Red Nail Art

EDIT 09/16/13: Obviously I expect too much of myself, as I haven't had time to do another nail art mani since I posted this originally. I am still going to try to post more nail art and I will probably use the challenge as inspiration; however, I am a college student with unrealistic expectations of what I can do with my time, so...yeah.

Hello all! I decided to do the 31 day challenge again this year, as I did two years ago in November. This time I'm not going to be able to do a post every day, and you'll notice it is no longer the 1st of the month (oops), but I really enjoyed it before and thought it'd be a good way to get my mojo going again. For those of you who haven't seen it before, here's the challenge:

The first day of the challenge is red, so I decided to wear one of my top two favorite juicy reds, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure All Fired Up. It's a squishy, super-bright red that really pops, and I always feel a little more put together when I wear it. After sporting All Fired Up by itself for a day, I decided to add some stripes. I used acrylic paint because I think it's easier to work with, but of course you could use polish as well.

Isn't it a great combination? I've been seeing a lot of the first two fingers as accent nails lately, so I thought I'd try it out. I originally intended the pink to stand out a little bit more, but I think maybe I like it as it is after all - it provides a little balance against the screamingly bright orange, purple and red. Sadly, as I'm typing this my nails have already chipped. C'est la vie, non? *sigh* Anyway, I won't be posting the rest of the weekend because I'm taking a short trip home to go fishing, but I look forward to painting my nails and posting again as soon as I get back! Have a great weekend!

Green & Gold Sponging

Hello again! As you're reading this, I'm about to move back into my apartment for the fall semester. I'm writing this on August 11, so hopefully I will have packed by the time this is published, but you never know...I am a pretty good (bad?) procrastinator, particularly when it comes to things like packing, which you just have to undo again later. The nail art I'm blogging about today is a little something I did back in late July. I used Zoya Neely as a base, Zoya Josie, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, and another green (the darkest bits) that is escaping my memory right now for the green sponging, and added a little bit of China Glaze Blonde Bombshell for some sparkle. On a side note, Blonde Bombshell is pretty much the best gold glitter ever, and you should get it now. But anyway, back to the sponging ---

I was very happy with how this turned out. The green sponging is subtle, but pretty, and the gold glitter adds an extra bit of oomph that makes the whole thing pull together. I thought after completing the manicure that it was more of a spring-y sort of nail art, but, ehh, who cares? I say wear whatever you want all year round, whether it's your clothes or you nail polish. Though I do tend to be a bit more versatile with polish, since it's not affected by the whole weather thing. ;)

P.S. The background for my pictures is a page of Mental Floss magazine, which is my favorite magazine ever in the entire world ever. I was reading it at work on lunch break, which is when I took these pictures.

Zoya Carter

Zoya Carter is one of the polishes from this year's fall PixieDust collection. Of course, since it's purple I had to try it first - and, since it's purple, of course I loved it. It was opaque in three quick coats, and quite easy to control (i.e., not get all over my fingers). I only wish the PixieDust polishes were easier to remove. I always have such a hard time getting them off, even with the foil method! I think most of them are worth it, though, and I really like Carter. Unfortunately, my mani was a little chipped by the time I got around to taking pictures.

As far as the color accuracy, Carter is a little warmer and redder than my picture shows - I took pictures with all the cameras in the house under all the different lighting situations I could find, and this is the closest I could get to what Carter looks like in real life. Suffice it to say, if you like purple and glitter, you should probably get this. Because purple. And glitter. Right? ;) Have a great rest of the week! I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow, so wish me luck.

P.S. In case you were wondering what the green on the side of the bottle is, that would be the remains of Chita. Sadly, she did not make it to my door in one piece, but many. And boy, let me tell you what a mess that was to clean up...I had to leave it out on the front step for a while before I could even bear to bring it into the house. 

Zoya Carter was sent to me for honest review.

Lac Attack Crazy Girl

Hello there! Fortunately my fingers are all back to normal, though I still have no idea what was making them peel like that (see last post). They were actually better by the end of June, but I decided to take another month off to figure out how I wanted to structure this blog going forward. I did miss blogging, of course, and I still checked Feedly like a maniac, but I thought it was important to really decide how I wanted to continue. I no longer have the time to post several times a week like I used to, and that has led to me blogging in fits and starts, which makes me stressed when I'm doing it and lazy when I'm not. So, I decided that I will blog once a week from here on out - of course, if I'm ahead and feel like writing an extra post once in awhile, that's great, but I'm attempting to have a balanced life (imagine that!) this semester. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, but I love blogging, so...yeah. I'm not going anywhere. With that said, I'm super excited to show you a polish from one of my favorite indie sellers, Lac Attack. Crazy Girl is a simple but super fun polish that has red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, and light pink hex glitter. You can see a not-quite-color-accurate bottle shot to the left.

A Different Kind of Galaxy

Hi there! I've done several galaxy manicures of this variety in the past, but after wearing Living Water by itself for a day or two, I thought I'd try a different kind of galaxy manicure. I sponged Sinful Colors Nail Junkie and Sally Hansen Laser, then topped it off with a coat of Claire's Starstruck. I did have to place the star glitter from Starstruck, but other than that it was quite an easy manicure, and I enjoyed wearing it for the day.

Sorry for the green glow on my nails in some of the pictures...the top coat was apparently so shiny that I reflected the trees and grass in almost every picture. Other than that, the pictures are pretty accurate.
In other news, I might not be posting a lot for a while...my fingers recently started peeling profusely for no particular reason I can discern. This occurs despite the heavy moisturizing I've been doing over the past couple of days, and it doesn't really make for nail pictures that are pleasant to look at. So, until whatever it is quits or is abated, I won't be taking any new pictures. I do have one manicure left in my archives, but that's it, so...yeah. Hopefully my fingers will be back to normal soon?

Zoya Thandie

Hello again, readers! Today I'm wearing Zoya Thandie, a bright orange polish with a very subtle shimmer. It's the first one I've tried from the Stunning collection, and I quite like it - I don't tend to wear a lot of orange polish, but I can definitely see myself wearing Thandie once in a while.

I used three coats with top coat here, and the application was silky smooth. However, I will note that it looks like a creme in a lot of lights, particularly if you're not looking closely. Nonetheless, I'd definitely recommend trying Thandie, especially if you like orange!

This product was given to me for honest review.

Spring Flowers & Stripes

Hello again! I hope all of you who live in the U.S. had a nice, long weekend and a good Memorial Day - and of course, I hope everyone else had a good weekend too. :) The manicure I'm posting today is actually the last one I did before moving out of my university apartment and going home for the summer. Since I didn't have much time to do anything but study and revise papers during finals, I thought I'd take a short break to do some nail art, and this was the result.

Cult Nails Living Water

Aaaaand, it's Friday! I bought Living Water soon after it came out in early 2011 as part of the Cult Nails Inaugural Collection. The first time I tried it, I'll be honest - I didn't like it that much. I was disappointed, and I never got around to taking pictures to post here. I decided to give it another try, and boy, am I glad I did! The picture to the left is a macro of one of my nails. I used two coats of Living Water sandwiched between Duri Rejuvacote (which I'll post about soon) and two coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat. The second coat of top coat was necessary to make Living Water completely glossy, but it was definitely worth it.

A Summery Gradient

Hello again! Today I'll be showing you a manicure I did several weeks ago, after I tried Zoya Beatrix. I thought Beatrix and Destiny looked really nice together, so I decided to do a gradient. I used Beatrix as a base and sponged Destiny on top, then finished off with a couple coats of top coat.

Nail Pattern Boldness: Slow Invasion

Hello again! I've finally resurfaced from the haze of finals and moving back home for the summer...I still haven't finished unpacking, but let's not talk about that. Instead, let's talk about the fabulous polish I have for you today! I ordered some of the polishes from Nail Pattern Boldness's Time Traveler collection, which is based on Doctor Who, my favorite currently running TV show. Between that and my Harry Potter polishes from Lac Attack, my Melmer is getting nerdier and nerdier, and I love it!

I decided to try Slow Invasion first. If you watch Doctor Who, you'll know that the Slow Invasion was a gradual invasion of Earth by the Shakri cubes, through which the Shakri intended to kill all humans on Earth. Fortunately, the Doctor saved the day, but I mention this because all the glitter in the nail polish Slow Invasion is - yep, you guessed it - square shaped like the cubes. Pretty clever, huh? Not only that, it's an awesome polish in its own right. I did a gradient over Revlon Royal, but you can get an idea of the dusty, teal color of Slow Invasion's base from the bottle shot above and to the left.