Christmas Skittles!

Good morning, and happy Thursday! Today I have some Christmas nails to show you. I am super excited for Christmas this year - partly because I'm actually excited for Christmas, and a little bit because I just want to be done with the semester. It's wrapping up! I only have one final, two projects and two papers left, and I'll be done it a week. So excited. Anyway, here's my Christmas nail art skittles mani:

Thumb & ring finger: Pure Ice Kiss Me Here with two coats of Lac Attack Holidays in Hogsmeade
Index finger: Two coats of China Glaze White Cap, topped with two coats of China Glaze Snow Globe, topped with two-ish (I say this because there was some finagling involved to get enough glitter on) coats of OPI Lights of Emerald City. (Not looking forward to removing this.)
Middle finger: Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe with gold circles in Zoya Ziv.
Pinkie finger: Zoya Rekha with snow in Cult Nails Tempest

Whew! That was a long list of polishes. I started this mani not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, but I really like how it turned out. This was the first time I tried Lac Attack Holidays in Hogsmeade, despite having bought it almost a year ago - I just felt weird about wearing it in January. I really like it, though, especially the stripey large red hex glitters. So cute.

It's supposed to snow here in St. Louis today, tomorrow, and Sunday. I really hope we get some accumulation, and I might just have to do another wintry/Christmas mani to get in the mood. :) Have a great day!

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.

Grey-on-Grey Nail Art

Hello hello! I have good news, bad news, and more good news. Good news: it's almost Friday. Bad news: it's not Friday. Good news: I have some awesome nail art for you today! I started out wanting to do something like a henna pattern on my nails, but it ended up being some weird-but-cool combination of flowers, dots, and whatever random patterns I could come up with Monday night/Tuesday morning at 12:30 AM...yeah, that happened. Fortunately, all went well and I was very happy with the way this turned out! Of course, it doesn't look as good in macro because you can see all the little mistakes and imperfections, but hopefully you get the idea.

left hand

right hand

You even get to see my right hand! I'm not sure "get to" is the right phrase, though, as my right hand is a bit gross compared to my left hand since I'm (case in point: writing callus on my middle finger). For the dark grey, I used Pure Ice Kiss Me Here, and the light grey is acrylic paint. I think it's probably a good thing I did grey-on-grey, because I think if I had used multiple colors it just would've looked nuts! As it is, though, I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Inverted Crackle

Even though survival rates for some childhood brain tumors have increased over the past 30 years, survivors often suffer from lifelong side effects of treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. -Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation


Yeah, I'm looking forward to that...anyway, my second grey May manicure came about when I realized that not only are China Glaze Crushed Candy and China Glaze For Audrey almost the same color, I also have a regular grey polish that's nearly the same as China Glaze Cracked Concrete - Pure Ice Kiss Me Here. The natural result of this realization? An inverted crackle mani.

indoors, artificial light

Sorry for my gross dry fingers... :( Anyway, even though I really like the way this turned out, I didn't end up keeping it on. I'm not sure why, but I just wasn't in the mood. Until tomorrow!

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

It recently came to my attention (via the local newspaper) that not only is October Breast Cancer Awareness Month and National Depression Awareness Month, but also National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. As it says on the Domestic Violence Awareness Project's website, "The Domestic Violence Awareness Project (DVAP) supports the rights of all individuals, especially women and girls, to live in peace and dignity."


Because the color for Domestic Violence Awareness Month is purple, I've decided to add purple into the mix for the rest of my October manis, and add a fact about domestic violence each time I post a purple polish. Today's fact: Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States, more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. Yet, even though domestic violence is so common, it gets far too little attention, and I plan to change that in whatever small way I can.


Today's purple is one I wore some time back and never posted, Pure Ice No Means No. It's a bright violet with blue/pink/purple shimmer, and while it's not quite a multichrome, I still love it. Pure Ice polishes have always had good application for me, as well as fairly good wear, and No Means No is no exception..This is two or three coats, I can't remember which:

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

Did you know about National Domestic Violence Awareness Month? I sure didn't.

Color Accent Mani

Polish Hoarder Disorder has a nail design contest (EDIT: challenge, not contest - silly me) every week, and I finally decided to participate this week. As it says in the challenge post, "This week's challenge is to create a grayscale nail design and include a pop of color!" After experimenting with several different designs, I came up with this:

I used Pure Ice Kiss Me Here for grey, Sally Girl white for white, Rimmel Black Satin for black, and China Glaze For Audrey for blue. I painted the black tips freehand, and used a toothpick to do the zig-zags.. I'm very happy with this - my right hand does not look as good, but it's okay. I definitely need to practice making designs with my left hand, though.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you've submitted anything to PHD's challenge!