Naked Neon Nails - Funky French

On Saturday I realized I've been a failure at summer manis - I haven't used ANY neons this whole summer! So I decided - TODAY'S the day. But alas... I had my heart set on a mani with a nude polish. What was I do to?

A funky french of course! With NEON tips! The best of both worlds - nudes, and neons! Plus, this way, it wouldn't be SO obnoxiously neon that people would see me coming from 50 feet away.

I started with two coats of Essie Topless and Barefoot aka the best nude polish in my whole stash (thanks Mom!). It's not quite mannequin hands, but it's just the perfect subtle skin color. I love it, but the formula on it is atrocious (in my bottle at least..). I managed to make it work and figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal if it wasn't perfect since I'd be putting something over it.

Now - to go on my hunt for the neon polishes I wanted to use. I realize not all of these are neon per se, but I thought this combination of colors was the most flattering together. The neons are (from thumb to pinky) China Glaze Pink Voltage, China Glaze Style Wars, China Glaze Electric Pineapple, Funky Fingers 220 Volts, and Funky Fingers Riot.

I did the nude base on Saturday afternoon, then applied tape to the tips for the french on Sunday. This works better for me than waiting [im]patiently for my top coat to dry enough to do it all in one sitting -- that's how I always ruin them, so I wait a day in between. Seal with a coat of Revlon Quick Dry and you're done! Probably the easiest nail art mani I've done in a while and I actually am really digging this one!

Oh, and before I go, look what managed to play out when I was taking pictures of this mani...

I swear I did not realize the matchy matchy until I was outside taking the pictures! Maybe my subconscious grabbed inspiration from what I was wearing ;)

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia Funky French

Hi all.

Happy....Monday?

Guess what? I FINALLY have a mani to show you guys that I'm actually relatively happy with!! I took off that Zoya funky french about an hour after posting it because the layers of polish started to seriously bug me. You know how when you have like 8 coats of crap on your nails and they just feel thick and gross and gnarly? That was my dilemma. So I removed it all about 5 minutes before I made an hour drive to visit boyfriend for the weekend, and was stuck with nakey nails.

Nekkie nails are not fun for me. I hate the texture of them. They always feel like they're going to break at any second. That's why I like to always have them polished - they just FEEL stronger. So after D left for work on Saturday night, the very first thing I did was sit down and do my nails (yes.... I may have brought a bottle of polish and top coat with me....). Mind you, this is a house full of men. So I sat down on my knees and polished my nails on his end table. No clean up, no cuticle cream....nothing. But I sat down, and put on two coats of China Glaze Gothic Lolita. And it was grand - I didn't feel like every nail was going to splinter into a thousand pieces anymore! But.... it was just so....BORING!

So yesterday, after we celebrated Father's Day, I sat down and did another funky french. For this one, I cut pieces of tape on a diagonal and placed them in the center of my nails. I used a coat of Revlon Facets of Fuchsia over top of the tape, and boy do I love the way these two colors go together!

Can you believe I've never used this bottle of Revlon Facets of Fuchsia?! I mean....ever. I've used Mom's bottle of DL Bad Romance, but never used this one. What a mistake that was, because I love this! I thought it needed a little more pizazz, so I added some silver lines with a striper brush. But in retrospect, I wish I'd just left them off. It was much sharper before I put the striping polish on, and the Kiss striper I used was so old and think and glumpy that I couldn't get a crisp line. Le sigh. I still like the way it looks :)

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend, back to the grind today :(

Electric Beat Funky French

Hello out there! I'm still alive :)

I went to visit the BF this past weekend at his parents' house, and his mom had a super cute mani on that I just HAD to recreate. Hers was a gel mani (she gets them done at a salon), but I didn't see why I couldn't do the same thing with regular polishes! It was so simple but I just really loved the way it looked for some reason.

The base here is two coats of China Glaze Electric Beat. The french tips are China Glaze First Mate, and the silver is just a regular old silver striping polish.

I really like the way this came out, I just wish those stupid striping polishes were easier for me to use. The lines turned out gloopy and not as straight as I would've liked. And I pulled up the base color on my thumb, and my polish had been dry for a few hours. *tear* I rarely do funky french manis because I usually don't have the patience to sit down and do them. And I always get polish leaking underneath the tape, but I was mildly successful today! Snaps for Amanda!

When BF's mom was showing me her nails on Friday, she goes "Look at my nails! Are they too much?!" to which I laughed and thought, "girl have you SEEN what I put on my nails? Nothing's over the top for me...I put freaking neon pink zebra stripes on my nails!". I thought you guys would appreciate that :)

Aaaand I'm going to wrap this up because my Blogger changed to the new format and I HATE it and can't find anything!

Hope you all have a fantastic week. And question: Would any of you be interested in a "Nail Art for Beginners" blog series? Let us know in the comments!

Pink Wednesday: A different take on magnetic polish

Hi ladies! Happy hump day! Almost to the weekend, what are your plans? My boyfriend is coming up for the weekend. He is still in school still -- I don't get to see him whenever I want, so I'm pretty excited :)

For this mani, I started with a base of two coats of e.l.f. Fuchsia. Such an original name, man....Fuchsia, for a fuchsia polish. These execs at e.l.f. are so deep and creative. All the other e.l.f. polishes I have are streaky and sheer, so imagine my surprise when this one was opaque in just two coats! The brush was wonky on it, but again... all my e.l.f. polish brushes are wonky and need hair cuts. I don't know why I love this color so much -- it's your regular, run of the mill magenta, fuchsia color. I don't know! I never used to like pinks either... I must be going soft in my old age.

Here are some swatches of Fuchsia by itself:

On day two, I wanted to freshen this mani up. It had gotten dull and I already had tip wear a day later. Mama sent me two Icing magnetics a few days ago that I decided to use on it. When I initially got the package, I played with the magnetics and could NOT get them to work for the life of me. It would only magnetize down the center of my nail. But, when I tried this time, I used thinner coats and it seemed to work a little better. I still need some practice with them though to get a harsher pattern to show up, I think.

Anyway, I just taped down the diagonal of my nails and painted on a coat of this gold magnetic polish from Icing. It has no name. Icing, y u no name awesome polishes?!

Finished up with a black line over top of the diagonals and voila! A simple Pink Wednesday mani that isn't your standard magnetic mani. Mom called it "interesting" ... I guess I can live with that.

Also, just a little note: I've added a requests/submit button on our Tumblr! So if there's any mani ideas, requests, questions, what have you.... send em there! :)

Tape Mani using China Glaze Sea Spray

This one's been sitting in my pictures folder for a few weeks... I never got around to posting it. But I am now, because I've had a terrible bout of sinus headaches over the past few days so I don't have anything else to show you guys :(  Hard to do your nails when your head pounds every time you move it, huh?

I hadn't done a tape mani in a while and was feeling pretty unmotivated on nail art, so I settled for a simple funky french mani.  The base color is China Glaze Sea Spray and the tips are done with China Glaze First Mate and Cult Nails In A Trance.

I promise we'll have some posts up for you soon. Take care :)