The Lacquer Legion: Reinvention

Today's post is my contribution to the very first posting of The Lacquer Legion!  The Lacquer Legion is a new monthly nail art challenge group hosted by Sarah, Rebecca, Leslie, and Sammy, and everyone can participate!  You can read more into detail in Sarah's post here. 

This month's theme is reinvention - to be interpreted in any way.  I was a little pressed for time and ideas but still wanted to participate, so I reinvented my second most popular nail art ever (but probably my favourite,) the half-moon gradient.  You can see my original post here. 

For those of you who are curious, my most popular post ever is my reciprocal gradient nail art, which has since spread across the internet and been re-created so many times!  

I chose to reinvent this look simply by changing up the colours to a combination I wish I'd tried ages ago, because I love it!  I started with two perfect coats of LaCC 1966, and a coat of LaCC 2013 top coat to speed things up.  Once that was all dry, I used hole reinforcers to mark off my half-moons, then sponged a gradient with 1966 and piCture pOlish Honey Dew.  It's all topped off with two coats of Seche Vite to smooth everything out.  

I'm so in love with how this turned out; I can't believe I waited over a year to re-create this look!!  I honestly can't decide if I like this or the original colour palette better... What do you think?  :)  

If you take part in this month's The Lacquer Legion challenge, remember to post to social media with the hashtag #LLreinvention  :)  I'll be sure to check out everyone's manis!

LaCC Fall/Winter 2013 Nail Art: Leopard & Half-Moons

Good morning!  Today I've got yet another nail art look to share that features a few polishes from the LaCC Fall/Winter 2013 Collection.  

This look actually uses the exact same four polishes as the striped nail art I shared the other day... I can't help it, these colours just go together so well! 

My double-accent leopard print nails started with a base of 1988 (taupe).  The salmon-coloured centers were dotted on with 1981, and then outlined in 1998 (dark brown).  The half-moon nails are two coats of 1941 (red) followed by freehanded half-moons in 1981 (salmon-nude).  All nails are topped off with two coats of LaCC 2013 top coat. 

All of these polishes are part of the LaCC Fall/Winter 2013 Collection, which is now available to purchase through the LaCC website, as well as through many online retailers and stores which are listed here.

I really like how this nail art came together - the combination of neutral leopard print and half-moons had such a classy look to it!!  What do you think?  :)

Half-Moon Gradient

Good morning!  It's been a couple days since I've posted, but I was really enjoying my last mani and ended up wearing it for 3 days!  (Yes, that's a long time for me!)  Since I'm one of the few bloggers who actually posts what is currently on my nails, I had to take a short break from blogging while I enjoyed wearing my leopard-print nails.  

Anywho,  today I've got a half-moon gradient that I've seen floating around quite a bit.  The main reason I tried this was because I have an audition on Sunday, but I have a social event to go to immediately afterwards and was looking for something that I could do in french manicure colours while being more interesting than a plain french tip.  I gave it a trial run in these colours to see if I liked the look, and it turns out I LOVE it!  

I began with a base of two coats of Orly Plum Noir, and a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying.  I then used hole-reinforcers to block off the half-moon shape, and sponged on a gradient of Plum Noir and Nails Inc. Power Pink, followed by a second coat of gradient with Plum Noir and Revlon Raspberry Scone.  Two coats of Seche Vite to smooth it all out.  

As I've already made clear, I absolutely love this; I keep looking at my nails and thinking that I should be seeing them on a model in a magazine or something!  I think that this is such a chic, modern and edgy look that would look great in so many different colour combinations, (dark red and gold for Christmas?), and it wasn't difficult at all!  Needless to say, I'll definitely be repeating this design on Sunday in french mani colours, so keep an eye out for that post early next week!

What do you think of this look?  Do you like my colour choices?  Are there any specific colours that you think would work great for this?  :)

Peter Pan Collars

Hello :) I hope you're all having a good day.  I got really excited this morning when I went to check the mail and there were THREE packages; I thought it was all the overdue nail mail I've been expecting!! Needless to say I was extremely disappointed when it turns out there were two packages of junk mail for my grandpa ("I don't know why they keep sending me this stuff!?!") and my sister's order from Etsy which is probably some Harry-Potter-related piece of clothing.   

Anywho, here's the nails I've been wearing the past two days.  I took photos after I did them, but the lighting was god-awful, so I re-did a few of them this morning.  Please excuse the two-day wear.  

I did this mani following this tutorial from The Beauty Department.  Black is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, white and yellow are acrylic paint.  Two coats of Seche Vite, as usual.  The first time I did this was actually before I started blogging and was only posting my pictures to Instagram (@emmaclarem).  That picture is at the bottom of the post... proceed with caution. 

Here we go...

Yea... those were my nails before I started blogging.  Not even gonna make that photo the same size as the others.  Ew.  Sorry you had to see that :P

Also, I did my mom's nails the other day.  I never really do anybody else's nails because they usually don't turn out as good, but I thought of this and had to try it right away, and my sister's nails were already painted. This is a gradient with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac and Zoya Savita, topped with scattered holo-ish microglitter from an unnamed brand.  Pretty, right? 

You may have noticed that I've added a Born Pretty Store coupon in my sidebar; I've got some stuff coming up with their products, so feel free to use the coupon code for 7% off your order!

And don't forget to enter my 100 Follower Giveaway! :)