Tanzy Citrus & Nail Files

This week's manicure is a bright summer design - I'm hoping if we celebrate the first day of summer properly, the nice weather will stick around awhile. I even have a video for you, although it's a bit blurry right where it counts (good grief - third time is a charm?).  But first, lemme show you the polishes that I received yesterday for review from The Painted Nail via the publicist for Nail Files, a new TV series that starts tonight. They were kind enough to send me a video of the show, and I watched it last night. I thought it was great - it's about a salon owner in Hollywood. Super dramatic, of course, but most reality TV is. In any case, I'll be watching online since it's on the TV Guide channel and I don't have cable. Anyone going to watch with me?

These are the polishes they sent - and the photo does not do these justice. Nubar is the maker, and the colors are just fabulous and sparkly. I'll have a manicure with these for next week.

So...back to the citrus. I started with one coat of Seche Vite base coat, and one coat of Finger Paints "Well-cultured Pearl" to provide an opaque base. Then I layered two coats of Zoya's "Tanzy", which I am completely in love with. It's so sparkly and shimmery - even when it's dry, it looks wet due to all the sparkle. Nail bling!

I set the clay canes in a thickish-coat of Seche Vite top coat, making sure to press the edges down as well as I could. Clay can be kind of rebellious, and tends to curl at the edges sometimes. The nice thing is that even if it sticks up a bit off the nail, the edges are blunt enough on a round cane that they don't get stuck on things often.

Here's the video - apologies for the blur!

And the finished look once more, all cleaned up.

Next week, I've got my sights on that "Malibu Dreams" - the hot pink polish above from The Painted Nail.

Until then, Happy Polishing!

Catchin' Up

Apologies for disappearing in December - the holidays sort of got away from me. So today I have a couple finished manicures from Christmas and the first week in January to show you, and then next week I'll have a new tutorial to post.

For Christmas this year, I used these cute decals from Born Pretty. Speaking of which, Born Pretty has offered Nail Art Tuesday shoppers 10% off your order when you use code: SQUOVAL15 at checkout.

The fun part about the Christmas mani (aside from those lovely water decals) was that my silver polish was way too thick. It was hard to work with, but it also made a 3-D, almost "fuzzy" line at the tips.

Last week I got some fun new Finger Paints polishes that I can't recall the names of just now (don't worry, you'll see them again). I decided to do a gradient with China Glaze "Tinsel" between the white and purple. I love how it turned out, very "winter whimsical", I think.

So that's what I've been up to polish-wise - next week, China Glaze "Dorthy Who?" and full nail stickers.

Until then - happy polishing!

Sparkly Ornaments

This week, I needed something to help me get in the mood for Christmas, and I needed a quick design. So I got out these huge rhinestones that the Born Pretty store sent for review. I think they look very much like shiny glass ornaments, don't you?

I started with one of my favorite Christmas glitters, China Glaze "Emerald Sparkle". Two coats over CG base coat makes a nice "tree" layer.

Then I added a thick diagonal stripe in China Glaze "Tinsel", another of my favorite CG polishes. Just one, somewhat thick coat worked fine for setting the stones.

I added three stones to each nail, using red and yellow...

And switched the colors on my index fingers for just a little variety.

Two coats China Glaze quick dry top coat, some clean up, and voila! Sparkly ornaments telling me it's time to get moving on the holiday stuff.

**Edited to add - Born Pretty Store is offering a 10% discount until December 31st, 2010 - use coupon code OPENTENOFF. I may just do that myself, actually. :-)

I'm kind of itching to try a peppermint swirl water marble thing - perhaps I'll do that next week. Until then, happy polishing!

Black Splats

 

My apologies for missing last week - I did a candy corn manicure I thought was an abject failure, though I got a ton of compliments on it. This week I was going to do orange "splats" on my black nails, but decided I liked this gold glitter instead. Unfortunately, it's insanely hard to photograph - which is too bad since I love how it turned out. 

I used stencils ordered from Nail Art Delights - these fun paint/blood splatter marks. 

Since I was originally going to use orange, I started by painting the undersides of my nails with Pure Ice orange for contrast. 

Then I did the tops with two coats China Glaze "Liquid Leather" over one coat China Glaze base coat. I love LL - the best shiny black out there, in my opinion. 

This is when I started experimenting. I had Sinful Colors "All About Me" on my manicure tray - it's a transparent gold glitter. I wanted to see what it looked like over the black, so I brushed a coat over my pinky nails. 

I wish it would photograph better - it looks almost brocade-like. So I decided to do my splats in that, and started with a coat of fast-dry top coat, and then secured a stencil over my thumbnail. 

Filled it with the gold glitter...

And pulled it off. A word of warning on these particular stencils. Due to the wide open spot in the center, it's hard to get these off without warping the design. Go slow, and don't just pull from one corner, pull evenly along a whole side. 

I finished the rest and sealed the design with two coats China Glaze top coat. I used one of the Avon nail art corrector pens for clean-up...the only problem I have with these is they run out too quickly. I need to play with the refillable style again. Here's a yellow photo that shows the design just a bit better: 

And one in regular light: 

Next week, I'm doing a glow-in-the-dark webs design for our annual Halloween party. Until then, happy polishing!

Big Bang Hearts

I was in the mood for something "hot" last week - and the tiny bottle of Urban Decay's "Big Bang" jumped right out at me from my polish stash. Feeling lazy and not wanting to cover up much of this delicious color, I decided to go with simple glittery tips and heart decals - easy as it gets.

 

I started with two coats of "Big Bang" - which applied very smoothly. I love how much this shimmers, but it does make it hard to capture in a photo. The flash bounces back, and it looks dull without. But I used the flash for the demo photos so you could see how bright it is. Yes, it really is that bright in person. 

 

I used China Glaze "Tinsel" for the tips - just one coat, enough to give it a good shimmery effect, but not enough to completely hide the color underneath. 

 

These decals are self-stick, and made by "Fingers" if I recall correctly. I have to say, they're some of the best decals I've ever used - they don't sink down into the polish after application, and they lay perfectly flat on the nail. I definitely need to order more of these if I can find them online (picked these up at a drugstore as a rare find). 

 
 

Two coats of top coat and some cleanup - voila! These last two photos are without the flash, so you can get the "lower light" scoop. I'm really quite enamored of these - simple, but eye catching. Sometimes I just feel like bright nails. 

 

 

Until next week...Happy polishing!

Flashy Zoya

I've been dying to try out these sparkly Zoya colors since before Christmas. I have "Luna" (Silver glitter) and "Nova" (bright pink glitter), and got out my Migi black/white pen and Essie "Matte About You" to experiment too. I started with two coats of Luna over Zoya basecoat. As you can see, my middle nail finally grew long enough for the break in the middle to tear off, so I'm stuck with a super-short middle nail for a couple weeks. I can't actually cut my nails that short anymore - the skin underneath has grown out past the tip of my fingers (presumably to support my normally long nails). I had to trim the skin off where my nail broke for that one - a painful proposition. You can actually still see the part I couldn't cut sticking up a little past the nail. Thank goodness my nails grow very fast!

Then two coats of Nova on the diagonal (I don't know why, but I'm really drawn to diagonal designs).

As you can see below, I experimented with the design I had in mind on my pinky finger. I often do that because if I need to redo it, it's a very small area to remove/re-polish. I liked it, so I started with white curving back and forth across the colors. 

Then I put black over it, going the opposite way. My lines aren't perfect by any means, but I think the "squiggles" give the design movement and a little dimension.

Then I tried the matte top coat over my pinky nail, just to see how it would look. You can see how the matte is definately a little different below - it accentuates all the little bits of glitter, rather than just being super-shiny. It doesn't really affect Luna much, but I liked it over Nova. Just not with this particular design. I'm still a high-gloss lover at heart.

So I went over them all with two coats of Zoya topcoat, and cleaned them up. Aside from a white mistake on my right hand middle finger, I think they turned out pretty well. They're quite eye-catching and flashy.

What's on your tips this week? Anything fun for these wintery days?

Cosmic Dot Meltdown

For this week's manicure, I finally decided to dig into my Urban Decay polishes (released last fall). I decided on "Meltdown", with a top coat of CND's new "Effects" polish in Raspberry Sparkles. This was incredibly difficult to photograph with the micro-glitter and foil effect. Hopefully you can get the gist of it.

I made it thorough most of the week without polish, and my nails made it through with only one bad break point. As you can see below, my middle finger ended up with a pretty bad break across it below the smile line. Needless to say, I had to put some clear top coat over it to protect it over the weekend. Not that it helped - the Lippmann "Addicted to Speed" top coat peeled off the next day. Huh. You might notice my thumbnail grew back out to the edge of my finger, which is nice, and the staining is mostly gone.

In any case - I was happy to polish these up again last night, and provide some good protection for that break until it grows out enough to cut off. I started with my normal Zoya base coat, followed by two coats of "Meltdown".

I topped that with just one coat of "Raspberry Sparkles", which added sort of a metallic pink foil look to the top. I know the photos didn't turn out well - if any of you have tips for capturing metallics, I'm all ears.

Then I added flat-backed beads...white iridescent and purple with an interesting pattern in them. Some nails have three, others five. I was going to do dice, but decided to go random instead. These numbers are actually symbolic this week - anyone want to guess why?

Two coats of top coat, some clean up, and voila! I think the color of these is almost "cosmic" looking - I feel like my nails are kind of "space age" this week.

I'm not sure what's up next - I have some serious glittery polishes from Zoya to try, some Essie colors from last fall and more of these Urban Decay colors all unopened just waiting for their turn. Any suggestions?

What's on your tips this week?

Sparkly New Year

I'm not sure why, but I always associate sparkles and blue nail polish with New Years. Last year I wore China Glaze "Blue Island Iced Tea", and this year decided to go with something super-blingy, China Glaze "Luna". I used three coats to get complete coverage - two would have worked for shorter nails, but wouldn't quite hide the tips.

I used clear rhinestones randomly set in my thumbnails to give them an little extra sparkle. Then I added the year to the remaining four fingers on both hands - one in dark blue rhinestones, the other in white pearls (I never seem to have enough of one color to do all ten nails, do I?).

These are all set in one coat of top coat. For some reason, I had a hard time getting the top coat even again - and I added "renew" drops to it. Weird. My apologies for the somewhat blurry photos - my hands were shaky, and the glitter doesn't help. Yes, I know I have one too many rhinestones in the dark blue "1". That's what I get for rushing...

Then some clean-up work, and voila! Sparkly nails to announce the new year.

What are you wearing on your tips for the new year?

Next week, I'm going to let my nails rest without polish. I try to do that at least once or twice a year - seems like it would be good for them. So I'll post my manicure routine here instead of a nail art tutorial next Tuesday.

Here's a toast to you, dear readers - for a wonderful start to the New Year, much happiness and lovely nails in the coming months. See you in 2010!