Velvet Underground Bananicure

Here's a nail art tribute I did for Lou Reed/ The Velvet Underground, which takes inspiration from the "Andy Warhol" and "Loaded" album covers.
For my Andy Warhol banana nail, I first painted my nail white and let it dry completely. Then, I wiped most of the polish off of the brush for my yellow polish and drew a banana shape. This probably would have been more successful on a longer nail. When that was absolutely, completely dry, I used a black nail art pen to add high contrast to the banana.
For my "Loaded" inspired nails, I did a simple three color gradient like the smoke coming from the underground on the album. The three colors I used were Essie "Tart Deco" and OPI "Lincoln Park After Dark" and "Grand Canyon Sunset." I first painted my nail with "Tart Deco" then added the two other colors on a blending sponge and blended until I got the effect I wanted.

Vintage Wallpaper Nails

These nails were inspired by some vintage 1940s wallpaper prints I saw online recently. Most of these floral prints consisted of dark, muted flowers and a dull green ivy on an off white or buff colored backdrop.
To begin, I painted all of my nails with "Kelsey" by Julep, which is a sort of pale peach color. Then I added large dots of Essie "Lilacism," Revlon "Cherries in the Snow" and OPI "Grand Canyon Sunset." While those were still wet, I swirled some of the peach color into them to give the illusion of petals and some depth to the design. With Maybelline "Tenacious Teal," I added leaf accents to the flowers I made and painted ivy designs on my index and ring fingers. My main recommendations are to choose a pigmented opaque green polish and to let your base color dry completely before creating your flowers.

Galaxy Nails and New Logo!

Here is my take on the very popular Galaxy nail art. After a little experimentation today, I figured out some preferences, what looks good and what does not. I figured out:
-Black is a much better backdrop than dark blue
-Add white to the black before adding a sheer polish of another color
-An eraser at the end of a pencil works much better than a dotting tool for adding planets
-Too many large stars detracts from the effect
-Adding a finely milled glitter top coat really ties it all together. I used Sally Hansen "Disco Ball" for this.
-To get a neater look, add colors in band across the nail, much like how galaxies really look in the night sky

Look to your upper right. See my new logo? I'd like to thank Danny Anduza, my wonderful boyfriend, (www.dannyanduza.com) for making it for me. Soon, maybe, this blog will be a respectable, professional looking thing with a cool background and watermarks and such. Also, I shot these images with my new Canon Powershot camera, so no more cell phone pictures! Yay!

-Emmy

Candy Corn Ombre Nails

These are just a really simple, subtle candy corn colored ombre mani for the fall. I started with a white base, then added yellow and orange (Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Kleancolor Neon Orange) to a blending sponge and then applied that to the top 2/3 of the nail.
Some gold glitter might be cool to add, but I chose to leave it as is.

Dia de los Muertos nails

Here is an incredibly easy design for Halloween/ Day of the Dead you can do as just an accent nail or on all of your nails. This was very easy for me to do on my opposite hand also. The design is basically just strategically placed dots.
To begin, I started with an off white base- mine is "Transcend" by Sparitual. Then I just took my polish brush and added two dots for eyes. The orange I am using is a Wet n' Wild polish called "Sunny Side Up." After that, I took my nail art pen and drew two little black shapes on the base of the nail for a sort of contour, added four little dots in a diamond shape for a nose, then added dots around the eyes, a line for the mouth and a small triangle shape on the forehead.

Leopard Print and Red Wine Nails

Two of the biggest fashion trends at NYFW this fall were taupe shades, often accompanied by animal print, gold hardware and accents, and oxblood red. I decided to combine these elements into today's nail art.

To begin, I painted four of my nails white and one deep red- the shade I used was Pacifica's "Red, Red Wine." When the white was completely dry, I added NYC's "Brownstone" to a cosmetic sponge and added a variegated, light brown gradient effect to my four non-red nails. Then I added leopard spots using a pencil eraser I roughed up a bit dipped into Revlon's "Hot For Chocolate." On my accent nail, I took Orly's "Too Fab," a gold glitter polish and added a gradient to the tip of my nails. I just used the polish brush, adding glitter to the top 2/3 of my nail, then adding glitter only on the tip once the first coat of glitter had partially dried.

Marbled Flame Nails

Disclosure: I received a bottle of No Text Red free from Sinful Colors/ Influenster in my quarterly VoxBox.

No Text red is part of Sinful Colors' recent campaign to combat texting and driving. The idea is to paint your thumbs red to remind yourself not to text while driving. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to create a look that emphasizes No Text Red as the main color.

To create the flame look, I first applied two full coats of the red polish, let dry, then applied a thicker coat of red. While it was still wet, I put a few large dots of black (OPI Black Onyx) at the base of my nail, then used a small dotting tool to drag and swirl the black around for the flame effect.

In all honesty, I really like the color "No Text Red" but the formula was really streaky and the brush is too long, which caused the polish to get everywhere. However, the retail price is only $1.99 USD and hey, it's a noble cause.