Pastel Nails: Sky Blue & Yellow Polka Dots

Deja vuuuuuuu! Like last week, my nails today were inspired by a picture posted by Design Love Fest - this time of the Vivetta collection for A/W 2014.

Easter is in the air (and on the TV commercials, and on the store shelves, and in my mailbox on all those annoying drugstore flyers), and so are pastels! When I saw this beautiful pastel blue fabric with the cheerful pastel yellow polka dots, I knew it needed to be on my nails. The particularly savvy blog reader may have even noticed me pin this image onto my Nail Polish Pinterest board last week!

.  pic via vogue via designlovefest  .

I grabbed two pastel polishes for this look - a not-yet-used light blue polish with pearlescent glitter from Forever21 called Sky Blue, and the dreaded Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow polish I picked up last spring. For some #blurgh reason, Sky Blue photographs somewhat greener/yellower than it really is. In real life it is a soft blue color, I promise. In fact, even Mellow Yellow looks like a bright yellow in these photos... it's definitely a soft, pastel yellow. Dammit. I need better lighting.

The glitter in Sky Blue is sparse, but it looks pretty in the bottle. This bottle of polish reminds me of Cinderella.

Pastels are notoriously streaky on their first coat (and sometimes even their second, third, and fourth coats), so I did one thin-to-medium first coat of Sky Blue on all my nails and let it dry really well before applying a second coat.

Then I just dotted on the Mellow Yellow with my dotting tool. 

When dotting with a pastel nail polish color, I recommend using only about 1-2 drops of polish at a time on your scrap paper, and only trying to do one nail per "puddle." That means you'll need about 1-2 fresh drops of polish for each nail that you dot. You may even need two puddles per nail, if your nails are long enough! Pastels are just so goopy and dry quickly - and the last thing you want is tacky polish when trying to make perfect polka dots on your nails.

I got a haircut last night, as you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter. The cut itself is actually just totally straight - one length. It's not what I planned on doing originally, but it was based on the great consultation I had with my hair stylist, James, at the beginning of my appointment. Ultimately he cut off about 4"-5" and my hair a) is still pretty freaking long, and b) feels AMAZING. I'd gone so long without a haircut that it's crazy to remember how refreshing it really is!

Do you guys have anything good going on this weekend?
How long do you go between haircuts usually?
What are you rocking on your nails today?

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{Linking up with The Nail Files, Friday's Fab Favorites}

Nails Inspired By... A Rug??

Yupppp, today's nails are inspired by an Instagram photo from DesignLoveFest of a polka dot rug!

Not just the rug itself, but the colors of her shoes and jeans against the black and white polka dot rug... It made me wanna do this:

Here's the original Instagram post by DesignLoveFest, in case you lazily didn't click the link at the beginning of this blog!

For polishes I used (left to right):

• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Fuchsia Power
• Orly - Preamp
• Ruby Kisses - Blue Pearl
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Revlon - Stiletto

I did tons of swatching to decide which colors to use for the blue and pink in these nails. In the end, I ended up layering two different polishes for each.

I bought the Fuchsia Power polish recently, thinking (foolishly) that it would be the perfect pink color for this mani. It was definitely not. The better choice to make would definitely have been Sally Hansen's Insta Dri in the color Flashy Fuschia, but for some reason I decided not to buy that one, so here we are - mixing 'n matching polishes like we're some kind of effing Bob Ross.  Perhaps you saw my swatch-a-thon on Instagram.

What I decided upon for the pink nail was a coat of Fuchsia Power followed by a coat of Preamp. (I did a whole post about Preamp here.) For the blue nail, I did a coat of Blue It topped by a coat of Blue Pearl.

Look how sparkly Preamp is when I use the flash:

.  whoooooa  .

Nothing fancy planned for me this weekend. If I can manage to get a haircut, it'll be a solid victory. I'm soooo overdue! It would also be nice to go for a hike - I haven't been into the mountains in a month or two.

What are you rocking on your nails today?
Have you picked up any new polishes yet?
Let me know what your weekend plans are!

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{Linking up with Friday's Fab Favorites, Beauty Buzz, and The Nail Files}