Busy, busy!

Hey everyone....

Sorry for the not posting in a while thing going on! I've been busy, and I've been without a camera due to someone borrowing it. I'll hopefully post a real post tomorrow and include 2 manis? Maybe? Haha. I'm going on vacation to Disney soon, so I'm trying to have an awesome Disney mani to come with me!

The pictures of my last mani will be pretty rough... With my camera gone, I've been left with just the camera on my phone. My last mani was pretty if I don't say so myself! I caved and got the Nails Inc. neutral set from Sephora. Since I *thought* I was going to be interviewing for a job, I went with "The Thames" (described as a dark cement grey). It's a gorgeous color, but more about it tomorrow.

I also was reading some other nail blogs for other ideas. I read about some Nfu Oh flakies and I was doomed. I ended up getting 44 and 54. As well as Nfu Oh GS14. More later!

USA, Patriotic Manicure

Hello everyone! :)

Well, time has come for another update. On Friday (late) night, I was glued to Facebook and Universal Sports because of gymnastics. I'm a HUGE gymnastics fan (being a former gymnast myself), and World Championships are taking place until the 16th in Tokyo, Japan. The women sit atop the podium over Russia and China (who is the defending Olympic champion); the men are second behind Japan and over Germany who's in third.

In honor of the women's success (no sexism here, haha; the men hadn't competed yet), I decided my next water marbling attempt would be red, white, and blue for Team USA! I followed typical water marbling steps, and this is what I came up with!

My left hand! I learned on my thumb you have to be super careful and let the design sit for a while before you apply topcoat. Honestly, I just like my pointer finger on my left hand. My ring finger reminded me of a T-bone steak, haha.

My right hand is making an appearance! Haha. I like my right hand a lot better because of the minimal designs going on (with that said, my middle finger and thumb are my least favorite on this hand).

Overall, this was a little time consuming, but fun. For colors I used:
Base: Essie Fill the Gap
Red: Chi (Ceramic) Muy Caliente
White: Essie Blanc
Blue: Milani Bolting Blue
Original Top Coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

It may be the polishes I use or the essence of water marbling, I'm not sure, but this has been chipping from day 1 - Saturday. Sunday, it didn't chip so much, but I redid the topcoat and wrapped my tips with Essie's No Chips Ahead Saturday night.

Also, as I went along, I found that the white just doesn't look good as the main color. I think the red and blue stand out more with just a touch of white (like my pinky and ring finger on my right hand, pointer on my left). Maybe that's just me though. I wish it showed up more, but I really like the little white blaze on my pointer finger, right hand. Actually, it does show up, it just looks like glare. Also, some of the Chi Muy Caliente tended to swirl in the Blanc in the water... Not cool!

This was a fun experience, but I feel like I spent a little too much time on them being perfect for them not to last longer. I'll probably redo my nails tomorrow. But, I'll know next time to just suck it up and not care as much about how perfect or not perfect they are. Between you and me though, that'll be hard seeing as I'm a perfectionist!!! :)

Addition: I label this as a USA manicure, but it can be used by all countries with red, white, and blue as their colors.

Happy manicures everyone!

My latest color, and water marbling attempt!

Hello all! The time for my new update has arrived.

This is the color I wore from last Friday, Sept 30th til today (er, yesterday) Tuesday, Oct 4th.

It's Nicole By OPI Iceburg Lotus. The first few pictures are 2 coats. I definitely suggest 3. Some of the later pictures have 3 coats. And some of my nails have evidence of my attempts at Konad also. You can ignore that, haha.

Here we go, here's Iceburg Lotus!

As you can see, it's a nice green/blue/teal. It also has some purple shimmer when you see it in the bottle. It definitely does in real life also, but it's harder to capture on camera, unfortunately.

The picture above shows what it looks like in normal indoor light... More green than blue.

This is where it gets weird... In lower light, indoors this color is a deep teal type blue. I was shocked when I noticed this. But shocked in a good way! It's beautiful!

This was inside, low light after 3 coats. And attempted Konad-ing on the ring finger.

3 coats in the daylight. Green with a little bit of blue shimmer. So pretty!!

More daylight!

For my base, I used Essie's "Fill the Gap", and as topcoat, I used Seche Vite. Every other day I used OPI Nail Envy as a topcoat.

And now, my water marbling attempts. I used different colors and brands, so I don't quite remember them all, but I shall try!!! :)

I'm staring at my hand now trying to remember what I did where. This was an experiment, so it's *very* temporary. I'll probably remove it tomorrow.

Thumb: Essie French Affair, Nails Inc Electric Lane, Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Sinful Colors 24/7
Pointer: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Essie Going Incognito, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Call You Later
Middle: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Essie Garnet, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Sinful Colors Black on Black
Ring: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Milani Breezy, Essie Pretty Edgy
Pinky: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Sinful Colors Black on Black, OPI DS Original

Now, I can't guarantee all those are perfectly correct, but I they are as close as possible.

Hope y'all enjoyed! There will probably be a new post soon due to me only having my left nails painted, haha. Stay tuned! :)