Checkered with a Twist (Tutorial)

The other day I wanted to use tape for a checkered mani with a little twist--instead of splitting the nail into four perfect squares I wanted to use slanted lines so that it looks like the pieces 'lock' together.  My first attempt was a disaster because I didn't wait long enough for each step to dry, so I thought I'd slow down for round two and take pictures along the way.  Click "Continue reading..." below for the tutorial.

Continue Reading . . .

Purple & Black Zig Zag

I came up with this purple and black mani as a combination of the zig zag from this mani and the half and half look from this one.  I started out by painting my whole nail lavender using Confetti Belle of the Ball, and then painted over half with Confetti Centerstage.  I added a layer of Seche Vite (because I wasn't patient enough for the polish to air dry), then added two triangles of tape and painted over everything with Sinful Colors Black on Black.  Then I removed the tape, and that's it!  This look took a little longer than I would've liked since it required three colors + top coat, but I like the way it turned out.

Sinful Colors - Mercury Rising

For this mani I used Mercury Rising from Sinful Colors, which is my new favorite brown shimmer:

I amassed quite a few browns this past fall / winter and I love them because they're warm-toned like dark red but never run the risk of looking vampy.  I bought a bunch of H Series (fauxnad) plates online a while ago and haven't gotten the chance to use them yet, so I picked out plate H1 and stamped this random ribbon / flower design using China Glaze 2030 (my go-to gold for Konading):

I gotta say the design is a little strange, but a nice change from the flowers, hearts, and bows that I'm used to from standard Konad plates. 

Tri Color Mani

Lately I just haven't been satisfied with sticking to one color.  For the look above, I started with shades (Barielle) Swizzle Stix:

Swizzle Stix looks like a regular baby blue but it actually has some green tones that make it closer to robin's egg.  It's more blue than other Tiffany blues (like China Glaze For Audrey) but its green tones really stand out when paired next to a solid blue like OPI No Room for the Blues, which is the middle color here:

I meant to do this with tape for crisp lines but I was just too impatient to wait for each layer to dry, so the lines look a little wobbly.

Black w/ Cleopatra Tips

Today's mani was super quick.  I used two coats of black (Sinful Colors Black on Black) and a gradual glittery french tip using China Glaze Cleopatra.  Cleopatra is amazing--it's a gold glitter with a rainbow of other colors thrown in that always make me think of a treasure chest.  To get the gradual look, I started with a regular french tip and then dabbed the brush sporadically right below it.  I like it because it's easy to free hand in a hurry and it doesn't need to be perfect and symmetrical on each nail.  I used thick top coat after the glitter tip so that the glitter wouldn't be scratchy.

Zig Zag Tape Manicure Tutorial

Here's another mani using U-Concrete-Me:

I created the zig zag pattern by using tape and included a step by step tutorial after the jump:

Continue Reading . . .

Sinful Colors - See You Soon

See You Soon is a really dark blue shimmer with a black base.  When I was at Walgreens I couldn't decide between this polish and What's My Name so I got both even though they looked pretty similar in the bottle:

  Here's a quick comparison:

Though they both have a black base, See You Soon has blue shimmer throughout while What's My Name just has a sprinkle of glitter.

Sinful Colors - What's My Name

Since I've been so pleased with the Confetti polishes from CVS, I decided to try Sinful Colors nail polish from Walgreens.  Sinful Colors is also $1.99 and 3-free (no toluene, formaldehyde, or DBP).  The color above is called What's My Name and it's a black with purple / blue glitter.  The glitter is kind of holographic so it's purple or blue depending on how the light hits it.  I think this is another nice alternative to solid black.