Day 7: Black & White

Hello there! Today's theme was black and white, and once again, there were so many possibilities. Eventually, however, I decided to do something easy, and something easy ended up being a nail art technique that I don't think anyone has done before; at least, I've never seen it anywhere else. Can you guess what I did?

indoors, flash

Any guesses? Okay, I'll spill. I used the very sophisticated technique of...straws. I used a white base, then painted a bit of black polish on an index card, dipped the end of the straw in, and dabbed it on my nail (lather, rinse, repeat) to create a sort of abstract circles pattern. They're not perfect circles, but to me, that's not the point - and it's very easy to do. The streakiness is due to my impatience and the fact that I had to go to class, so sorry about that, and the flash is due to the fact that it gets dark outside really freaking early now, and my dorm lighting sucks. So, again, sorry. Hope all your Mondays went reasonably well!

Day 5: Blue - Wet 'n' Wild Believe Me, It's Real

Sorry for the late post today! I've been working almost all day, so I didn't get around to writing a post until now. I had a hard time choosing a nail polish for today - I was waffling for quite a while between this and China Glaze First Mate, which I still haven't tried for some reason. In the end, I decided on Believe Me, It's Real because, well...glitter. :P In case you didn't know, Believe Me, It's Real is from the most recent Wet 'n' Wild Coloricon collection, which is composed of amazing (and cheap) glitters. It's a clear-based polish with fine blue glitter and medium round purple glitter. Here, I used one thick coat over a coat of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme.

 direct sunlight

natural light

For some reason, I couldn't really capture the vividness of this polish, no matter how hard I tried. The purple is more reddish than it looks in my photos, and the blue is more vivid and bright. I played around with the white balance, lighting, and saturation until I was starting to go a bit nuts about it, but no dice. Makeup Withdrawal's post on the collection is more color-accurate on this one. It's a lovely polish, though, and I hope Wet 'n' Wild continues to come out with collections as fantastic as this one.

Splatter on Black

I was originally going to do a water marble with these colors, but for some reason it just wasn't working for me. Instead, I decided to go for an easier option: the splatter mani. I used a base of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme with OPI A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find, Nina Ultra Pro Salsa, OPI Jade is the New Black, and Color Club Overboard.

direct sunlight

indirect sunlight

At first, I wasn't too happy with this, but it definitely started growing on me after I put top coat on. Unfortunately, it's chipped now, so I'll have to take it off soon. I'm not sure when that's going to happen, though, as one of my best friends, Francis, is visiting this weekend. This is Francis:

I really like how the focus turned out in the first picture, even though it was completely accidental. Anyway, that's about all I have to say now...have a great weekend!

SLU Spirit Splatter

I'm at college now! I can hardly believe it yet...maybe it'll sink in soon. Probably when I get my first homework assignment. Anyway, I wanted to show you all the manicure I did for the spirit competition we had at the soccer game Saturday night. It has, sadly, chipped by now (college life is so far bad for my polish's staying power), but I enjoyed the design so much I wanted to share it anyway. Since SLU's colors are blue and white, I decided to do a splatter manicure with Revlon Royal (best blue ever, by the way) and Wet 'n' Wild White Creme.

sunlight

I only have one picture because I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get good lighting - the desk lamp I'm using isn't the best for nail pictures, though it works fine for normal uses, so I took this picture out the window. Maybe once I feel more at home, I won't feel like a loony if I wander around outside taking pictures of my hand. ;)

If you don't know how to do the splatter technique or have simply never tried it, I encourage you to find a tutorial. I find it quite easy compared to water marbling, so it's a good place to start, especially as all you'll need besides nail polish are a few household objects. Especially for a college student like myself, it's nice when you don't have to buy anything extra to do some cool nail art. 

I had better post this and log off now, as I have Arabic at 1:10, and I don't want to be late on the first day! Hopefully I'll have time to post again soon.

Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters

Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters is one of the now many polishes that are copies of Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday. It's very festive and a great topper, but today I have some pictures of it by itself. I used one coat without top coat, and while I only wore this for a day, I rather enjoyed it. Do excuse my yellowed nails, though...they're part of the reason I only wore this for one day.

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

I did take a picture indoors, but I'm not going to post it - partly because it adds nothing you can't see in the other pictures, and partly because it makes my nails look even more stained. Yeah, whatever. Anyway...as you can see, Party of Five Glitters is made up for multicolored large hex and small round glitter. There are some differences in color between the two - Happy Birthday has gold hex glitter, while PoFG only has small round gold glitter, and PoFG doesn't have the small round silver glitter that Happy Birthday does. However, the biggest difference for me is that Happy Birthday's small glitter is square, not round like all of the drugstore polishes that imitate it. In this case, that's a big enough difference that I still want Happy Birthday. I did win an Apothica gift card in a giveaway, though, so that's probably what I'll spend it on when I get it...until then!

Happy New Year!

Okay, so it's not 2011 where I live yet - it's only about 8:42 P.M. But still. For my New Year's Eve manicure, I covered Revlon Royal and $OPI Flurry Up, which I had on yesterday, with one coat of OPI Simmer & Shimmer and two or three coats (I can't remember which) of Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope, a silver glitter top coat with scattered holo. Hey, I said it was going to be a lot of glitter! Since Simmer & Shimmer isn't really meant to be used as a top coat, it covered up most of Royal, especially I added Kaleidoscope on top. The nice thing is that there's still enough blue showing that it gives it a sort of interesting look, at least in my opinion. I couldn't capture the holo, which is too bad, but definitely, definitely click to enlarge on these. Apologies for the bits of glitter on my fingers.

indoors, with flash

indoors, with flash

I'm really, really happy with the way this turned out. In fact, if I hadn't already posted my favorite manicures of the year, this would be on it. It's really glitzy, but the multicolored glitter and holo (even though you can't see the holo in the pictures) keeps it from being boring. I'm thinking I'll definitely have to try variations of this with the other Burlesque glitters I have. 

I'm not sure if I'll post on here tomorrow or not. It depends on whether or not my glitter chips and I have to redo my nails. I'll be on Sunday, at any rate. Hope your 2011 is off to a good start (or will be soon)!

Countdown to 2011

Okay, so I'm officially starting the New Year's/New Year's Eve manis, which means there will be lots of sparkle and shine in the next few days.

indoors, artificial light

As you can tell, I'm still getting the hang of my new camera. My hands are NOT that red. Eurgh. However, the nail polish color is quite accurate! I used two coats of China Glaze Midnight Mission, two coats of NYC White Lights Glitter, and one coat of Wet 'n' Wild Kaleidoscope. Very glitzy! It looks much more glittery and sparkly in real life than it does in my photos...again, still experimenting with the new camera (and who knows how much longer I'll be using that excuse, haha). Aside from being good for NYE, it's a nice winter mani - probably the most seasonal thing I've done since my snowglobe mani, which I'm still in love with. Funnily enough, that one involved Kaleidoscope as well.

Anyway, I'm rambling, which probably means it's time to go. I think I need a nap. :) Hope you're all having a great week!

Snowglobe

I'm baaack! I was much busier than I thought I would be, so I didn't have time to redo my nails while I was gone, but fortunately they didn't chip until today.

I intended this manicure to be somewhat wintry, but I didn't think it looked exactly like snow, and I couldn't figure out exactly what it did look like until someone said to me, "I love your nails! They make me think of a snowglobe." Of course! Why hadn't I thought of that? Anyway, this is one thickish coat of Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope over BB Couture Hangover Blues.

indoors, artificial light

Since I didn't change my manicure while I was gone, I don't have any other nail pictures for you, but I do have a few pictures of things in the room I stayed in, which was in an old house. Our room had a fireplace with very nice tile around it, as well as an old grate shaped like a griffin/peacock/mythical bird. I took these pictures on my phone, so they're not the best quality, but they're okay.

fireplace

the base of the shade

the tile

the inside of the fireplace

I also edited some photos using a couple apps...I can't remember which ones now.

a bit of the bedspread

the wardrobe

I hope you find this as interesting as I do... :) Happy Saturday!