St. Patrick's Day Nails: Matte Green & Layers of Gold

As a nod to my Irish heritage, I've got some green St. Patrick's Day nails today. But let's be honest - even if I weren't Irish, I'd be celebrating, right? That's how we do things in America. And on May 5th, we'll all be Mexican. #Freedom.

Here's how my nails are getting in on the holiday action:

The green is Balsam Fir by Revlon and the gold is a combo of Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro and Crystal Gold from Forever21's Love & Beauty line.

I used two coats of Big Spender on my ring and thumb nails and topped that with 2 coats of Crystal Gold, which is a fairly sparse yellow-gold glitter in a clear base. It would have been way cooler if it was more jam-packed with glitter, but you can't win them all! Do you have a favorite gold glitter that's pretty opaque? Give me the deets!

I used 2 coats of Balsam Fir on all my other nails and finished those nails off with a matte top coat. I topped the gold nails with Seche Vite, to make them really shine and contrast with the green.

I'll be doing a bit of St. Patty's celebrating tomorrow with my friends at some Irish pubs around town. I can't stand the taste of beer, so no Guinness for me, but there may very well be some Bailey's Irish Cream in my future.

There's also a slight chance that I'll check out the (in)famous Southie St. Patrick's Day parade on Sunday... though that may be biting off more than I can chew, since Southie is known for becoming pretty chaotic on parade day. We'll see!

What are you going to be up to this weekend?
Are you wearing any green on your nails to celebrate?

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{Linking with The Nail Files and Fab Favorites}

Chevrons: Round 2!

So I attempted a chevron trick on my nails last week and it was a demi-fail, but I wanted to redeem myself by trying again. The good news is that Chevrons: Round 2 was a success!

And there's no bad news! So that's cool, right? No one needs bad news the day after Thanksgiving. 

I was trying to choose which 3 colors to use for this chevron mani, and was having a tough time deciding. Trying to go for something autumnal, I grabbed my Revlon bottle of Raisin Rage, which is a shimmer-free, raisiny burgundy shade. That's when I said, "Oh day-um. There's a color scheme right there!"

See?

So I decided to use the Revlon bottle of polish as my inspiration, and gathered a gold and a black polish too:

I followed the exact same steps that I took last week, except this time I gave the base color (gold) more time to dry before applying the chevron nail decals. I also did some de-sticking of the decals before placing them on my nails - meaning that I first stuck the decal strip to the back of my hand a couple of times to remove some of the stickiness. This gave me a better chance of not ripping up my base color when I went to remove the decal from my nails.

The gold polish that I used - Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro - isn't the same "yellow-gold" as the gold on the bottle of Revlon polish, so it's a slightly different look. But I don't actually own any yellow-gold polishes - guess it's not my favorite color.

And speaking of Big Spender, I'm OBSESSED with the brush that comes with this polish.  It's like it was MADE for my fingernails. See here for diagrams and illustrations of exactly what I mean.

If you want to order some of your own chevron nail decals, I ordered mine from Inspired Nails. (Not an affiliate link... what do I look like? Some sort of professional??)

I am satisfied with how these came out, and they made a fine addition to my Thanksgiving outfit. 

What did you rock on your nails for the holiday? I'd love to see! And now that Thanksgiving is out of the way, we can officially move on to Christmasy nails without shame. I'ma deck the shit out of my halls nails. WHO IS WITH ME?

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{Linking up with The Nail Files and What I Learned Wednesday}

Golden Starfish Nails

This week my nail polish is once again inspired by an outfit - this time it's a dress! A few days ago a friend posted a Facebook picture of herself wearing >> this beautiful Reese dress << from Boston-based clothing designer Laurla. Here's the photo collage my friend Lauren posted:

.  cutie patootie  .

I think both dresses provide great inspiration for nail polish interpretations, but I decided to tackle the starfish dress first. I used Ruby Ruby by Sinful Colors (red), Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro (shimmery gold), and a holographic gold glitter polish by Color Club.

Step 1: Paint all your nails two coats of red polish and allow it to dry completely.

Step 2: Put a few drops of gold polish onto a piece of scrap paper and use a toothpick to dab the gold polish onto your nails in a curved star shape - which makes it look a bit more like a starfish and less like a regular star.

Optional Step 3: I also added a coat of the holographic gold glitter to the top of my thumbnails for some extra sparkle.

This was a fun and nautical look to try. As it turns out, the dress that Laurla makes is actually a burnt orange color and not a red at all, so... Joke's on me! It looks red in Lauren's pictures though, right??

What do you think of this look? Will you try rocking some golden starfish nails?

p.s. Lauren's own Demoiselle Jewelry inspired a past nail polish look here on my blog! Check out my Fancy Jewelry Nails.

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New Year's Eve Gettin' Buckwild, Throwing Confetti Nails

Do you own a black nail polish? Do you own a glittery nail polish? Do you have plans for getting totally crizunk for New Year's Eve next week and want to lewk kewler than err'body else? OH GEWD. I have just the nail polish look for you!

.  resolve this bitchessss  .

You can recreate this general kind of look with any of your glittery polishes that have a transparent or translucent base.

Start out with two coats of a jet-black nail polish. I used Black by Nina Ultra Pro, but it is becoming increasingly gloopy as of late, so I need to re-up and buy a new black polish. Probably the least exciting nail polish purchase I'll be making this decade. Stay tuned!

Side note here... Rocking two carefully applied coats of a black glossy polish actually looks much less gothic than I thought it would.

Once that dried, I went for my Lollipop nail polish from Urban Outfitters, which I wrote an entire blog about here. It's a multi-colored glittery polish with a very sheer lilac base, with both small and large chunks of glitter. I couldn't waaaaaait to see how it would look on top of an all-black base:

.  mmmmhmmm  .

Don't mind the busted pointer finger paint job. Just keepin' it real. I'll either patch it up with a dab of black paint and another coat of Lollipop... orrrr I will just peel off all of this paint from all of my nails in the next 5 - 7 hours. We'll see how it goes.

This look with Lollipop in particular reminds me of the confetti that gets thrown in the air at midnight on New Year's Eve, so I'm calling it Throwing Confetti. I really like the look of black with glitter on top of it, and can't wait to try it out with all of my other glitters too!

How does this make you feel inside? Do you have a favorite black nail polish? Is that a stupid question? Are you getting dressed up and buckwild for New Year's??

Even Mooore Holiday Nails: A Little Santa Suit

Here's a new holiday nail polish look to try out if you're feeling feisty and festive at the same time:

.  ho ho ho bitchessss  .

It's a tiny little Santa suit! Mind you, it's only tiny because I have itty bitty hands/fingernails... yours may be a taller, more slender Santa than mine.

Yesterday YouTuber cutepolish uploaded this adorbs nail polish design to her channel, Santa & Elf Suit Nails:

If you don't feel like watching the video (shame on you), she painted a red Santa suit on each of her ring fingers, and green elf suits on all her other nails. I had a feeling I should take it down a notch on my own nails, and not press my luck by trying to make 10 tiny suits. There's only so far I can realistically get without a bird pooping on my fingers, after all. So for my version, I stuck with just one Santa suit on each hand and left the rest green.

Recreating this is relatively easy, as you probably already noticed if you watched the cutepolish video. But here's the run down anyway - sorry it's not a step-by-step via picture!

1. Paint your ring fingers 2 coats of a red polish - I used A List by Essie.
2. Paint a vertical white line down the center of the nail, and then a horizontal white line across the tip of your nail. This is your little guy's fur trim, because he's fancy. I used Snow Me White by Sinful Colors.
3. Use a striper or a toothpick dipped in black polish (I used the latter) to paint on his black belt (hi-yah!).
4. Use a toothpick dipped in gold polish to make the square buckle in the center. Me fav gold polish is Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro.
5. Paint the rest of your nails 2 coats of a Christmassy green (I used Posh by Revlon).

And hooty hooo!!

:)

On that note, here are a few Christmas songs to wet your holiday and boy band whistles at the same time:

Fuck One Direction. Justin's cozy cashmere v-neck is all we really need for the holidays. Also this:

And this:

I hope I've put at least one of those songs into your head now. Enjoy that for the next day and a half!

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{Linking up with All Things Christmas}

More Holiday Nails: Christmas Lights

Here's another holiday nail polish look that I tried out the other day - Christmas lights strung across my fingernails!

It didn't come out perfectly, but since it was my first time trying it, I cut myself some slack! Also, this design served as the starter to two separate conversations with strangers the first time I went out of the house with it on my nails. Sooo... that's something.

I started out with two coats of white polish (Snow Me White by Sinful Colors) and topped it with one coat of a pearlescent glitter with a clear base (Don't You Wish by Pure Ice):

Next, I used a toothpick dipped into black polish (Black by Nina Ultra Pro - which incidentally does not have the same type of nail polish brush head as the Nina Ultra Pro polish I wrote about in my last nail polish blog. I felt that deserved noting) and drew a cord across my fingernails, trying my best to make it look like the cord was connected when I put my nails together:

The little black nubs on it are the sockets for the lightbulbs. KEEP READING.

Sewwww, next we add our lights!!! Now, in real life I am a classy bitch and use nothing but white lights in my holiday decorating. (#NEWOFFENSE tew yew if yew yewse multi-colored strands in yewr own crib, but I personally prefer the look of the all-white lights.) On my fingernails, though, I found it permissible - and certainly more festive - to go for the gusto and do multi-colored lights.

For these, I selected several of my sassiest and brightest colors - Pacific Blue by Sally Hansen (which is an awesome, awesome, awesome polish in both color and consistency), Ruby Ruby by Sinful Colors, Lightening by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, and Envy by Sinful Colors. Also pictured here in the middle is Black by Nina, which is a really black polish with a super clever name.

Making sure to wipe almost all of the polish off of the brush first (because the last thing you want is one of those surprise globs of polish dripping down onto your white nail while you're delicately dabbing), I went through and dabbed a different colored polish on each of the "sockets" I'd painted earlier:

.  ooooooh, ahhhhhh  .

And my nails were being sooo ridiculous and pushy about me taking a picture of them in front of the Christmas tree, so I finally just relented and snapped the G.D. thing, just to shut them up:

.  cheeeeeeeeeese  .

It was near-impossible to put a top coat onto this, because even a DAY later, the multi-colored polishes would streak across the white polish when I tried to apply a top coat. Oh well!

This look was fun to do and like I said, it received lots of compliments while I was out and about running errands. This polish job lasted just short of two days on my fingernails before this happened to it:

.  how anti-climactic  .

I dare you to try this on your own nails! DARE YOU.

Happy holllllllllla-days!

Gettin' Festive: Holiday Nails!

Since I'm not going home to Massachusetts this year for Christmas, I am really trying to make our home an acceptable place to spend the holiday season by decorating a bit. I've added a few decorative touches here and there around our apartment, and we put up our little Christmas tree last night (I'll post a blog with all of that good stuff soon) - but I obviously needed a way to celebrate the season on my fingernails as well, because that's what grown ups do.

After my enormous Argyle nail fail, I thought maybe I should take it a little easier in the nail designing department and stop trying to act like I am the Martha Stewart of nail polish. So rather than try to paint the Sistine Chapel on my nails or butcher any more bobby pins, I decided to just use some pretty, seasonal colors and use a toothpick to add some dots. Here's what I finished with - and I snapped a few pictures before I could ruin it:

Colors used:

.  a list by essie  .

.  ruby jewels by milani  .

.  big spender by nina  .

.  snow me white by sinful colors  .

Ruby Jewels by Milani is one of my favorite holiday time nail polishes. It's aptly named because it makes me think of Dorothy's ruby slippers when I look at it. It needs 2-3 coats at least though - otherwise it's pretty sheer. I only used 2 coats (it's on my pinky and pointer nails in the above pictures) and I wish I'd used a third to make it really opaque. See how sparkly it is though?! Milani is a very inexpensive brand for nail polishes, too, soooo..... get some. 

Also of note is that Nina's Ultra Pro nail polishes (or at least the one I have here) have awesome brushes for my particular nail shape. I have pretty short/square-shaped nails - as I've illustrated in the below diagram:

The Nina brush is also more short and square than a regular nail polish brush...

vs

... so I can paint my entire nail in just two strokes and I don't get any paint on my skin - which you may or may not have noticed is a real problem for me.

Using a toothpick for the white dots on my thumbnails and middle fingers was super easy, even with my non-dominant hand. Just put a little dollop of your nail polish on a piece of scrap paper and dip the tip of the toothpick in it, and then dot it onto your nails! Pretty self-explanatory I suppose, but I JUST DON'T WANT YOU TO BE FRIGHTENED. IT'S REALLY SUPER EASY. 

I put a top coat on all of my nails before I put the white dots on, and did not cover the white dots in a top coat at all - only because I was afraid the white paint wouldn't be totally dry and I'd end up streaking the dots all over the red nails. 

Stay tuned for probably one or two more holiday nail blogs, as wellllll as my blog about making our home Christmas cheery.

CHEERS!