Cute explosion - Japanese style nails

Cute explosion - Japanese style nails

Dark pink - Nubar Pink Crème

Light pink - Nivea Turbo Rosa

Black - Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme

Classic French manicure & floral nail art stickers

 Classic French manicure & floral nail art stickers

I decided to do a French manicure for a change. The base for this one was three coats of Sally Hansen Royal Icing, after which I then freehanded the tips with a white striper, following with one more coat of Royal Icing, the floral stickers and the top coat of my choice, which is always the red SH Insta-Dri.

Cherry blossom nail art

Cherry blossom nail art

The colours I used:
- Nude base - Ruby Kisses Cream White
- Pinks - Nubar Pink Crème & Revlon Grapefruit Fizz
- Turquoises - Model's Own Top Turquoise & Barry M Aqua Blue
- The branches were painted with Nubar black striper & Nubar Swiss Chocolate
- Topped with Orly Love Each Other

Original idea shamelessly stolen from HERE. :P The bottom picture is the most colour accurate of the bunch.

Bloody Halloween nails!

Bloody nail art for Halloween!

My nails haven't been this long since November '09, but it's only because I still haven't found the time nor the energy to file them down to my preferred '2/3 of nail bed and 1/3 of free edge' length. But hey, they're the perfect length for some creepy Halloween themed nail art! The base colour is a nude creme franken of mine and for the dripping blood I used several different polishes including Maybelline Berry Water, an ancient L'Oréal Bordeaux Noir and China Glaze Stroll. I didn't use a special fine brush here, just the polishes' own brushes.

GOSH Milky Way, OPI Passion & funky French w/ nail art stickers

 GOSH Milky Way & OPI Passion, 2 + 1 coats & funky French w/ nail art stickers

I didn't take a picture of Milky Way - a neutral light beige with a strong pink flash - on its own, but it was quite streaky after two coats so I put a single coat of OPI Passion - a nude jellyish creme - over it. What I got was a pretty subdued pink colour that looked lovely against my pale yellowish skin. :) I could still see where the free edge starts on all my nails and thus decided to do yet another untraditional French mani. I drew the smile lines with a black striper brush and filled them in with Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème, slapped on some floral stickers and added a little extra bling with a silver glitter striper.

 GOSH Milky Way & OPI Passion, 2 + 1 coats & funky French w/ nail art stickers

I felt that the daisy stickers I used on my left hand were a tad too big, so on my right hand I switched to smaller rose decals. In retrospective, I think that I should have painted a tiny white leaf or two next to each rose.

OPI Coney Island Cotton Candy vs. Sinful Colors Subdued

OPI - Coney Island Cotton Candy (index, ring) & Sinful Colors - Subdued (middle, pinkie), 4 + 2 coats

Perhaps a slightly dull comparison of nudes, but hey. Coney Island Cotton Candy and Subdued look relatively similar in the bottle, but on the nail CICC is much more yellow and Subdued definitely appears to be very pink. The Sinful Color is a nice self-leveling creme but it's way too pink to be a perfect match for my skintone. I guess the OPI can be classified as a jelly and as such takes tons of coats to be even remotedly opaque - I did four coats and you can still see my VNL. I think there are two versions of this one floating around - mine is from the newer batch.