For The Love of Polish

Essie Marshmallow with Orly Twilight

2010-01-31T09:45:00.000-08:00

I love Essie Marshmallow. It's that perfect white sheer, that you can use as a french manicure base, or as shown here with three coats, you can wear as a classy everyday color. I used to always wear these sheer colors on my nails, because I liked how they looked in contrast with my skintone. That was until I discovered exciting new colors and stopped just wearing them on my toes! These types of sheer colors look good on all skintones though.

This is Essie Marshmallow in indoor lighting with no flash.

Really dim natural lighting without flash

Orly Twilight over Essie Marshmallow in natural lighting without flash.

Orly Twilight over Essie Marshmallow in indoor lighting without flash.

There is subtle shimmer that is hard to see, but this was with only one coat of Twilight. It layers quite nicely, and creates a pretty shimmer to any polish. It is not a strong difference but one that a nail polish lover can appreciate. Over darker shades of course it is more prominent.

Fun with Purple! New China Glaze Grape Pop, Up and Away collection

2010-01-21T11:28:00.000-08:00

So I wanted to do colors for Valentine's day manicures, but ended up picking two purples out from my collection. I used a random Forever21 purple nail polish that I got several months ago, it's a medium purple, with a dusty look to it. It's actually a very pretty purple on my skin tone, and the formula was decent. Quite sheer, but I had quite some time to wait in between coats.

This is 4 coats in indoor light without flash

And indoor lighting with flash

The picture without flash is closer to the actual color, but I would say that the color is truly in between both pictures. I also added some nail art by using a small nail art brush and a dotter tool, and white acrylic paint. Just something simple on the ring fingers:

I added two half flowers, to opposite corners of the nail. I made three petals on the bottom right and four on the top left of the nail. Then I added some white dots, 4 to 5 for each flower curving downwards or upwards(refer to picture). Then I added LA Colors Art Deco in Silver Glitter to the middle of each flower in place of a rhinestone. Rhinestones never last long on my fingernails, especially when they're at the edges. Repeat the design on the other hand to complete the look. You can get creative and add more lines and dots, it's up to you!

Finishing Result, purple nails with delicate white flowers and dots!

On to purple toes!!! I recently ordered Grape Pop from China Glaze's Up and Away collection. This is one of those purpley blues that I really like. I have become quite fond of purples, especially darker shades of purple with my skintone. Anyways...in indoor lighting it looks like a dark purple, and when the sunlight hits it, it represents its true bluish purple tone. The next picture shows the true blurple tone of the polish. I decided to also do flowers on my toes. I used a small nail art brush and white acrylic paint (water-based).

I started with two small flowers coming out of the sides, feel free to make as many petals per flower and as big as you would like.

Next I added an additional flower to each nail, to complete the basic design. I added a 5 petal flower to the top of the design to complete it.

Then I added yellow and pink detailing to the inside of each petal. Water-based acrylic paint was used again. You can use a nail striper brush, or any small fine point brush. If you don't feel that you have a steady enough hand, you can try using a toothpick dipped in the proper acrylic paint color to add detailing.

I love adding dots to nail designs, because they always look neat and are easy to do with a nail dotting tool. I used once again pink and yellow acrylic paint, and drew dots randomly around the design.

Last step! Add Rhinestones!! I only added rhinestones to two of the flowers, and used Art Deco in Silver Glitter for the center of the remaining flower. Have fun with it! Make this your own with different petal shapes and colors. Here is the final result. Excuse my horrible pictures and messy polish job, I forgot to clean up the sides first.

Zebra/Tiger Toenails!

2010-01-16T15:15:00.000-08:00

So I decided to do something fun with my toes. I like the way black and gold look together, and I love zebra print. I guess you could call this tiger print because of the colors I used.

1. First I started off with Seche base coat of course, and then I applied four coats of Sinful THIS IS IT #832. Sinful colors are very very sheer. THIS IS IT is a pretty pearly shimmery gold with rainbow iridescent glitter throughout. (FYI I really hate this color on my toes, but since it's the only gold in my collection, I figured I would try it out atleast once. Plus it's been a little colder out so noone is really going to see my toes.) This shade of gold just does not go with my olive toned skin, especially since I don't have a tan right now. It blends in and just makes my feet look ugly and really yellow!

2. Then I got a little crazy and added Wet 'n Wild Black Creme to my big toes, creating a black diagonal design on only my big toes. I just created a simple black french manicure to the rest of my piggies. Did not take a picture but look at final picture for result!

3. Then I used a nail art brush, and some black acrylic paint (any water based will do so if you mess up you can simply wipe it off), and added some zebra/tiger stripes. This was my first time doing any kind of animal stripes so I looked up pictures to help me create this look.

FINAL RESULT! ZEBRA OR TIGER TOES!

Now onto my fingernails. I wanted to match them, but I didn't want to go too crazy. I still have a tutoring job so I don't like to do too crazy of designs on my hands. Designs on my toes make me happy enough. This time I just used Wet N' Wild black creme, Milani Destiny Pink #307 and Color Club Nail art brush in Fine Gold Glitter.

I started off with Seche base coat and then two coats of Milani Destiny Pink. Then I created a reverse french manicure look by adding Wet N' Wild Creme Black to the tips. The final step to help match my toes was to add a line of Color Club Fine Gold glitter to the smile line of each nail.

FINAL RESULT!! Reverse black and gold french manicure!

Hope you enjoy my first official nail art post! Definitely more to come!!***

New nail colors!

2010-01-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

So I went to my local CVS today and got these three new Milani nail colors. Apparently every end of January into February they get rid of discontinued colors and have a huge sale in order to make room for the new colors! So I got each of these 75% off, making them a little over $1 each!! Pretty awesome, but I only saw three colors that I would actually use.

I purchased Milani Destiny Pink, a sheer and perfect for french manicures color. I also purchased Milani Peach Cream and Garnet Gems. Garnet gems is a really cool color. I don't own anything else like it. It is a black sheer base with a bunch of red glitter throughout the polish. I have not swatched it yet so I can't show you a picture, but here it is in the bottle. It seems like a cool color if you want to do a dark Valentine's Day manicure, or seems like a good Halloween nail color. Strangely it also reminds me of the Queen of Hearts, maybe her black and red dress from Alice in Wonderland, and the release of OPI's new spring collection getting to my head. Who knows...

Milani Destiny Pink and Peach Cream look pretty similar but in the bottle, Destiny Pink is a few shades lighter and actually to me, has more peach undertones. Peach Cream seems less sheer and leans more towards pink. I think the names should be switched around!

Destiny Pink is on the left and Peach Cream is on the right.

I am a lover of the french manicure look, so both of these colors will work just fine for me. They are very sheer but when layered, can be worn for that sophisticated clean natural nail look. I actually am going to use Destiny Pink for nail art so check it out!***

OPI My Private Jet

2010-01-12T14:27:00.001-08:00

OPI My Private Jet in natural sunlight.

OPI My Private Jet in artificial light

I recently purchased this polish from ULTA, they were having buy one get one 50% off for OPI colors. I snagged this and also OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not. This color is absolutely gorgeous. It has beautiful holographic microglitter throughout the polish. It is the type of glitter that is not chunky on the nail, and is easy to remove. In regular lighting, it's a dark slate grey with subtle shimmer unless observed closely. In the sunlight however, it looks dark reddish-brown with rainbow irridescent shimmer. It's one of those colors that are fun to have on your nails, because it looks so different in various lighting and angles. Basically you can't stop looking at it! People's biggest complaint with this polish is that it doesn't look like much unless you see it up close, but that doesn't bother me. I am a creme nail polish color lover and I have recently started experimenting with shimmers and glitters. This color is not bad for my olive skin complexion! ***

I used the following on my nails;

1. Seche base coat
2. Three coats of OPI My Private Jet
3. Beauty Secrets Top Coat

Start of something new!

2010-01-11T08:38:00.001-08:00

Random nail art design done over the summer of 2009. Forgive the blurriness, mobile upload.

This is my first blog ever, and I am planning on really sticking to it. I was always the person to start diaries and never finish them, but I love following people's blogs so I figured I would give my own a shot. I am a nail polish lover, and I know there are many blogs out there already for nail polish, but I will be doing a lot of nail art, since I do my own nail art several times a month. I hope you all enjoy, and don't hesitate to post comments and questions!