A for effort...F for execution

Hello! Today I had an idea for henna nails. I saw a tutorial on Robin Moses's nail art channel on youtube (if you want to check it out, here is her channel...she is AWESOME) for a henna design and it inspired me a little bit. I wanted to do something a little more simple though.

To start with, I used three coats of Finger Paints Blank Canvas Cream. I've only ever used this color once and I wasn't a big fan of it, but now, I think I miiiight kind of like it. It gives me mannequin hands, but I don't know. I feel like it works for me as something really neutral. I could probably wear this to an office job and not be obnoxious.

Now this is where I failed. I looked up some henna designs online so I didn't look like I was just making everything up...but the execution of these sucks and I know that. I debated even putting these pictures up, but maybe someone else can do something better with it. I think the problem was that I didn't have a good, thin brush so I had to use toothpicks and a dotting tool along with a black striper polish for the longer lines. I think given better materials, this would've looked a lot better.

Not my worst...but not my best. What do you think?

--Amanda

Abstract Fizz

Today I have my last new polish for ya'll, Lemon Fizz. Well... it's new to me at least. I've pretty much NEVER used yellows before, but I've heard that they're notoriously difficult to work with. This one was kind of a pain, but I wouldn't say it was unbearable to work with. I think for yellows it was probably pretty good, but I wouldn't know because I only have two yellows in my entire stash. So here is three coats of Lemon Fizz:

I added some stripes over three fingers and used Studio M Covered In Diamonds on the pointer and ring fingers.

I've never used a flakey before so I don't know if this polish is a standard formula for a flakey... but I HATED it!! It was SO thick and goopy and the flakies poked off the end of the nail and it was SO annoying that I ended up taking this off in about five minutes. Does anyone know of any good flakeys that I can try out? I've heard Nfu-Oh's are good but they're kind of pricey...

Today is my last day of college! Ahhh!

Have a wonderful day!

--Amanda

Wet N Wild Saved by the Blue and Pure Ice Once Again

This is a suggestion from my son. Out of nearly 200 bottles of polish he picked this blue. I did a french tip because I just wasn't feeling doing my entire nail with this color. After, I used a top coat of Pure Ice Once Again to add a little visual interest and sparkle.

The SbtB goes on well, its a little on the runny side but it was opaque in 1 coat. I did 2 just for full coverage.

The Pure Ice looks like a light aqua with holo glitter in the bottle. On the nail it's a very very sheer light blue with holographic glitter. The formula is good and I was impressed with the quality.

China Glaze - Watermelon Rind...with FLOWERS!

Hellooooo! Today I have another one of my new polishes that I bought myself for my birthday -- China Glaze Watermelon Rind. This is boooootiful... It's a blue-ish greenish teal color that is SO SPARKLY!! All these fruit named polishes are making me hungry...

Anyway, I was a little disappointed with the application on this one. It was VERY thin and VERY sheer at first, so the polish kept flowing into the sides of my nails...just when I've started to get good about avoiding that. Drat. Oh well...nothing my trusty eyeliner brush won't fix :)

This is 3 coats of China Glaze Watermelon Rind:

And you guys know me... I can never leave anything alone. But I should....because it's quite obvious by these pictures that roses are probably not my nail forte...

That's all for today! I finished my two hardest classes today so I am RELAXING tonight! :)

--Amanda

Sally Hansen Jade Jump

Today I have for you another request from my boyfriend. I've been feeling really uninspired lately and he suggested a mint green with white tips. I've been liking the soft look of the sponged tips lately so I went with that.

This is another of the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes. It's a mint green, a little darker than China Glaze Refresh Mint. It went on a little smoother than the pink from a couple days ago - but it was still thick and hard to get smooth and opaque. This is 2 coats.

I sponged Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud on the tips

Day 2 of my mani I used China Glaze Fault Line crackle over the top to perk things up. I applied the crackle in a diagonal herringbone pattern. I did this before work so cuticle cleanup wasn't perfect :(

Sinful Social Ladder and Snow Me White

I've been experimenting with sponging lately and this is another one of my attempts.

The base coat is Sinful Colors Social Ladder - which is a very sheer pink sparkle. I wish my nails weren't stained because this is such a pretty delicate pink.

Then I sponged over the tips using a cellulose sponge and Sinful Snow Me White. I topped it off with some subtle stamping with Sally Hansen insta-dries in Pink Blink and Peachy Breeze.

Sally Hansen Pink Blink and China Glaze Strawberry Fields

So today I'm wearing pink in support of the Jenna Lyons/J Crew media frenzy. If you don't know the story, she painted her 5 year old son's toenails neon pink and a picture of the two of them was used in an advertisement. Immediately she was attacked and allegations flew that the boy was going to grow up gay because she painted his toenails pink. Ridiculous. My son wanted his fingernails painted when he was about that age, its about fitting in with what mom and sister are doing - not a gender sexuality issue. Ok, so off my soapbox.

If you know me you know I'm a big Sally Hansen fan. The Complete Salon Manicure line are some of my favorite polishes. I just love the formula and how they apply. So I was excited to try my new SH Insta Dry in Pink Blink.

OMG.

Words cannot express how disappointed I am with this polish. It's thick. It's gloopy. It went on streaky and it dries so fast that when I tried to smooth it out, I ended up with drag marks. It was a MESS. I used 3 coats of this to get it to look even remotely smooth. I should not have to use 3 coats of a fast dry polish. Then I had to use a coat of Gelous because it was still bumpy even after 3 coats. I finished with a coat of Poshe and I think it looks presentable, but I'll never use this polish for a full manicure again. It's getting relegated to the 'just for stamping' bin. I has a sad. :(

The daylight picture is most color accurate.

I wore this manicure plain then at the end of the day wanted to jazz it up a little bit, so I applied OPI Teenage Dream over the top. Sorry for the crappy picture - I left my camera at work and all I had was my iphone camera. Teenage Dream is one of my top 10 favorite polishes. Looking at it just makes me happy and I'm not even that much of a pink lover. I was considering doing a crackle french tip but at this point I have 8 coats of product on my nails (base coat, 3 coats of polish, gelous, poshe and 2 coats of TD) so I decided to leave them as is. I am SO gonna regret this when time comes to remove this mani. :)

EDIT: Hello friends! I wanted to add MY pink polish in support of Jenna Lyons to the end of this post. I had some leftover birthday money today so I stopped in Sally's and got 3 new China Glaze polishes (they were having a buy 2 get one free sale, so NATURALLY I had to buy some...). The ones I picked up are Strawberry Fields, Lemon Fizz, and Watermelon Rind. Didn't notice that they were all fruit names til I got home :P

Anyway, I LOVE this!!! I'm just so...mesmerized by it. It's a bright pink glass fleck with gold in it. So pretty.... *swoon* ... I might not even have to add any nail art to it! You know it's a winner if I leave it alone. Here is 2 coats of China Glaze's Strawberry Fields:

Isn't my perfume bottle cute? Boyfriend got me that for my birthday. The box whistles when you open it! :)

--Amanda

Pure Ice Strapless - Earth Day Manicure

I'm posting my Earth Day manicure one day early because I plan on wearing pink tomorrow in support of J. Crew's ad.

So last night I got this idea about earth day and using my manicure to represent water and earth. So I started with one coat of Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris. It's a fast dry one coat creme but it's a little runny. I had lots of pooling around my nail beds that I had to clean up.

Then I taped off just the tips of my nails and used one coat of Pure Ice Strapless over the base of my nail to represent water. The color is really unique - unlike anything else in my collection. It's a sort of cerulean glitter. Then after that was dry I freehanded the tips with Pure Ice Heart Breaker. Thanks to Erica for turning me on to this one. In the bottle it looks like a murky greenish blue and by itself its very very sheer. But layer it over a dark color and that's where it really shines - a sparkly forest green. Lovely! So here's the finished mani...

I did this manicure at 9:00 last night so all pictures are taken indoors in artificial light. I wish I could have captured it in daylight to show off the depth of the color and sparkle.

Jesse's Girl - Flirt

Hello! Today I have for you a mani that I did using three coats of Jesse's Girl - Flirt. I LOVE Jesse's Girl polishes...they're such good quality for a drugstore brand. It's too bad that this color was as sheer as it was -- obviously I got it to full opacity, but it took a while. It's a really nice pinkish orangish mauve color. I hardly had any cleanup with this one! Sucks that I don't have a Rite-Aid near me or else I'd be all over the rest of these polishes. Anyway, here's three coats of Flirt:

You know me. After I did that, I needed something more on it. I'm not sure that this color works well with my skintone. I wanted to do yellow roses, but I've never done roses and I was a little scared, haha. I also didn't know if it's go with the pink base color, so I decided on a simple funky french -- skinny black tips. I probably should've left it there... I feel like I just kept adding things until it was the most random mani I've done in a while. I added the black dots with a dotting tool and covered the whole thing with a coat of Revlon Belle.

Then I was STUPID -- I got in the shower because I thought everything was good and dry... and pieces of polish came off of my right hand :( You'd think I'd know better by now...

Have a great day!!

--Amanda

Sally Hansen Shell We Dance and Studio M Neon Pink

A quick funky french for you today. I started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Shell We Dance which is a very light pink creme suitable for a french manicure. Then I freehanded a funky french tip with Studio M Neon Pink. I was in a hurry, so I didn't tape it off for a perfectly straight line.

Then for the finishing touch I stamped with some white Konad special polish.

Very quick and easy mani yet looks so cute!

Easter nails!

I wanted to do something fun for Easter this week. I've been so swamped with homework and projects for school that I actually just sat down and did my nails just for my own sanity. I spent nine hours in the library STRAIGHT working on my big campaigns project on Saturday....so I think I deserved to waste some time doing my nails :)

I started out with 2-3 coats of China Glaze For Audrey. My bottle of this is THICK -- I need to thin it out desperately. Then I created Easter dots and zig-zags/stripes on all of my nails except my middle finger using: Essie French Affair, Essie Lilacism, Revlon Minted, and China Glaze Peachy Keen. I made the little chick using yellow and white acrylic paints. My chick looks a little... special compared to other chick nails I've seen, but hey, we'll just say that it gives him character :)

That's all for today. School should be slowing down soon since I graduate in 3 weeks!! Hopefully that'll give me lots more time to update :)

-Amanda

I'm adding this post to the end of Amanda's post because I used the same base color as her post. :) This is China Glaze For Audrey

Then I sponged over it with Studio M Frenzy (a medium purple creme) and China Glaze Refresh Mint (a very pale mint green creme)

Revlon Black with Envy Ruffian

I've wanted to try this mani for a long time but never had the time. So last night I sat down and took my time and tried to get it just right. I tried a new base coat this time - Studio M Stuck on You. I started with one coat of Orly Glitz - it's a lovely gold color and covers well in one coat.

Then I added the ruffian style manicure with 2 coats of Revlon Black with Envy. Its a black pearl color with just a hint of a sage green. I did have just a little trouble with bubbling. But I think that was my own fault for applying too thick of a coat. So when using this lacquer remember to use thin coats and let it dry thoroughly.

This manicure is definitely a love-it or hate-it style. I happen to love it. What do you think?

Sally Hansen I Pink I Can

Ok, my boyfriend chose the nail color for today. And this is what I wore as my full mani.

I started with OPI base coat and then applied 2 coats of Sally Hansen I Pink I Can in a half moon mani. This color is as close to Pepto Bismol pink as I think you can get. I sealed it with 2 coats of Seche Vite then applied the sticker and sealed again. ta-da. Cute. And oh-so-easy.

Orly Charged Up

Another creme from Orly. This is a medium purple cream and isn't quite as blue as the pictures portray it.

This lacquer went on a little streaky and I needed 3 coats to get even coverage. It dried really glossy - I don't think you'd have to use a topcoat if you didn't want to!

It needed something.. Maybe a french tip or some konad.

Orly Purple Crush

I picked this polish up in a buy 2 get 1 free sale at Sally's Beauty Supply. It's a magenta/neon purple creme. The pictures don't really capture the true color. It's not as pink as it looks in these pictures - it leans more toward a purple tone.

It goes on very smoothly and it was completely opaque in 2 coats. I think you could actually even get by with one coat of this. It does tend to dry a little on the matte side so if you want the gloss you will have to use a coat or two of a nice shiny topcoat.