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The Battle of the Pinks

Isn’t it the worst thing ever when you go through all that effort to paint your nails and as soon as you’re done you know you hate the color? To me, that’s the worst thing! Right up there with paper cuts… just hate it! That’s exactly what happened to me last night. I was dying to paint my nails a light pink but I didn’t really have one in my vast collection & it was too late to go out and buy one.

Can you believe that in this entire collection I don’t have a single shade of pink that would satisfy me? The thing about me is… when I want something done, it has to be done like right then. So i dug through all of my colors and came out with one I thought would hold me over. This is what I came up with.

This is I Think in Pink by OPI. I hate it!! I feel like it’s the exact shade of pink all grandmothers wear. It’s just so hideous on. I bought this color when I was getting married as a potential shade for my wedding day. I never actually tried it out so I wasn’t 100% sure what it looked like. Aaaaand now I know. Gross. So I went to bed, woke up, and went to the store to find the perfect shade of pale pink that I had in my mind.

Now this is what I was looking for! This is a classic, Ballet Slippers, by Essie. In all seriousness, Essie can do no wrong. Am I right? I mean, typically OPI is pretty spot on too, it’s what they do after all. I just got a hold of the wrong stuff (said like the guy in that Leprechaun video, duh).

Alas, I am quite satisfied with my latest purchase. This is the perfect shade, it’s exactly what I was going for. I no longer feel like every time I look at my hands I should see wrinkles and giant blue veins. yuck. But that’s just my opinion. What do you guys think?

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Nifty Neons

Happy March! I’m glad February is over and we’re moving closer and closer to the warmer months. Yay. :] Anyway – I think that I need a serious nail polish intervention. I literally cannot walk into a drug store without buying a new color of nail polish, especially since drug stores are carrying a wider selection of Essie colors. While in Florida I grew tired of my ombre mani, which I totally called. So we stopped at a store one night and I spent like 15 minutes standing in front of the Essie display. I was in search of a really pretty pink color, but not, like, baby pink. I wanted something bright and fun, not overly girly. However, while on my search for the perfect pink I was instantly drawn to another color, a bright, hot orange. So I got both.

I tried out the pink first and I adore it! This morning I switched to the orange. It’s pretty bright and while I dig it, I think I might have to hold off on wearing this color for a month or two. First of all, my hands need a tan, and second, this color just looks better against a summery back drop, which is not the case today. But check it out! Here are some pictures of both these bright, neon, lovely colors.

What are these beautiful neons called? The pink is Fiesta and the orange is Orange, it’s Obvious!  – Both by Essie, of course! The orange polish is from their newest collection. Right now I’m way more into the pink than the orange, but give it a couple of months and I think the orange will be my favorite, hah. Are you feeling these neons by Essie? Are we ready for these punchy colors yet or are we still dragging out our fall collection?

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Ombre Mani

I’m heading out of New Jersey for a few days to some warmer, sunny, weather. So of course, my manicure needs to reflect that.

This is my ombre-ish manicure featuring one of my favorites: Turquoise and Caicos. I have it on my toes right now too. This color and Fiji by Essie bring me right to summer and that is why I love them. I’m also currently obsessed with the luxe effect colors by Essie.. but only the chunky glittery ones. I have the pink already, and could not find any of the other colors anywhere, so when I finally found the silver I snagged it immediately.

Here’s what you need: 

Turquoise & Caicos, School of Hard Rocks, Set in Stones.

Steps:

ONE: Your first coat will be Turquoise and Caicos. It can go on really light and sheer so let it dry and add a second coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO: After the first color dries, using School of Hard Rocks, draw a diagonal line across the nail and fill in towards the top. This color is much darker so you will probably only need one coat of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THREE: After your first two colors dry completely, repeat step two with the glitter polish on top of the middle color.

And that’s it! You’re all done. With all three colors it can get a little thick so be careful about the top coat you choose to slap on there, if any.

 

 

 

 

Doesn’t this manicure make you like, crave summer? It almost reminds me of those sea shells everyone calls “mermaid toenails” all crushed up and floating in the ocean. It’s just pretty to me! And by the time I get back from vacation I will be so over it and ready to give myself a new manicure haha. So try it out! It’s easy and cute and shiny and pretty and do it! ;] K byee. <3

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Make a Wish Manicure

AS we all know I have become recently obsessed with that website Pinterest. And can we all just share in the frustration of our iPhone’s autocorrecting that to Interest? Because it’s infuriating! But that’s besides the point. Through Pinterest I have discovered wall decals while looking for inspiration for the Baby’s room. I am now obsessed with wall decals and fun wallpaper and I’m trying to decide between the two. One of my favorite decals is a dandelion that looks like it’s blowing in the wind. I love it! But it’s huge and a little too much for the baby’s room I think, so I may have to find another place for it, perhaps the wall behind the couch? I am getting seriously off topic here. Let me get back to the point; this wall decal was the inspiration for my most recent manicure. Take a look!

I think I got way too literal with this manicure, I tried to make them look too much like real little dandelion leaf things. The dandelion itself…. I literally re-did about 15 times. I couldn’t quite get it right and this was the best I could get it. Well, actually, I wasn’t crazy about it but I figured I should just stop trying to perfect it before I drove myself absolutely insane. SO! Here’s whatcha need.

I used Sew Psyched by Essie for the base. I think the darker colors work better for a background if you’re using the Sally Hansen nail art pens. They tend to show up much better on darker hues. I used Sally Hansen and Milani nail art pens/polishes for the details. The Sally Hansen UV Top Coat is a great top coat to use as well because it protects your nails from harsh sunlight and keeps your manicure nice and shiny! It’s perfect.

The steps are super duper easy.

1. Apply two coats of your base color. Let dry completely!

 

 

 

2. When both coats have completely dried draw a little stem with the black nail art pen. 
*(a great test to make sure your nails have fully dried: press them against each other. If they stick together even the tiniest bit they still need time to dry).

3. This step is really easy. Draw a little white plume over the black stem. (this is the part I had the most trouble with because I can be kind of a perfectionist and it just wasn’t coming out right for me).

4. On the rest of your nails, starting with your ring finger and working towards your thumb, draw little leaves of the dandelion as if they’re blowing away in the wind, or someone is blowing on them making a wish.

And that’s that. You’re done! Wait for everything to dry and top it off with a shiny top coat and you’re good to go. Do you guys like my wish inspired nails? I’m enjoying them but I think my next manicure will have to be something super simple. Between my leopard print, Giants manicure, and this… my nails need a creative break!

 

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Nails How To: Leopard Print

Recently I got jungle fever with my nails. And come to find out, the very same manicure was apparently on Lauren Conrad’s blog recently too! Now I got this inspiration from the Sally Hansen nail decals, not from LC. But her manicure looked pretty sweet too, obvi. Nothing that girl does ever looks less than amazing. Here is my fierce manicure.

 

So let’s walk through this shall we? I opted for a light pink for a base color. Fiji by Essie is my absolute favorite color in all the world. As soon as the temperature hit 60 degrees I whipped this bad boy out. It was between Fiji or Sew Psyched but I am so over the fall colors.

 

Here’s all you need: 

A solid color to use as your base.
I used Fiji by Essie.

Nail art pens/polishes in black and white.
I used Sally Hansen nail art pen in white and Milani nail art polish in black.

 

 

 

 

Step one: Paint your nails with your base color, in this case, Fiji.

Step two: Let nails dry completely.

Step three: Apply a second coat of your base color.

Step four: Let nails dry completely.

Step five: With the black nail art pen/polish make little black leopard spots. Leave some of the spots open as if you’re making little curved less than and greater than signs, and close the others to make little black dots basically.
* in this case less is definitely more. The first picture is of my left hand. I got a little carried away with the spots. On my right hand (which you’ll see next) I didn’t do as many spots and I am definitely liking my right hand more.

Step six: Let the black leopard spots dry completely. *Completely, this is very important as they will smudge in the next step if you don’t! 

Step seven: With the white nail art pen fill in some of the open semi-circles, leave some of the other ones open and empty. Draw around the closed in circles to make it almost look like a halo.

Step eight: Let your nails dry completely and cover them with a top coat.

And that’s that! It’s pretty easy but for your other hand you’ll need a pretty steady hand. I’m a righty and oddly enough my right hand came out better than my left. Luckily this manicure is pretty abstract in itself so if you can’t create perfect looking semi-circles and leopard spots you have nothing to worry about. The lines in this mani don’t have to look perfect. So take a stab at it and let me know how they come out! later gators. ;]

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Saturday Night Fever

Today’s manicure is brought to you by; boredom and pinterest. I saw a manicure kind of resembling this one while spending a billion hours on this website. It wasn’t exactly like this one, but feast your eyes on this mani and then I’ll get to the explanations.

I am loving this disco ball inspired manicure. The one I saw on pinterest was similar with the white backdrop but the sparkles this person used were silver and gold and they layered them. The only sparkles I had were the pink ones, and rather than going out and spending an arm and a leg on new glitter polish that who knows when I’ll use it again, I opted to change the manicure based on what I already own.

So here’s what you need:

Pure white polish, not a french manicure white. You want this white to be solid. Sparkle polish with big sparkles, not little glitter. I used Wet n’ Wild – Wild Shine in white and Essie – A Cut Above.


Steps:

1. Paint your nails with two coats of a base color and let dry completely.

2. Use the glitter polish and paint a diagonal line across your nail.

3. Let dry completely.

4. Paint a second coat with the glitter polish across your nails.

And when you’re done, voila! 

A very Saturday Night Fever/New Year’s Eve-esque mani to rock and keep you entertained on this boring and dreary Friday afternoon. So try it out and let me know what you think!

Speaking of Pinterest, who is on this fantastic and amazing site? Because I am and it’s totally and completely addicting. Find me here and follow me! I’m always looking for new inspiration. See ya soon. ;]

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Nail A.D.D

Ok, so my addiction to nail polish and ability to give myself manicures I truly hate has made it impossible to only post a manicure once a month. So here we go. This manicure is so, so easy! As long as you have a steady hand, there is no reason you can’t do this free hand. Take a gander.

What you need:
For this particular manicure I chose to use a base and a glitter top coat that were similar in hue.  I think it would look pretty cute with seriously contrasting colors and that may very well be my next mani. Until I get some other bright idea and try something else. I used Power Clutch by Essie and My Private Jet by OPI.

Here are the easy steps you need to follow:

Step 1: Paint your nails with the base color.

Step 2: Let dry completely.

Step 3: Apply a second coat of the base color.

Step 4: Let dry completely, again.

Step 5: With a very steady hand, paint a straight line up half the nail. Starting at the bottom of the nail and going towards the tip is the easiest.

Here’s another view. 

I like the subtle look of this manicure. You almost have to look twice before you even realize it’s not just the standard mani. Try this yourself with your own combination of colors and let me know how it works out!

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Manicure of the Month!

This month’s manicure is dedicated to my football team, the New York Giants! I am a big believer in jinxes and good/bad luck charms. I don’t carry around a rabbit’s foot, I’m not that crazy, but I do believe that some things could have good vibes attached to them, and others could have bad vibes. I have lucky t-shirts that I rely on. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the Giants haven’t made it this far because I refuse to take off my lucky t-shirt when they play… but, I do believe it helps! (haha, crazy, I know!) I am a creature of habit and when I find something that works for me, I hate to switch it up. But yesterday as my best friend Ashley and I were wandering the mean aisles of Target, we came across this bright idea… Giants themed nails! This was a big step for me, I didn’t want to go too over the top before the game. I believe getting too amped up puts too much pressure on everyone, including the team, haha! So here they are. Our NY Giants inspired nails. Peep this.

We decided to try out the crackle nail polish. A first for both of us. So we went for the Aruba Blue by Essie and opted for the Sally Hansen brand Crackle polish. Be warned: it goes on thick! I really didn’t love the way mine came out so I’ll show you Ashley’s manicure step-by-step instead. (there’s only two steps… it’s pretty fool proof).

What You Need: 

Two colors of your choice: one will be the base, and the other the top coat.

Steps: 

1. Paint your nails with the base coat. We used Aruba Blue and it’s dark and thick enough that you only really need one coat. If you’re using a lighter or more sheer color you can probably get away with two coats. 

2. Wait for the base coat to dry completely.

3. When nails are dry, add a very thin layer of the crackle. I caked mine on a little too thick and I didn’t love the way it came out. Ashley’s, and my little sister Abby’s, came out much better than mine! hah

And viola! The finished product!

So our NY Giants nails proved to be good luck, they were able to beat the 49ers and are now Super Bowl bound, woo! It was a close call though and I blame it all on my choice to wear a Ross jersey instead of my good luck t-shirt. It wasn’t looking so good so I took off my jersey in the 4th quarter and boom! A big win for us. haha see? It’s all out the lucky things! I’m thinking for the Super Bowl I’ll do my nails up big. Something much more creative than just some crackle polish. But for now, this is a super easy manicure to try in your spare time. I hate the way mine look now though, so I’ll be taking this polish off between today and tomorrow and trying something else. I’m feeling creative!

I’m also working on a little self tanner post in the future. I have been experimenting with various self tanners recently and I think everyone can benefit from my trials and tribulations! So stay tuned for that!

Have you guys tried the crackle polish out yet? It was a huge trend not long ago but it seems like it’s kind of fizzled out. What are the experiences you’ve had with this wonder polish? Do tell! 😉