A girl and her love of nail polish

Archive for the ‘NOTD’ Category

Black And White French Manicure

I’m completely loving this gel polish manicure. I didn’t do it myself so I can’t take any of the credit. I just knew what I wanted, found a picture of it online and showed it to the manicurist.

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The black is regular stripper polish that she painted on, the white and the pale pink are CND soak-offpolish. The pale pink is a new favorite of mine, CND Grapefruit Sparkle. It as a lovely shimmer to it so it adds just a enough sparkle to keep things interesting.

I wanted this design specifically to go with this Calvin Klein dress, which I got at Macy’s.

CalvinKleinStickDress

This is the third gel polish manicure I’ve had, and while I generally prefer the easy removal of regular polish, I’m now convinced that gel manicures are essential for travel. Regular polish just can’t handle the rigors of packing and traveling on airplanes without chipping.

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NOTD

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Zoya Sweet With Easter Hello Kitty Water Decals

A day late with this but I still wanted to post it since I took and edited the photos already. This was a quick and dirty manicure I wore for Easter, though I can’t say it was one of my best.

Zoya Sweet with Hello Kitty Easter Water Decals

I started with Zoya Sweet, a bubblegum pink creme. I was not very happy with the application. It went on pretty patchy with a fair amount of balding. It looked okay with two coats on my right hand but for some reason I needed three on my left to get adequate coverage, and then an additional coat on my ring finger because I accidentally dinged it before it was dry.

Zoya Sweet with Hello Kitty Easter Water Decals

I added one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat and then I added Hello Kitty Easter water slide decals from RLR Creations.

Zoya Sweet with Hello Kitty Easter Water Decals

They would have looked better over white polish but I had already done that for my Halloween Hello Kitty manicure, so I was curious to see how they looked over a color. Meh, not a fan.

Zoya Sweet with Hello Kitty Easter Water Decals

I finished it off with a coat of Poshe. I did the manicure Saturday night and took the photos on Sunday morning. Within that time, as you can see, there was significant shrinkage around the cuticle line. I find that Poshe has trouble with shrinkage on thick polish so I think the build-up of layers worked against me here.

Zoya Sweet with Hello Kitty Easter Water Decals

I also dinged up the ring finger when applying the decal. Ugh.

Better luck next year.

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Holiday, NOTD

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Crumpet’s Tri-Polish Challenge Day 4: Fan Brush Striped Nails

Here’s Day 4 of the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet’s Nail Tarts, last day with this color set!

The basic rules are that you have to pick three polishes, one coral, one purple and one green, and then use those same polishes to create four different manis. You can also add in white, black, silver, gold and glitter toppers.

fan brush striped nail art

The three colors I chose are Sinful Colors Island Coral, Sinful Colors Amethyst and Julep Courteney; I used all three here for this fan brush striped nail art pattern. There’s a video tutorial here on fan brush striped nails from simplenailartdesigns  if you’d like to see how to do it.

fan brush striped nail art

I started with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the white base, then dipped the tip of a fan brush into Sinful Colors Island Coral and spread it across the nail, first from one side toward the center, then from the other side toward the center. I followed that using the same technique to add stripes in Julep Courteney and then Sinful Colors Amethyst.

fan brush striped nail art

I repeated that color pattern several times to build up the layers, and then topped it off with one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

fan brush striped nail art

I honestly wasn’t sure when to stop, and I can’t tell looking at the finished product whether I should have added more or already added too many (or if it’s good as is).

fan brush striped nail art

This was my first time using my fan brush, so will definitely try it again. I think I might like the design better with different colors.

Check out the rest of the challenge participants here:



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Nail Art Challenges, NOTD

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Crumpet’s Tri-Color Challenge Day 3: Argyle Pattern

Here’s Day 3 of the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet’s Nail Tarts.

Argyle Pattern Nail Art

The basic rules are that you have to pick three polishes, one coral, one purple and one green, and then use those same polishes to create four different manis. You can also add in white, black, silver, gold and glitter toppers.

The three colors I chose are Sinful Colors Island Coral, Sinful Colors Amethyst and Julep Courteney; I used all three here for this basic argyle pattern. There’s a video tutorial from Cute Polish on the argyle pattern if you’d like to see how to do it.

Argyle Pattern Nail Art

I used two coats of Julep Courteney as the base and then used a striper brush to paint on triangles with Sinful Colors Amethyst, and then added white lines with Kiss Nail Art Paint striper polish in white.

Argyle Pattern Nail Art

Argyle Pattern Nail Art

For the accent nail, I used Sinful Island Coral as the base with Julep Courteney on top.

Argyle Pattern Nail Art

I topped it off with a coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.

Check out the rest of the challenge participants here:



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Nail Art Challenges, NOTD

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Crumpet’s Tri-Polish Challenge Day 2: Cult Nails Fetish With Stripes

Here’s Day 2 of the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet’s Nail Tarts.

The basic rules are that you have to pick three polishes, one coral, one purple and one green, and then use those same polishes to create four different manis. You can also add in white, black, silver, gold and glitter toppers.

Sinful Colors Island Coral, Amethyst, Juelp Courteney

The three colors I chose are Sinful Colors Island Coral, Sinful Colors Amythest and Julep Courteney, but for this mani I left out the purple one.

Cult Nails Fetish with Stripes

Cult Nails Fetish with Stripes

For the base I used two coats of Cult Nails Fetish, which is an unbelievably amazing polish that goes on super easy and dries to what the company describes as a “wax look finish.”

Cult Nails Fetish with Stripes

I then used some new striping brushes to add lines with Sinful Colors Island Coral first on the inside, and then Julep Courteney on the outside. I did not use a top coat because I wanted to keep the original finish on Cult Nails Fetish.

Cult Nails Fetish with Stripes

Admittedly the lines on this do not look very clean …this didn’t come out as well as I had hoped. But I hope you can still get the gist of what I was aiming for.

Cult Nails Fetish with Stripes

Check out the rest of the challenge participants here:


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Nail Art Challenges, NOTD

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Crumpet’s Tri-Polish Challenge Day 1: Dotticure

I’m starting a new nail art challenge today. This is the Tri-Polish Challenge from Crumpet’s Nail Tarts.

The basic rules are that you have to pick three polishes, one coral, one purple and one green, and then use those same polishes to create four different manis. You can also add in white, black, silver, gold and glitter toppers.

Sinful Colors Island Coral, Amethyst, Juelp Courteney

The three colors I chose are Sinful Colors Island Coral, Sinful Colors Amethyst and Julep Courteney.

Tri-Polish Challenge: Dotticure

I went for a simple dotticure, starting with the base color, adding a white dot and then a smaller dot of the base color. The index finger white base is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, the same white I used for the dots.

Tri-Polish Challenge: Dotticure

Nothing too crazy, just wanted to get back into the nail art game.

Tri-Polish Challenge: Dotticure

Check out the rest of the challenge participants here:



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Nail Art Challenges, NOTD

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Top 5 Nail Art Manicures Of 2012

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. My unplanned break turned into more of an unplanned hiatus, but I’m back now. Exhausted, but back!

I had all of these wonderful plans for year-end posts I was going to do, but alas, it just didn’t happen. So here’s just one, a roundup of my most popular manicures from last year.

No. 5: Vampire Nail Art

Vampire Nail Art

This vampire nail art manicure was part of the 30-Day Challenge I did in September, but it also got big boosts around Halloween and again in November when the last Twilight movie came out!

No. 4: Zebra French Manicure

Zebra French Manicure with OPI Care To Danse? and Pirouette My Whistle

Animal prints aren’t really my thing, or so I thought until I tried this zebra french manicure out for the 30 Day Challenge. The more I look at it, the more I like it!

No. 3: Bold Retro Wallpaper Nail Art

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art with Color Club Tweet Me

I can’t take any credit on the design for this bold retro wallpaper nail art look since it came from a tutorial I found online, but I did like my color choices.

No. 2: Silver And Gold Gradient

U2 Silver and Gold Glitter Gradient nail art

This silver and gold glitter gradient was actually inspired by the U2 song of the same name, but I think it made for an excellent holiday look as well.

No. 1: Pink Glitter Gradient

Pink Glitter Gradient Nail Art with Essie Luxeffects A Cut Above

You ladies love glitter gradients! This one was part of Breast Cancer Awareness month and was done in honor of my grandmother, so I’m very glad this was my most popular post of the year.

Bonus Manicure: My Favorite

Gradient Dot Manicure: OPI Berlin There Done That with Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

I LOVE dotticures, usually ones that I see on other people, but I really loved the way this gradient dot manicure came out.

Thanks very much to everyone who visited my blog last year. Wishing you health, peace and prosperity in 2013!

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NOTD

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