Textured Dotted Nails

I'm back!

I really don't have an excuse for this, except that I have for the most part moved my nail art enterprises to Instagram, where I post as @coralpecan. I find this much easier as I work 50 hour workweeks and usually am so drained when I get home that the idea of blogging is somewhat unbearable. However, today I made an effort, so let me show you a design I did earlier today.

You will need:

A base and topcoat. Mine are Butter London's nail foundation and Orly's matte top coat.

You will also need dotting tools in various sizes. Mine I got at Sally's for about $2 USD, and this is the largest and the medium size. They are double ended so they have a small dotter on the other end.

Here is my color scheme: Orly "Gumdrop" OPI "Just Lanai-ing Around" Kleancolor "Neon Blue" Revlon "Enchanting" and Sally Hansen "Mellow Yellow."

To begin, I painted each finger a different color, and put my matte topcoat over that base color. On top of that I did my dots and flowers. This gives it a 3D, textured effect.

The final product:

Just keep adding dots to fill as much negative space as you can, and pick a really great complementary color scheme. Have fun!

-Emmy

Easy Snowflake Nails

These nails aren't explicitly "Holiday," just kind of wintery, which I think is okay for this early in the holiday season. The dark blue I used is Sally Hansen "Blue it" and the light blue is Essie "Bikini so teeny." I alternated dark and light blue the way I did because I thought too much of the dark metallic blue would overpower the look. To draw my white snowflakes/ stars, I made an X on my nail, then a plus sign. I find that works better somehow. Then I alternated between a half moon snowflake and a nail tip snowflake with a black nail art pen on the light blue nails. I think it looks fine without any glitter, but a silver glitter accent instead of a snowflake on one of your nails would be cool also.

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.

Lily Pad Nails

Here is a "Blobicure" style nail art design I did yesterday. I do not claim to have come up with the idea, this is just my own take on a design Colette from Mysimplelittlepleasures did recently on her YouTube channel.
The blue color I used was China Glaze Tranzitions in "Modify me." step one was to apply one coat of the polish to each nail after using a base coat. For the blob part, I painted each nail with a generous second coat of polish, and while that was drying, added blobs of Wet n' Wild "I Only Eat Salads." when the second coat and the green blobs had dried, I added some white lines to look a little bit like flowers on a few of the lily pads. The Tranzition colors change color once top coat is applied, so the blue became much darker and the green lily pads had more contrast than before. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Recent Nail Art

I guess I've been doing a lot of nail art lately, so I am just going to show you three designs I've done lately with some thoughts about the polishes and tools I used for them.

1. Star Trek Galaxy Nails

For the pink base on the pinkie, middle and index, I used Zoya "Dot." For the galaxy nails, I stamped some blue and purple neon polish on the nails, added stars with a white striper and added glitter with Sally Hansen "Disco Ball." For my starfleet uniform nail, I painted the nail blue Julep "Iona"and added a wavy black line to the tip. For the Commbadge, I cut up a nail sticker in the desired shape and put it on the nail.
I freehanded the Enterprise with a black nail art pen and covered it with the same glitter as the galaxy nails.

2. Starfleet Uniform Nails

A simpler version of the ring finger on the previous design with red, yellow and blue polishes. I suppose you could add some rhinestones to show ranks on some of your nails.

3. Neon Leopard Print

These I did with my Kleancolor neon polishes, white striper and black nail art pen. The key to this look is a high density of spots.

Teepee nails

Hello all! Sorry for that two week hiatus- I was doing paleontological fieldwork up in northern Montana with very slow internet access and no nail polish. Anyways, I thought I would do a little tribute to the teepee that was my home for the better part of two weeks up there while we excavated dinosaur nests.
I chose to do kind of a sunrise look using oranges and blue. The colors I used were Wet n' Wild "Sunny Side Up," Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in "Crushed" and Mineral Fusion in "Grotto." I put them on a beauty blending sponge and applied over a white base to achieve the effect.
For the teepee, I drew a triangle shape with a white striper and outlined with a black nail art pen. I drew the door with black polish.

The finished look:

And the inspiration:

Kleancolor- Neon Orange

This is number 5 of six of reviews and looks using the Kleancolor neon collection. They are available on Amazon and elsewhere online for about $3-5 USD each.
I love this color! It's pretty flattering on my skin tone, but it could be a stretch for others considering just how bright it is. The formula is great: goes completely opaque in one coat, and no cleanup was necessary in the picture because it is such a thick polish and will not go where it isn't wanted. My one complaint is that it dries a little matte, but this can easily be fixed with topcoat.
In the design below, I painted all of my nails with Neon Orange, then made some daisies with my Sally Hansen white striper, and made the dots in the center with Julep in "Kelsey." I kept them kind of neutral to try and counteract the brightness of the orange polish.

Abstract Dreamcatcher Nails

Here is my companion piece to the dotted bow nails, a slightly less girly mix and match manicure in pink and aqua. I used a detail paintbrush, a cosmetic sponge and some rhinestones as far as tools needed for these nails.

Materials and methods, from right to left:
Thumb: Two coats of OPI's "Got a Date To-Knight," seal with matte topcoat, gold glitter gradient with Orly FX "Too Fab" on top 2/3 of nail.
Pinky and pointer: 2 coats of Sally Hansen "White On." Load up cosmetic sponge with Layla "Aqua Zen" and "Got a Date To-Knight." Blend onto nail with sponge so that the aqua is on the tip of the nail. Seal with regular fast drying top coat.
Middle Finger: 2 coats of Essie's "Mint Candy Apple." Painted design with small nail detail brush and OPI's "Black Onyx." Three rhinestones were randomly placed on design and sealed in with more top coat.
Ring: 2 coats of Ulta's "High Roller," 2 coats of "Too Fab."

All the colors worked quite nicely together, except Aqua Zen. I was originally going to use it for the center nail, but it was too dark to contrast with the black to make the design pop. It works well as an ombre color on the sponge painted nails because blending it with a light pink and a white is much less dramatic.

More pictures of the nail art:

(I made the bracelet too. The band is copper I sawed cutouts from and the stone in the middle is a piece of buffalo jasper).

Materials used: Ciate fast drying top coat, Sally Hansen "White On" Orly matte top coat, Julep base coat, tweezers for rhinestone placement, wedge sponge for ombre nails, Essie "Mint Candy Apple"
OPI "Black Onyx" little plastic card sleeve for painting/mixing, Ulta "High Roller" OPI "Got a Date To-Knight" Orly "Too Fab" Layla "Aqua Zen."

Dotted Bow Nails

It's been a long, long while since I have picked up a dotting tool, and I thought tonight would be a great time to play around with polka dots and some new colors I picked up lately. Since dotting (for me) is a pain in the butt on my opposite hand, I used my friend Emma's fingers to try out this look. The design is loosely based on Youtuber Elleandish's bow nails, and the color scheme is just based on a few of my new polishes I thought would look good together.

For this look, I used:

-Julep in "Bergen"
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "White On" and "Disco Ball"
-Tweezers for placing gems
-Revlon in "Enchanted"
-OPI in "Black Onyx"
-A pink card protector (Dragon Shield brand) for a palette for dotting the colors
-Red Carpet Manicure brand dotting tool
-Some gold rhinestones
-Ciate fast drying topcoat

On the pinky and pointer: Two coats of White On, dots with small end of dotting tool in Enchanted.
On the ring finger: Two coats of Bergen and two coats of Disco Ball
On the thumb: two coats of Enchanted, small end of dotting tool dipped in Black Onyx
On the middle finger: two coats of enchanted, Large black dot in center of nail, small black dots in a bow shape around the central dot, gold rhinestone on top of the original large black dot.
Top coat on all of the nails once it dried.

More pictures of the finished manicure:

I really like the new polishes I used. Disco ball was a little disappointing because I thought it would be more full coverage based on how it looked in the bottle, but layered over the silver polish it actually looked really cool. This is a really good look for any nail length as you can add as many or as few dots to the nails as you think looks good.

Independence Day Nails!

Here is my slightly nontraditional take on the red, white and blue: White is Sally Hansen xtreme wear in "White On," Red is Sinful Colors in "Ruby Ruby," and blue is Kleancolor in "Neon Sapphire." It looks a little bit like tie dye, which is pretty appropriate for the holiday. What I did was paint my nails white, and then layer a few thick coats of red and blue on one side of my nail. While it was still wet, I dragged a bobby pin through the wet polish to make the design. This is based on Cutepolishes "Color of the year" mani, but I chose to do red white and blue because today is the 4th.

Julep-Iona

This month, I received my third installment of the Julep Maven boxes. My style that I got from the quiz was "Classic With a Twist," but I was not feeling the plie wand (http://www.julep.com/pliewand) and got the box with three polish colors instead. One of these colors was Iona, an "It Girl" polish that is a darker blue leaning towards indigo/periwinkle. I love the color. It's pretty unique and I certainly do not have a dupe in my collection.
However, I am just not sure what to think about the formula. It is really, really thick. My other Juleps are this way too, and even though this was the thinnest one, I still kept managing to load up way too much polish on the brush and dripped a lot.
I took my white Sally Hansen nail striper and added some abstract designs to give it a little bit of a nautical vibe.

Wedding Nails

My friend just got married on Saturday (Congratulations Maggie)! and I got to be a bridesmaid. I did all of the nails and makeup for the bridal party that day. My color palette was pretty simple: we stuck with silver, blue and white. All of the girl's nails were those colors, but everyone's manicure was different from the pedicure and nobody had the same design. I'd say the nails that got the most complements were my silver and white glitter gradient nails. I used a very cheap white polish from Jordana that I still have in my little purple caboodle at my parent's house and I picked up Essie's "Set in Stones" for the occasion at Walgreens. 

The white Jordana polish actually really impressed me. Sure, it is streaky and a little uneven, but with a glitter top coat and a regular top coat (I used Sally Hansen tough as nails for this look), it all evens out and looks good. White even makes your skin tone look darker in contrast, which is nice at this stage in spring. 

Set in Stones is a really nice one in the Essie luxe effects collection. I like that there is a variety of glitter sizes, ranging from big hex glitters to very fine glitters less than a millimeter wide. It is perfect for the gradient look I was going for. 

To recreate this look, paint your nails one solid color (like white) and then once that dries, do one coat of glitter on the top 2/3 of the nail. Then go back and concentrate more glitter at the tip of the nail.

She-Rabbit nails

Oh dear! Have not published anything in over a month- this is because I can't find my SD card. I borrowed Boyfriend's today to get a picture of my nails.
First, my opinions on the while polish I used- this is "White On" from the Sally Hansen Xtreme wear line. A little thin, a little streaky, not great for painting nails plain white and leaving them that way, but a pretty great cheap nail art staple.
Anyways, I did the white stripes on the orange with some nail art striping tape, which is my new favorite nail art tool, and freehanded the bunny. I just drew a white bunny shape, filled in the ears with more orange (NYC's Times Square Tangerine) and drew the eyes with a black nail art pen. I guess a pastel would have been more appropriate, but who cares? Do what you want with your own nails.

Zoya- Dot

I guess I was a bit tardy to the "natural" nail polish party, but I'm back, and now actually have a Zoya polish. I've had my nails done with it in salons before, but I guess other brands always seem to catch my attention first. No longer! I saw this lovely color and thought maybe, just maybe I'd get a ynbb out of this that wasn't streaky, sheer and awful.
I love this formula. It's incredibly opaque, no streaks, and the thick polish hardens to a very glossy texture, kind of similar to Butter London's finishes.
Anyways, Dot is is a lovely color, and I did just that, created some dots on my nails that I turned into rosebuds- the flower kind, not the Citizen Kane variety. Somehow, black and white toboggan nails were never high on my nail art priority list.
The base coat is some random NYC polish I have and the little black bits are from my black Sally Hansen nail art pen. Stripers and dotting tools just weren't going to happen today.

Vaguely Miley Cyrus- Inspired Nails

I was playing around with my blue nail striper and some sheer gold polish the other night. I was trying to think of what it looked like. Cave paintings? Then, I thought, this looks like... Miley Cyrus' bizarre hand tattoos. That's why I added the little black heart as an afterthought- she has one on the knuckle of her pinkie finger. Gold polish is a color workshop, blue striper is sinful colors "Anxious Azure" and my black nail art pen is from Sally Hansen.

Frostbite Nails

In honor of the polar vortex, I give you these frostbitten nails. I went for "Hidden Reef" by Sparitual as my pink color (not really a YNBB) and my dark gray glitter is "Glitz Gal" from the Sally Hansen Gem Crush collection. I did not use a makeup sponge for this one. the trick is to make the bottom of your gradient uneven because unlike other glitter polishes, this one actually has a dark gray base the glitters reside in, so it would look really weird if you made your gradient in a perfect straight line across your nail.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear- Mint Sorbet

And here is I believe the very last "mint" colored polish that I own and will be writing about for a very long time. This is another one of the Xtreme wear line, the $2.99 USD collection of Sally Hansen polishes that are permanent and have tons of colors.
To compare it to Essie's Mint Candy Apple, this one is more greenish than the bluish hue of MCA. I think both are great formulas, with MCA being slightly more opaque in two coats, so I really think it depends on your skin tone which one to choose. I happen to have both, but I do not recommend having both as they are so similar in color. The picture below is just a swatch- no top or base coat just to show what type of shine the formula has without a top coat.

Sally Hansen- Fog and CHI- Bad Girl Gone Good

With the dearth of Valentines themed nail art out there, I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon today. However, I just wanted to keep it subtle. I chose these two colors because they do fit the color theme of the holiday but are a little bit muted.
Bad Girl Gone good is a dusky, warm tone pink. CHI nail polishes are a bit expensive, $11 USD each, but are very long lasting. According to the ingredients on the bottle, it is formulated with the same ceramic compound the brand's famous hair irons are made with, but small particles of silver. I personally really like the formula. It dries very quickly and is strong and will not chip for days.
On my accent nail I have Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Fog. This is an older mini collection they did which came out about a year ago. There are 8 polishes with a sort of "nature" theme. They are all very muted and not stark colors. I mistakenly picked this one up at Ulta as a white for nail art, but the polish really is more of a pearly, waxy color than a bright white. This doesn't bother me as the color is really beautiful anyways.
I think these two colors work beautifully together. This could even be worn at other times of the year besides Valentines because it is so simple.

Sally Hansen Triple Shine: Blow Bubbles

I have returned! I swear this is not because I am lazy, but rather that I had a nonfunctioning camera for about a month. Seriously, don't ever buy a scanner just because it comes with a free camera. There is no such thing as free lunch.
Anyways, I picked up my first of these new Triple Shine polishes recently at CVS. They all seem to have kind of an underwater theme going with the names, otherwise a pink shade with bubbles in the name makes absolutely no sense.I'm not sure where the triple part comes from, but Sally Hansen's website says they are
" protected with the Ultimate Shield Complex, exclusive to Sally Hansen, designed to help polish withstand the wear and tear of everyday living for non-stop shine."
Also, they claim the polish is formulated with crushed pearl to make a resistant formula. 
I am, however, not impressed with this product. I picked out the polish because the color was really beautiful,  which for me was the only thing this product delivered on. It's a lovely pink color in a warm tone, with little golden duochromish flashes. However, the polish is runny and very sheer, resulting in me having to apply several coats to get it opaque that never really dried or set to my satisfaction.
However, the polishes retail for only $5 each, so maybe I'll pick out another one and see if maybe this color is just a bad apple. A lot of other bloggers have had less than positive things to say about this one, but positive remarks overall about the line, so I'm remaining optimistic that there will be one in the collection that I will like.