IG Birthday... Then & Now

  Oh boy has time flown! It has already been a year since I made my nail account. I have always been interested in nails and after a lot of pushing from the people around me, I thought I would make an Instagram account dedicated to nails. And boy did I think I was good....

Twin Chevrons!

Hey all! Happy Monday!

I have this fun chevron manicure to share with you today. My friend Lexie showed me her combo of China Glaze Queen B and Zoya Carter (my favorite pixie dust evarrrr, I need to get around to posting a proper swatch of it) and.. what can I say? It was love at first sight so I had to copy it. So why not turn it into a twin mani!

I made the chevrons with painters tape and pinking shears I got from Michaels. I should have taken a picture with my fingers more lined up because by a happy accident, I made it look like the chevrons flowed from one finger to the next. Sweet! Be sure to check out Lexie over at her blog. It was fun getting together again for another twin mani. We did one before right here that never made it to my blog, but Lexie made a post about it so be sure to poke around her blog to see some more good stuff :)

I hope you enjoyed our collaboration again!

Rain Forest Flowers

 Hello all! Ah Wednesday... not Monday and not Friday but almost there. Hope you're all pushing through the week! I have my first pretty successful stamping decal manicure today! I say pretty because there's still a few kinks I need to work out in my technique but I thought it was very much worth sharing with you all.

The colors are Kiss Me I'm Brazilian (gorgeous darker shade of the classic bubblegum pink) and AmazON...AmazOFF (stunning deep jade/teal with hidden shimmer) from the new OPI Brazilian collection. And lemme tell you I am in LOVE. Perfect 2 coat formula on both. It's the first collection I purchased almost every polish from! (except Rio Red, I Sao Paulo Over There, Next Stop... The Bikini Zone.) Instead of individual swatches I want to incorporate them into nail art. It's faster for me and hopefully more fun for you! I still may do a plain swatch here and there because lemme tell you, these colors... whew. Gorgeous. Onward!

The lily/floral design is MoYou Pro Plate 11 and there are reverse stamping/decal methods out there but I used the one where I painted and sealed my design directly on my stamper. Here is a great and clear video by the stamping queen showing you how! For my own decal I used Pretty & Polished Swift Sparkle top coat. 

I hope you enjoyed this look! It reminds me of being in a lush rain forest surrounding by bright tropical flowers. Or in the words of my uncle, "a floral bouquet of understated elegance!" Great job O.P.I!

Scattered Holo + Hearts

Hello all! I have this simple Valentine's Day inspired nail look that I wore for a couple of days. 

On all my nails except my ring is 3 coats of L.A Girl - Dazzling Pink. It is just that, a dazzling shade of light strawberry pink with a gorgeous scattered holo effect. Mmm! Although the formula was sheer it was still buildable.

I purchased this because I have specifically seen they are great dupes for the Zoya jelly scattered holo polishes! Here is an amazing comparison post from Oh Three Oh Four nails.

I decided to use my Bundle Monster plates because my nails are shorter but I regretted it somewhat because the quality is so different from MoYou! I've been spoiled. No matter how many times I scraped the heart images from plate BM317 didn't come out as clean as I hoped. Oh well! I still enjoyed the look. :)

Ring finger is O.P.I My Boyfriend Scales Walls and stamped with Essie - Watermelon

Isn't this polish gorgeous?! Zoya doesn't have a pink in their jelly fleck shades so this is a perfect satisfaction for me. 

Happy Monday! What are you wearing on your digits?

Splatter Me Valentine

Happy Friday! I've got this fun splatter manicure to share with you today!

I started with a white base (my favorite) O.P.I - My Boyfriend Scales Walls. And on top of that I used a straw dipped in polish to blow splatters all over my nails in pink and gold. The darker pink is O.P.I - Hey Baby and the lighter bubble gum pink is Sally Hansen X-Treme Wear... Bubblegum Pink, ha! Gold is China Glaze - Passion and my thumb is Zoya Tomoko.

These are so much fun to make because it's chaotic but somehow in the end looks nice no matter what. But make sure to cover your fingers and work space with tape because this polish can seriously go everywhere. And be sure to be in a well ventilated area. I felt like I was losing brain cells using this much polish.  

This was before my recent nail cut when I was feeling like doing some pink designs for Valentine's day! Hope you enjoyed!

Zoya - Liberty

Hey all! Another untried for you to see today, along with my friend Ashley at Capital Polish! Does anyone else just keep buying polish... knowing you already have a ton of untrieds at home? Yeah. That's me. So slowly getting through them.

This is another fabulous pixie dust by Zoya, and her name is Liberty! If you can believe this... this has been untouched (by myself, I used it on a friend once) since about... last summer? I can't believe I left this beauty neglected so long!

Below you see two flawless coats, no top coat! The sparkle is insane, just the way I like my texture polish. I heard this is a stainer, I have yet to remove it though! Hopefully my two coats of base will aid in that.

BOTH hands? Whatttt? Please excuse any imperfections you see with my not so photo ready hand (right) Cindy is also a little awkward at posing but I think I did well! Plus this is after two and a half days of wear. I love how well it is holding up. Anywho, my left hand is topcoated and my right is not, except for my pinky. It's GORGEOUS with or without, and the left photo is only two coats of top coat! Not too shabby if you ask me.

For shiggles, WHY on earth did this photograph so bright? This is unedited. Cameras are crazy. Liberty is a little bit darker than the photo above and the one below. 

If you have read this far, THANKS. I'm a little hyper right now. Happy Wednesday!

Zoya - Tomoko

Today I have a swatch for you on my sad little nubs! The gorgeous Zoya Tomoko. I swear the textures by Zoya are my top favorite. I prefer them over all other brands because I like my texture a little bit more fine, like these!

This beauty was actually sitting in my untrieds, shamefully. I have decided to storm February with my all my untried polishes with my good friend Ashley at Capital Polish. Our goal is 2-3 new polishes a week! Yeah... I seriously have that many. What problem?

It is seriously a million times more sparkly than this swatch does justice to! I have a sparkle video on my Instagram, here. Whenever my nails are short I always gravitate towards sparkle, what do you do when you are mourning your loss of length? Ha!