Floral Nail Art Tutorial

Happy Hump Day! I promised a few weeks ago in my birthday manicure that this would be coming and it's finally here!

I wanted to make this a color-themed floral manicure, so I went with my favorite color of all: purple! Although, I did mix in a little pink and green for accents and highlights. But it's mostly purple. And all OPI.

The colors that I used: OPI You're Such a Budapest (base), OPI Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs, OPI Gift Cards for Everyone, OPI Skip the Gift Wrap, OPI Strawberry Margarita, and OPI Alpine Snow.

I have a few tips for color selection:

Maroon 5 Sequin Nails

Happy Saturday, everyone! Thank goodness it's the weekend, right?

Tonight, I'm heading to see Maroon 5 in concert for the 56th time and of course, needed to rock some awesome nails. I've actually be wearing these since Thursday because they doubled as Valentine's Day Nails. The lead guitarist's name is James VALENTINE, so they were twice as appropriate for this reason.

For those of you following me on Facebook, you may have read about my disappointing incident regarding Macy's Herald Square and the Adam Levine appearance to celebrate the launch of his 222 Fragrance. To put it simply, I was given bad information when I called the store after the appearance was announced, relied on it, and was unable to get a pass as a result. And, considering I had spent 2+ hours on these nails, plus got up extra early and traveled into NYC on a non-school day, I was more than a little upset.

But the good news is I'll still be heading into Madison Square Garden tonight to see the band play, along with Neon Trees. I'm disregarding the fact that I'll have to suffer through Owlcity for the fifth time. Oh, they are AWFUL live. Rule of thumb: If you need a wind machine and you're a solo artist, there's a problem.

Anyway, this was my second attempt at a sequin manicure. I used hexagonal glitter I bought at Michael's for $10 with a coupon. The set has twelve different colors, but I only used the red, black, and silver.

I painted on coat of Rimmel Black Satin on each nail (two coats on the ring finger). Then I applied top coat in small sections of each nail as I went to make sure it didn't dry before I could stick on a sequin. I trimmed down some pieces of glitter to fit them to the tip and applied a coat of Seche Vite to the whole nail as soon as I stuck on the last piece. Doing the Maroon 5 logo on the ring fingers was the easiest part!

In order to pick up the sequins, I let a drop of top coat on a paper plate dry until it was tacky, pressed the tiniest dotting end I had against it, and used that to pick up/place sequins. Oh, it was a pain!

In the end, I was really happy with how it came out. It was tedious as heck to alternate the red, black, and silver like I did. It needed about four coats of Seche Vite in order to smooth it out to the point where it wasn't snagging on everything I own. Consequently, I had a bit of an issue with bubbles in the top coat, but it isn't noticeable outside of macro shot.

I love how crazy sparkly this is. And the colors are that vivid in real life. It's starting to fade a little now because the top coat seems to eat away at the seal on the sequins, so this won't last much longer than a few days.

I can't imagine doing two full hands again, unless I was guaranteed the chance to meet Adam down the road. But I could easily see myself using this technique for an accent nail!

How about you all? Would you attempt this yourself? Did this manicure "rock" your world?

I promise I'll share some pics on here tomorrow. Be sure to follow my Instagram for all of the photos I take at the concert tonight!

Valentine's Day Lace Nail Art & Tutorial

Hi, everyone! Today, I'm starting my four-part series of Valentine's Day nail art! I'm going to try and bring you some manicures that are fun and funky, along with classic and sweet. For the most part, you'll be able to do all of them at home!

Monday's manicure theme is lace!

This look was accomplished using two coats of OPI You Only Live Twice and and OPI Skull and Glossbones. But obviously, you can replicate this using any shades you like and two different sized dotting tools! (Or a toothpick and a bobby pin. Seriously, that will work too! It's what I used before I knew what dotting tools were.)

This is really easy to replicate!

Step 1: Paint your base color until opaque, as you normally would.

Step 2: Using your second color, paint a French tip. It doesn't have to be perfectly even because you're going to be covering it up anyway!

Step 3: Take your larger dotting tool and dip it in the second color. Make dots along the outline of the French tip, with the top 1/3 of the dot overlapping the tip.

Step 4: Take the smaller dotting tool and dip it in your base color. Place a dot in the center of each of the large dots.

Step 5: Let it dry for about fifteen minutes before applying top coat to avoid dragging.

Step 6: Go rock it and look fabulous!

So what do you all think? Is this something you'd try on your own?

Until tomorrow!

Swatch and Review: The New Black Week Day 6 - Typography Manicure

Good morning to you all! Thanks for sticking by me during my sick day yesterday. I still feel a little blah, but at least it's minus the pounding migraine.

Today, I have for you the last set of The New Black for the week. It's more of a nail art set, unlike anything else I have tested out this week, and is called the Times Late Edition set.

Newspaper manicures have become all the rage in the world of nail polish. It's pretty easy and relatively anyone can do it. Unfortunately, there are a few problems.

1) You need to use nail polish remover to do it, leaving an unpleasant smell on your hands or drying out cuticles.

2) The newsprint is from an article of your choosing, but there are bound to be words and phrases you don't want on your nails.

3) Most importantly, THE PRINT IS BACKWARDS! The only way to read your nails is with a mirror!

The typography set, which includes a transfer solution and topcoat, solves this. It includes custom sheets of newsprint with phrases like faith, peace, and believe, printed mirror image style so it comes out readable on your nails. And trust me, if you mess up a few times like I did, it's okay. There are enough sheets in there for at least 40 manicures. I swear.

It also comes with a putty-colored gray that makes your nails look just like a newspaper. I wanted to keep the AWESOME fire gradient from the Runway collection and figured this would be a good opportunity to test out the set on other shades.

It's very simple to do. You cut the print the size of your nail, apply transfer solution all over the nail (don't be stingy with it), place the print on the nail, and apply pressure with a cotton ball so that the print saturates. Thirty seconds later, you're done!

As you can see, the end result was decent. I think with a few more manicures of practice, I could get it perfect. My only issue with the set was that it seemed like I could never get enough transfer solution on my nail to make the full rectangle appear saturated so that the print was dark enough to be visible. I tried to apply the solution over the square when I noticed this, but that was more hurtful than helpful. The harder I pushed with the cotton ball, the more the liquid spread over the paper, so perhaps this takes more practice.

Believe me, I'm going to try this again to get it right because the idea is super smart. That being said, it actually faded with the gradient, so it looked somewhat intentional. Just be sure not to move the print once it's on your nail, as you will wind up with smudged text like on my index finger.

Overall, I think this set has a lot of potential. It just takes a little time to get the hang of.

*SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT*: Be sure to come back to Princess Polish tomorrow, when I'll be giving away a special prize from The New Black. I'm not going to tell you what it is until then, BUT I will say that you should probably go ahead and like TNB's Facebook page to get an early start!

All of The New Black sets are available at Sephora, Nordstrom, and Beauty.com. However, this collection is currently exclusive to Beauty.com. All of the sets, like Graffiti, Haze, Waves, and Runway include five 0.125 fl oz. bottles of polish. Polishes by TNB are 3-free, cruelty-free, and vegan friendly! The sets range from $10 to $32, with the Runway Collection retailing for $32.

Remember to check back in because the fun continues tomorrow with a freebie!
Princess Polish

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information please visit my Disclaimer page. Product photos provided by The New Black.

Gradient Tutorial

I have been dying to try a gradient for as long as I can remember. So as a reward for sitting through my three hour LSAT class, I decided to sit down to watch Project Runway and break out the nail polish. And I couldn't believe how easy it turned out to be, using just nail polish and a makeup sponge.



(From left to right: China Glaze Blue Iguana, Wet and Wild Sapphire Blue, Zoya Ibiza, Rimmel Midnight Blue, and Sally Hansen Black Diamond)

Here are the five polishes that I used. You can use less, or even more if you're ambitious, but it's up to you. These shades aren't mandatory at all, go with what you have. I found that these were a nice gradient of blue and even though Blue Iguana was substantially lighter than Sapphire Blue, I think it really made the manicure pop in the end. So take that under consideration.

Also, if you're thinking about using a black with some sparkle like I did, use one that is a true black that's not grainy. Black Diamond looks okay on the tips, but being nitpicky, I didn't really love the grainy look and feel of it in the end. It doesn't blend as well as another black. You may be better off using a black satin color and then adding a hint of glitter with a top coat at the end. But it's totally up to you!

Are you ready to become a gradient pro? Well, let's get started!

1) Tape your fingers. I can't tell you how much easier this would have made my life, considering how hard it is to get blue nail polish off without staining your skin. One pieces on each side of the nail and right below would make your manicure much cleaner looking. Take my word for it.



2) Apply two coats of your lightest blue.



3) Using your second blue, swipe a line of polish across the WHOLE tip of your makeup sponge and dab it twice on a nonporous surface (in my case, a paper bowl) to prevent uneven sponging.

IMPORTANT: Wait until your base polish is only slightly sticky to the touch before you start the sponging process or you'll create goopy bumps that will ruin your hard work. I promise, the extra wait is worth it.



4) Starting at the tip of the nail and using the whole width of the sponge so it curves around your nail, lightly dab the sponge down your nail, leaving a small amount of your base color at the bottom.




If you notice that the polish did not sponge well to the sides of your nail, repeat the sponging process using the corner of the sponge on those bare areas.

5) Repeat steps 4 and 5 for as many colors as you desire, EXCEPT your last color, lessening the length of the sponged area as you go.

Here is how the sponging looked after Zoya Ibiza and Rimmel Midnight Blue:






6) For your last color, apply the polish to the sponge as your did for the others. When you dab this time, do so until you barely see any polish on the plate/bowl. This will make the color much sheerer on the nail, but will look like a more even blend. This may require more than one repeat of sponging until you get a true dark tip (in my case, black), but it will look blended instead of just a painted tip.



Don't worry that your nails look spongy, that will be solved in the next step.

7) Now, remove your tape and apply a top coat! I use Seche Vite because I find it creates the smoothest surface, especially when using grainy glitter or sponging. Plus, it's dry time cannot be beat.

Here is the end product, with a little nail art flower:



Happy sponging!