Easy Aqua Spots Dotticure

God knows how my mind travels to the places that it does, but after typing the title of this blog post, my brain jumped to the Snorks.

... so that's just a small glimpse into the random-childhood-pop-culture-references-attuned mass that is my brain. I hope that was exciting for you. Moving on!

My nails today were inspired by an Instagrammer who I just started following yesterday - Cute.Passion. The dotted nails she did here made me want to do something similar in my own color scheme. HENCE, DEEZ:

The light blue is Dreamer by Revlon, and the turquoise is Bailamos by Orly. I used two coats of each, and added the dual-sized dots using my double-ended dotting tool.

Last night I went to my first real yoga class! The only other time I've taken a yoga class was about 5 years ago when I lived on Cape Cod, but it was a "restore & renew" yoga class that focused primarily on breathing and stretching. I didn't even break a sweat, which is why I don't really consider it as a having been a true "first yoga class" experience.

The class I went to last night was a special Vinyasa Yoga class being held at the House of Blues in Boston, and it was the kind of physical yoga that I'd really been interested in trying. I had no idea what I was doing, but luckily you can kind of pick up the moves just by watching everyone else. My friend Kara came too, and we both really enjoyed it. There were about 15-20 people in the dimly-lit room, and the teacher was awesome. That kind of yoga could really be right up my alley!

At some point this weekend I'm going to drive west to Pittsfield to visit with my family for the Easter holiday. We're not religious, but if I can catch my niece and nephew participating in some sort of an Easter egg hunt, then my mission will be complete. Experiences like that are things that I've been missing, having been living away and out of the state for the last several years.

Are you doing anything with your family for Easter or Passover this weekend?
Anyone else trying out yoga for the first time?
What are yooooou rockin' on your nailseses?!

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A "Mreh"-nicure & Some Cool News

The mediocre mani you'll see below was four G.D. attempts in the making.

FOUR OF EM.

Each time was with different polishes, but they all just kept turning out like straight garbage. Whether it was a wretched polish formula or an inadequately opaque glitter, nothing was pleasing me. When I finally landed on this combo of a galaxy-esque polish and accents of silver glitter, I was ready to leave it on whether it was fabulous or not. Spoiler alert (from the first sentence of this blog): It wasn't extremely fabulous, but it's fine. It's FINE. UGH.

The blueish-purpleish-holographickish polish is Mysterious Curse from Orly, and I haven't featured it on my blog since waaaaaaaaaay back in October 2012 when it was on my list of favorite Fall nail polishes.

.  WHY do my hands look like they are full of jaundice and sans any circulation?!  .

On my ring finger and thumb nail I did two coats of Pure Ice Beware (an old favorite of mine that also hasn't been featured here in awhile), topped with one coat of Platinum Adorn (a glitter with silver hexes and fine silver bars from Maybelline's Color Show Jewels line).

I hadn't used Beware in quite awhile, even though it used to be on pretty heavy rotation on my nails. Here are some other ways I've used it:

• Bailamos, Silver Glitter and Polka Dots
• Mixed Metals Mani
• I Painted My Sister's Nails
• Orchid Lollipop Nails
• Pink Leopard Print Nails
• Pinterest Inspired Silvery Nails
• Starry Night New Year's Eve Nails
• Silver Leopard Nails
• Black & Silver Chevron Nails

Not much else to say about these nails - they're just mreh for me, personally. I wish some of the other polishes I'd tried first had worked out because their color combinations would have been much more interesting than this.

On a brighter note, to make up for the ridiculousness of my multiple nail failures, the universe ushered into my life two exciting positives yesterday:

1. I finally ditched the non-smartphone Samsung Brightside I'd been using for the last 2+ years and replaced it with my first-ever iPhone! It's an iPhone 5S, and owning it is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. On the one hand... Data. Internet. Apps. On the other hand... the dreaded screen shatter. Don't think for one second that I haven't noticed all of my friends' iPhones screens break into a million pieces, Apple. I immediately purchased an Otter Box to go with mine. Wish me luck!

2. .... And this one's a biggie...... I bought a plane ticket to Panama for April! YEAH, PANAMA THE COUNTRY. NOT THE CITY IN FLORIDA. A few months ago, my cousin Catherine mentioned to me that she was planning a trip to Panama during her April vacation from school (she is a high school Italian teacher), to which I promptly responded, "I am coming with you." And I meant it.

Besides Canada, I've never traveled to another country before, which is why it's such a huge deal to me. Traveling to exciting places has always seemed way out of my league... but it isn't, in reality. In reality, I have the means to do it and the time to take off from work... and those are two of the most important obstacles to clear if one wants to travel. And I do want to travel. Real bad.

So pats on the back for me. Here, here. Whoop, whoop. :)

And speaking of pats... DOSE PATRIOTS DOE! Big football game on Sunday - pretty much the highlight of my upcoming weekend so far.

What are you up to this weekend?
Any big trips planned for your 2015?
Whatcha rockin' on your nails?

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Bailamos con Polka Dots

I hope that you've already let the rhythm take you over since reading the title of this blog. I know I have.

... Sorry, I'm sure there's an Enrique reference in every single post I've done that includes this turquoise nail polish haha. Forgive me.

This mani uses Bailamos by ORLY (2 coats for opacity) on all fingers except my ring. For an accent nail I used one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White topped with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Clearly Spotted.

I'm a big fan of Clearly Spotted over a white base. It makes me think of cookies 'n cream every time it catches my eye. Nom.

Bailamos was one of the bottles that took a pretty direct hit in the Great Nail Polish Moving Failure of 2014, so it is now sporting a solid amount of "Sweet Pea" by Bath and Body Works...

Last night I went out for sushi in Medford at Sei Bar with my friends Steph and Kara. I had some scrumptious rolls - the Medford Maki with grilled salmon, avocado, and cucumber, topped with tempura crumbs, crab meat and spicy mayo; and a Beef Terikaki Maki. I'm usually drawn to the crunchy rolls with spicy mayo - how about you guys?

I have no plans this weekend other than maybe heading down to Steph's condo to chill out and watch some movies with her. It's still so nice to be able to just get together with my best friends on a weeknight or lounge around together on a weekend. This was sorely missing from my life while I was on the West Coast!

What are you getting into this weekend? Any fun plans with ya buds?

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{Linking with The Nail Files, Beauty Buzz, and Fab Favorites}

Springy Sponged Nails

My nails this week are making me pretty happy! I just wanted to mix together some pretty spring colors and the best way to do it seemed to be to mash them all up on a makeup sponge and just get to dabbin'... so that's what I did:

First I painted all of my nails a single coat of Snow Me White to give my nails a white base to apply the other colors atop. Then using Orly Snowcone, Milani Tip Toe Pink, and Sinful Colors Envy, I just applied them onto my sponge beside each other:

I had to go back in and re-sponge each nail a couple of times, to make it more opaque. It took a little work, but in the end it was looking quite pretty if you ask me!

I'm trying to kind of hide it in some of these pics, but the pinky nail on my left hand broke and snapped off yesterday. #UGH. My nails had actually been getting kind of long (for me), and I was soooooo looking forward to being able to paint my "long" nails for this week's polish post. FIGURES that damn nail would break the day I go to paint them.

I couldn't resist acting like it hadn't happened and leaving the rest of my nails long for this mani anyway. The length was too good for me to resist - when you are working with such tiny little nails all the time, the idea of having a larger canvas to polish is an exciting one. After I took these pictures, all of my nails were clipped/filed down to the same length, don't worry.

David comes home today from a 2-week field trip to southeastern BC. I'm looking forward to seeing him and having my little buddy back. If anyone needs me tonight, I'm hoping to be cuddled up next to him on my couch watching a movie while we eat some purchased dinner.

What are you rocking on your nails today?
Anyone else making their nails look like a kindergarten craft project?
Leave me a movie recommendation to watch tonight!

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

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}

Trust Fund Beauty: Hold the Drama

The weekend before last, I joined a small group of other bloggers at Joey Bentall One in downtown Vancouver for lunch, drinks, and some eco-beauty chat. The get-together was organized by a local blogger who also reps some non-toxic and eco-friendly products and she wanted to share with a few fellow bloggers some of the products from the brands that she loves.

One of the brands that the brand rep brought for us to check out was Trust Fund Beauty, and we each got to pick out two nail polish colors from this brand. Trust Fund Beauty hasn't even officially been launched yet, so I was excited to be able to check out a spankin' new polish brand! The two polishes I selected were Stole Your Man (a pale golden, shimmery polish) and Hold the Drama (a minty-pistachio color with multi-colored hex glitter).

Hold the Drama is the one I'm showing you today!

This is with three coats of Hold the Drama, and two coats of Orly's Preamp on my ring finger.

These Trust Fund Beauty polishes are supposedly 5-free, meaning they're supposed to be free of Dibutyl Phthalate, Toluene, Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde Resin, and Camphor. I had to Google "5-free" because this sort of thing is not my bag, baby. I mean, obviously nail polish is a "thing" for me, but reading the ingredient list is..... nawt. I know that's not good, but there's enough general anxiety running through me as it is (I'm a bit of a hypochondriac and a worry wart!), that adding "chemicals" to the list of worries always feels a bit heavy.

Funny enough though... I've never thought about chemicals while painting my nails so much as I did while using this nail polish, because it is reeeeeeally stinky. Definitely requires more ventilation than your average nail polish. It actually was making me feel kind of sick, so I had to remove the polish right after I painted my nails and snapped these pictures!  I don't know much at all about eco-friendly beauty products. I'm not sure if the strong polish smell was because of the ingredients that the product doesn't include? Do 5-free polishes tend to smell stronger?

As I mentioned, this was a pre-launch special treat for us. These 17mL/0.57 fl oz bottles will be priced at $16 per bottle.

p.s. You can learn more about 3-free and 5-free nail polish at this useful blog.

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This is not a sponsored post, but I did receive this polish for free!

{Linking up with The Nail Files, What I'm Loving Fridays, Friday's Fab Favorites, Beauty Buzz}

Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - ORLY Preamp

Pardon the brevity of this nail polish post today! I'm still in Massachusetts soaking in the gloriousness of my family, and since my trips home are only happening about twice a year now, I'm #NotTryna spend the whole visit on the computer trying to be witty for YOU folks. Well I mean... I will still try to be witty for you, just not in a super verbose manner.  AND YET HERE I AM RATTLING ON. #BitchesBeTALKIN, am I right?!

Alright so straight to the point (in a curved line, apparently). Today I have another Radiant Orchid-inspired nail polish swatch for you, to celebrate Pantone's 2014 Color of the Year. This is one of my favs! It's ORLY's Preamp, and I had to search high and low for this polish in order to scoop it up last year. It was totally worth the treasure hunt. Check out how gorgeous this polish is:

Preamp is a beautiful purple-ish pink with gold micro shimmer throughout:

I have no complaints about this polish. It applies beautifully - opaque in 2-3 coats (depending on thickness) and not streaky. 

I love that all of the gorgeous shimmer you can see in the bottle translates so well onto the nails themselves. It's like golden fairy dust!

How does this Preamp polish make you feel, deep down in your heart? Let's talk about it.

Also, I've wanted to mention this for the last several Fridays because I feel like it's the (tiniest little) elephant in the room:  I nubbinized the bejesus out of my nails after reading a guide for how to choose the right shaped nail for your nail bed. The guide recommended that I file my nails into an oval shape - not rounded or squared or "squared with round edges."  With this current shape, my nails are super short but at least they're strong and the edges aren't snapping off at unfortunate angles like they were when I tried to rock them longer and square. Some people (and by that I mean "me") just aren't able to keep their nails long. IT'S SCIENCE PEOPLE. PHYSICS, SPECIFICALLY.

Next week will be the last of this Radiant Orchid nail polish series. I've got one more Sally Hansen polish to show you before I'm all orchided-out. Have you had a favorite so far? I'm curious to know!

See the other orchid-inspired polishes I've swatched here, here, and here.

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{Linking with The Nail Files, Beauty Buzz, and What I'm Loving Fridays}

Neon Jeans, Neon Nails

What? You don't have a bright neon yellow pair of jeans? I DO.

Last year Dave and I went to a Thrift Shop Party - a party where all the attendees were to show up wearing their most ridiculous thrift shop finds. At my local Salvation Army I happened to have found a pair of neon yellow H&M jeans that still had their original tags on them. Check out my thrift shop outfit from the party last year:

.  you want my neon argyle  .
.  but you can't have it  .

Yesterday was Halloween, as you know, and I had tentative plans with Dave to head out to a Halloween party. But just my luck, I woke up with a stomach ache that lingered for most of the day and even though dressing up and attending a costume party is on my Fall To-Do List, we ended up skipping this particular party. Had we gone, I would have dressed up in all neon, head-to-toe.  (You can see my neon costume from Halloween 2011 here.)  In addition to my neon yellow jeans, I have a fabulous neon pink shirt that I was planning on wearing.

Why am I telling you about what I didn't end up wearing last night? Because I painted my nails yesterday afternoon, just in case we did go to the party. So there's some serious neon on my nails right now. THAT'S WHERE YOU COME IN. Because you're here for nails, right?

.  bam  .

Have you ever seen Orly's Glowstick polish?? I've been enthralled by the idea of owning it for a couple of years now. I thought that my inexpensive Claire's brand of neon yellow nail polish was sufficing, but now that I've tried Glowstick, the Claire's neon might as well go into the garbage.  Glowstick is sooo much more pigmented, and I almost didn't even need a second coat to be opaque over a white base.  But I gave it one anyway :)

First I applied a base coat and a single coat of a white polish to all of my nails. The white base is a must when you are using neons - it makes the colors pop like whoa! For my left hand, I used Glowstick on my pointer, middle and pinky nails. On my thumb I used two coats of Orly's Truly Tangerine, and on my ring finger I used two coats of Love & Beauty's neon green.

Sidebar:  Don't mind my wonky middle finger nail in the above pics. When I file my nails squarely, the corners always weaken first and snap off at an angle like that. It's especially dreadful when it happens the day before my weekly nail polish post. Womp womp.

On my right hand, I switched things up a bit and used the Truly Tangerine on my pinky, middle and pointer; Glowstick on my ring finger; and neon green on my thumb. Truly Tangerine is seriously bright, isn't it? It's like traffic-cone bright.

And OH yeah - here are my neon nails posing with their neon jeans! 

Damn ladies!! Looking fresh 'n poppin!

I'm not ruling out the possibility of something Halloween-related happening this weekend, so there's still potential for the entire neon outfit to come together somewhere, somehow. Whatever happens, my neon nails will be ready.

Did you dress up and get buckwild last night? Tweet me your costume pics @akaBailey!

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{Linking up with Friday's Fab Favorites, The Nail Files,  Halloween Link-Up, and What I'm Loving Fridays} 

Autumn Leaves Nails

All of the autumnal foliage around here has been making me want to splash some of that fall flare all over my fingernails! So I did.

The inspiration behind these nails is a fully-swagged out tree against a beautiful blue sky. Something like this:

So I pulled out my favorite "sky blue" nail polish - Snowcone by Orly - and selected a crop of fall leaf colors from my stash to make it happen:

.  fuzzy navel by ruby kisses, little miss sunrise by essence, posh by revlon, a list by essie, and snowcone by orly  .

After applying a base coat and one coat of Snowcone to all of my nails, I tapped a few dots of the green polish onto a scrap paper and used my dotting tool to place a few green dots randomly around the lower half of each nail. I repeated this step with each color, until the lower half of each nail was more or less full of multi-colored dots.

I left a little bit of blue peeking through the "branches."

What do you think of this look? A little abstract, but fun, quick and easy!

And today there's a little something extra in my weekly nail polish blog! Each Friday I link up with Jennie over at her weekly Nail Files link party. This week she's hosting an awesome giveaway full of nail goodies and has asked for some help in spreading the word about zee fun. You can follow the link to enter the giveaway here ~> a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out what Jennie is generously giving away to the winner:

A bottle of Seche Vite top coat (which is apparently the Rolls Royce of top coats in the nail polish world), a bottle of China Glaze Patent Leather Top Coat, a bottle of Finger Paints Paper Mache, a bottle of Seche Vite Collage Overlay, a bottle of China Glaze Razzle Me Dazzle Me, a set of 10 assorted striping tapes, a set of nail art brushes, a set of dotting tools, and a packet of cheetah nail strips.

You can even earn extra entries for following me on Bloglovin, sooo.... DO THAT, RIGHT?

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{Linking up with The Nail Files, Friday's Five, Friday's Fab Favorites,  What I'm Loving Fridays, Tell Us Tuesdays}