Christmas Candy Canes!

I wanted to hop on quickly and post my Christmas nails! They are super cute and I feel really proud of them. They look great from a distance! The holidays are CRAZY here with lots of wrapping and traveling between families so I can't write up a long post, but I used nail art tape and Sally Hansen Instant Dry in white and Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Honeymoon Red. :)

Here are some process shots:

First, I painted my nails white. I left this to harden overnight. This is ESSENTIAL to tape manicures because even when they are dry on the surface, tape may rip the polish right off if it isn't completely hardened.

I love how white nail polish makes your fingertips glow, even in low light. :)

Then I paint on the red, nail by nail. I started with the blank white:

Then added my tape in stripes:

Then painted the whole nail red (This got messy, as I had to dab polish in on the corners to ensure complete red stripes)

Then, while the red polish was still wet, I peeled the tape back and my pretty stripes appeared!

Here's a few more in progress shots, this time of my thumb.

 While doing this, i noticed that I unintentionally lined up a few of the nails. Next time, I will do this on purpose!

As you can see, my cuticles got pretty gunky. I used nail polish remover on a cosmetic Q-tip (the kind that comes to a point) to clean that up. Here's a few looks at the full effect:

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy Polishing. :)

Return!

*blows the dust off my keyboard and stretches my hands*
Why, hello there, blog! Fancy meeting you here...

Okay, so, I've been neglecting this page. My last post mentioned that I had been having issues with peeling and breaking nails and that I was embarking on a nail treatment to review.

In my head, I would post pictures of my original peeling nails (which I have but I'm not sure anyone wants to see) and frequent updates on how well they were improving until finally, I would emerge with long beautiful nail ready to model the greatest in lacquer!

I was completely unprepared for them to get worse. The treatment sort of stopped the peeling but the whole nail got harder and brittle and then all my free edges snapped off one by one in a little parade of sadness and dashed hopes.

I tried another treatment and it helped tremendously with the breaking-off-because-we-hate-you nail tips, but my nails had stopped growing. Eek! So, I decided to just wait it out, willing myself to not mess with them until they were long enough to file to a nice curve.

And still, they are pretty short. They are still easily broken off, and my nail beds are and always will be tremendously short. But I discovered something! I was lamenting all this time that my nails weren't blog worthy because I haven't seen other blogs with shortie nails, but I could be the shortie nail blogger!

I want women to know they are beautiful in whatever shape or size they happen to come, so why on earth was I ashamed of my short nails? Hypocrisy! I haz it!

I will no longer hold myself to a standard that doesn't fit all! I like long nails, and I will still try to grow them out when I can, but when they break off or peel and they need to be short, I'm still going to show you what I can do with it, and I hope that you feel encouraged to do the same.

Happy polishing!

Thanks and weeping

I wanted to pop on to give a quick "thank you!" update to OminousRectangle of reddit fame for gifting me with a magnetic China Glaze polish from my wishlist through /RandomActsOfPolish. As soon as it arrived, I had to put it on:

The color is called Drawn To You. Sorry for the crazy flash.. 

I did this with my cheap camera on the fly.

As you can see from my very short nails (especially that tragic ring finger) I've had more issues with nails breaking / peeling / splitting. As such, for the next few weeks I'm going to be trying and reviewing a nail strengthening treatment specifically formulated for the problems I'm having and reviewing it here on the blog. I can't put any polish on on top of it... but, I want to keep posting cute manicures! *quietly weeps for my first world problems*

So, if you live in central Pennsylvania and want your hands to make a guest appearance on my nail blog, give me a shout out and we'll make it happen! 

 

Happy Polishing! 

Election Day Nails

Americans, did you vote yet? Regardless of who you support this election season, voting is one of the ways we can make our voice heard in this democratic republic and our voices are valuable! I think that I love nail polish because in a way, it gives me a second voice. People know a little something about me just because I have something shiny at my fingertips. And today, they know a little something about me because I have patriotic nail polish and a tiny white "I Voted!" sticker on my shirt.

I put down a base of Sally Hansen Insta-dry in pitch black, then gave all of my nails a coat of Orly Flash Glam FX in Rockets Red Glare, and did my accent nails with Spazmatic. (Please note, I have more red because it is my favorite color, not because I am publicly endorsing anyone or anything, other than our right to vote.)

Here's the photos:

I'm still working out how to photograph glitter. Bear with me please!

 For whatever reason, Rocket's Red Glare looks orangey here... it's not! It's a gorgeous deep red!
 Let's try taking pictures outdoors...

That's a little better...

 For this one I played with the focus to try to show you how sparkly this is in real life. Did it work?

 This is really so shiny and deep... I keep staring! 

I voted today. Did you?

Happy polishing!

Fergie Ferg gunna love you long time...

A local drug store got a major remodel lately and added a great looking back lit "nail bar".  I had been going in for a greeting card and planning to ignore all of the nail polish so as to avoid buying any, but this bar was irresistible. I was drawn to the shiny new display! Don't judge me...

Anyway I noticed that Fergie released a polish collection with Wet'n'Wild, and I picked up a glitter top coat. I'm not normally a fan of the huge chunky glitters, but none of the other bottles spoke to me and I wanted to give it a shot. Here's the bottle:

When I got home, I decided to look up nails worn by the singer herself to inspire my manicure. I chose this as my inspiration photo:

I started with a silver base coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Celeb City) and put Funky Fingers Sand & Stilettos glitter on my ring fingers. I drew on the pattern with a black Sally Hansen nail art pen, and put Wet'n'Wild's Fergie Hollywood Walk of Fame on my thumbs as a topcoat.

What do you think?

Happy polishing!

Hurricane Cometh, Northeast Freaks Out!

I'm a Florida girl, raised on yearly family camp outs in our own home with metal shutters over all the doors and windows and a house stocked with water, batteries, a tiny crank operated television, and all the non-perishable snack foods you could convince Grandma to buy. Big storms remind me of my childhood in a thrilling way. This is the second time I'll weather one here in central PA, and I must admit that at first, I thought to myself "why all the fuss over a cat 1?", but I think I understand now. The architecture, natural surroundings, and people of this area are not prepared for this.

Grocery stores sell out of bread and milk, schools are closed days in advanced, and many families experience devastating flood, tree, and wind damage even from these seemingly small storms.  While I don't really understand why people are stocking up on such perishable food items, I do understand the fear of the unknown, the pain caused by past storms, and the devastation that these storms can cause. So, to all my friends, family, and internet neighbors here in the northeast, please be safe! Be prepared! Most of all, be with people you love. They make it better in the face of any of life's storms.

Most of my family's storm prep has been long done, but I felt one last thing was necessary before heading to bed to await landfall: my nails! This is, after all, my favorite hobby. And so, inspired by the hurricane tracking maps I've been lurking for days, I give you the Hurricane Sandy Manicure!

I did a gradient with Rimmel 60 Seconds in "Green with Envy" and Revlon "Royal", a new favorite. Then I used a generous shiny seal of Seche Vite topcoat. For the hurricane accent nail, I used a no-name white polish I got in Korea. My painting tools were toothpicks and makeup sponges.

 As always, click a picture to zoom it if you wish. :)

And finally, my best impression of Hurricane Sandy's appearance on the weather channel, via my wildly inaccurate stress ball Earth:

Stay safe and dry, and happy polishing!

Autumn leaves

Most of my family and friends agree: whether you call it Autumn or Fall, this season is AWESOME. I grew up in South Florida, a place which had only two seasons, namely hot and hurricane. Having moved to Pennsylvania, I am truly enjoying the crisp air, local apples and good cider, crunchy leaves, trendy sweater dresses, and beautiful warm colors. This is my mom's favorite season, and every fall decoration makes me think of her. So, it is with her in mind that I approached my latest nail art, all done with a toothpick.

Autumn trees and leaves!

(Zoom this photo to see the colors I used. Have a question? Leave a comment)

I was trying to wait until the clouds blew away to take sunny photos of this manicure but I just had to share it!

Have you tried any fall-themed manis yet? Tell me in the comments.

Happy polishing!

Sunrise and Sunset - Study in Gradients

I have been planning to try a gradient manicure for some time now, and since filing my nails so short I've been looking for deigns that would visually elongate my nail bed. Seemed like a great time to try!

I've tried twice now, both times inspired by the colors of sunset. The first was a yellow to red fade with shimmer and the second a deep blue to purple, like the sky just after the sun disappears entirely.

Here's some closeups of each.

This mani used China Glaze Orange You Hot? with Hard Candy Lava dabbed on with a makeup sponge.  In an attempt to make it more halloweeny I tried to do a Jack-o-lantern accent thumb.

 NOT my best work... *sigh*

And here's the purple blue goodness! The blue was Revlon Royal, a gorgeous blue jelly that is opaque in one coat and the purple is a Funky Fingers that I got as a gift. My camera didn't really do well with differentiating between two dark deep colors... and frankly neither did my eyes. In the bottle, the colors were different but once layered, most of that difference disappeared.

These two were taken inside. 

And all of these outside! Our yellow mums are coming up. ^.^

Moral of the gradient story: Makeup sponges are great for creating an even fade, but choose colors that are already very different. My blue and purple were already pretty similar, and layering the purple over the blue made it just as dark. The orange and red though... that I'm definitely going to do again. :)

Happy painting!