be problematic, and I did notice a little bit of dragging and streaking during the first coat which (mostly) improved on the second coat.  I did still have a little bare spot on my index finger, which I chose to leave alone with just a topcoat rather than adding a third coat of color.  (You know how sometimes the more you overwork something the more noticeable the mistake becomes?) 

I taped off my tips and added Zoya Verushka.  Verushka is a simply gorgeous forest green matte polish with little flecks in it.  I really wanted the contrast of the matte tips with the glossy base, so I did not apply a topcoat over this step. 

Then I tried out the nail striping tape I got from Dollar Nail Art.  The tape comes with a slightly sticky back, but I wasn't sure it was enough to hold it down so I applied a thin coat of a slow drying topcoat to the back and pressed it onto the nail. After you apply it you use cuticle nippers to trim the tape to fit the nail (please be careful with this step as nippers are very sharp and I actually took a tiny bit of nail off the sides of couple fingers!) 

 Have any of you ever used nail striping tape before?  Keep reading for my experience with it...


Elegant isn't it?  I just loved how this looked.   Below is a pic of what it looked like before I applied the tape.




And here is Green Tea by itself

So shortly after I applied the tape I noticed the ends lifting.  So I took a tiny bit of SV and applied it under the ends to stick it back down.  No Bueno - it wouldn't hold.  So I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and just topcoat over the entire mani and headed to the beach for lunch.   You would think the topcoat would seal the tape in...  Nope.  the tape continued to pull up at the ends on several fingers throughout the day.  I wore this mani about 5 hours and it looked like this...


I could not wait to get home and remove it.  So sad - I really liked this one too!  So what is your experience with striping tape?


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Pink Wednesday - Wicked Roses

Hi girls. Sorry for neglecting you lately. Still trying to get in the swing of this work thing. I swear, I get up at 6am, go to work for 8 hours, come home, have about 4 hours to myself, go to bed, then do it all again. There's not enough hours in the day to do my nails and blog :(

Anywho, I finally found some time to sit down and do my nails last night (yay!). I used China Glaze Wicked Style as my base....which is definitely not this orangey-red. Wicked Style is much more of a berry pink color in real life, but of course it has to be a nuisance and throw off the color balance of my camera. And of course I'm too much of a noob to know how to alter the colors....so just pretend, mmkay?


I wanted to do some sort of quick nail art over top of this so I could still have some time to myself. I decided on Konading, but the design and polish I picked smeared together so I decided to do some freehand roses. I've tried this once before, and they didn't come out too well. This one looked funky at first, but after I painted the leaves on I think it really came together. The roses are made with Revlon Candy, Essie French Affair, and Zoya Erika. The leaves are China Glaze Starboard with China Glaze Entourage for the highlights. I finished with one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust (duh) and a coat of Seche Vite and voila!



I'm actually liking the way this came out, considering I was kind of hurrying myself along. And I actually did it on all ten nails...shocking! I can't get away with only doing one now that I have to actually go in public and talk to real live people ;)




Hope you are all having a happy hump day! Only two days til the weekend (it's weird that I have to count down to it again now after being unemployed for so long....ha ha)!!