Red Sparkle Bows

Hope everyone is having a good weekend! Not posting since Tuesday isn't that bad of me, right? Anyone following the Jubilee celebration? Currently, my brother is residing in London and I'm extremely jealous that I'm not there. Personally, I channeled my inner wahnails girl and created Jubilee nails for the occasion. That's not what I'm sharing today as my camera cord is fried :( but hopefully I'll have that up soon! (Edit: instagram photo preview here!)

Today's design is a simple bow design using a red glitter on top of a periwinkle creme. While I attempted using nail art tools the design seemed to be better when I didn't. So, the bow you see here was created with the regular polish bottle. 

The periwinkle is Essie Lapis of Luxury.Besides mint cremes, this is my favorite nail color. I can see myself buying all the periwinkles as what happened with me and mints. By the way if you buy Essie's retail it's called Lapiz of Luxury (which really annoys me, why do companies have to change names?). The red glitter is China Glaze Love Marilyn, a primarily red glitter with some silver hexes added. This is another easy design to create that yields great results.

All photos are taken inside with artificial lighting. Yes there are a lot of photos indicating my love for this simple but cute design.

Close ups of the bow.

Let me know if I should include less pictures. Not going to lie, sometimes I get carried away. Any periwinkle polish suggestions? I need them all. :)

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Drip Manicure

Good morning! 

Today I'm actually sharing a manicure that I did not like. I liked the concept but I think I chose the wrong colors for this design. Ever hear of drip manicures? Basically the design features a secondary color "dripping" down from the tip. 

I started out with a no name pink polish from the Sephora collection. The formula wasn't impressive. Then I added sparkle with Confetti Pink Confetti, a sheer pink tinted glitter. I used China Glaze Snow for the drips.

All photos are inside with artificial lighting.

As a general rule the more pictures I post the more I like a manicure. I didn't particularly like this design. I think it would have looked better with brighter, bolder colors. Colors more my style, I guess. I was debating whether or not to post this. Everyone has manicures they don't really like so I thought I would share mine. Who knows, maybe you really like this. People seemed to like this when I wore it.

Anyways, I'll stop ranting. Love it or hate it. My feeling is meh.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Flakie Lavender Nails

Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to all who serve to keep the United States safe.


Now here's a somewhat old design...


The story to this manicure is as follows. Wore a lavender creme, got bored of it. Put a mint green triangle in the middle of all ten nails, got bored of it. Then added a flakie polish. I didn't take photos in between steps unfortunately.


The lavender polish is Revlon Gumdrop. It's the perfect shade of light purple and even smells like gumdrops. The triangles were created by taping off a section to expose a triangle space. I believe the mint green to be Revlon Minted. The reason I'm not entirely sure is that I do have an affinity for mint greens. I can't seem to stop buying them though I have slowed down my purchase rate. The flakie polish is Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure. I found this polish around the release date in a random Walgreens. I remember how excited I was afterwards.

Do you tend to refresh old manicures by changing an aspect or do you do a look and keep it that way?

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Pastel Blue Bow Design

Good evening! Hope you have had a good weekend so far. Mine was great but exhausting. I got to go to a music festival and hiking with some close friends.

So, the design I'm sharing with you tonight is basically a pastel blue french tip and bow design on a pale yellow background. The yellow was hard to capture on camera though I feel like the last two photos portray it well. Sorry if the various backgrounds annoy you. I was trying to get a good picture and tried various places in my house in order to do so. The pale yellow is OPI Banana Bandana. It's my only light yellow and it has a decent formula. The blue is Essie Borrowed & Blue. It's one of my favorite shade of blues. Please excuse the nail growth shown here.

If you're in the U.S., hope you're long weekend goes well. Is anyone doing any patriotic themed nails? If you're not in the U.S., hope you had a great one! I know I did. 

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Jil Sander Inspired Striped Nail Design

Hi! One day I was searching online and found this post. It featured nails done by Hey, Nice Nails! based off a Jil Sander sweater that Kanye West sported. I loved their design and just had to try it with my own style using neons of course. :)(Original design here and simplified version)


The base color is Illamasqua Rare,layered on top of China Glaze Snow to improve opacity. The design colors are all neons from Color Club: Edie, Poptastic, and Pucci-licious(neon green, pink, and purple respectively). The stripes were made using a nail art striper. I used the simplified version found on Hey,Nice Nails! as a guide for my design.


I really enjoyed recreating and wearing this look. I'm in love with the design for sure. Using neons led to a super bright standout manicure. It was a look not to be ignored.


All photos are taken inside with artificial lighting.

Illamasqua Rare is extremely difficult to photograph. The bottle photo below is a very accurate representation. 

Have a great(long)weekend!

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Tri-color Tribal Nails

Good morning! So, one of my favorite nail art methods is using tape. Sure you have to wait for each layer to dry, but it is pretty much fool proof. 

For this nail look I was channeling a tribal inspiration. Though half way through the week wearing this I realized how much the design resembles the Wonder Woman symbol. Maybe subconsciously I was thinking about that. 

To create this design I applied Revlon Red Hot Tamale and waited for it to dry. The Revlon polish is one of my favorite reds. It's very bright.  I then exposed a triangle part of my upper nail and painted on China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. It's my only medium yellow and I feel like it applies fine despite yellow's usually having unpredictable formulas. After the yellow dried I taped off my nail to expose a smaller triangle section. In this section, I used China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway. Yeah, I know it looks black. It looked nearly black in real life this time but usually it appears to be navy.In some sections I was a little careless and didn't pay attention to making sure my tape was completely flat. Though I'm still happy with the look.

All photos are taken inside with artificial lighting. 

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Bordered Neon Manicure

Good evening! A week or two ago, I decided to try out one of the latest nail art trends known as border nails, outlined nails, or frame nails. I first discovered the look through tumblr.(Want to check out my tumblr? Click here! Haha that sounds way to self promotional but if you want feel free to check it out and if you have a tumblr, let me know in the comments) Some of the looks are incredible with a color very thinly bordering on the outside. For my first approach, I tried thicker lines. 

Some people start with the "border" color and allow it to try. Afterwards they tape off sections or carefully paint the color on top. When I did this manicure, I painted my main color first, Ma.nish.ma Electric Blue, and then using a striping brush created blue lines with Essence Walk on Air. Next time, I'm definitely trying the other method as I suppose it is easier to create thiner lines. On a side note, Electric Blue is a gorgeous neon blue shimmer that dries matte. It can be found at Rite Aid.

All photos are taken outside with natural lighting.

                                      

                                      

Want to know something funny? Whenever I go outside to take nail pictures, the scene below usually happens. His name is Buddy and he hates being left out.

                                      

He also loves playing catch with a tennis ball and will go to extreme lengths to ensure his priorities.

                                      

Have you ever tried 'border' nails or have any suggestions for color combinations? I want to try using more contrasting colors next time. Oh, and have a great day!

                                      

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

You Da One Rihanna Inspired Nail Art

Have you seen Rihanna's music video for her song "You Da One"? Music tastes aside, in the video she  sports a great manicure. Rihanna is one of those stars on top of her nail game. She takes risks rather than falling back to nudes. Her nails in the video are white with black triangle v-gaps. 

To recreate her look, I used China Glaze Snow as a base. Next, I taped my nails to expose a triangle section on the bottom and applied Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme. Taking off the tape revealed the triangle pattern like Rihanna's. 

Her nail shape is rounded and pointed compared to mine. So, in order to make my nails look more like hers, I traced to the corners with black to give it some contouring almost. You can see this on my pinky nail. I'm not sure how effectively it works, but to me it seemed to make a difference. I really like Rihanna's nail shape. I'm debating whether or not I should round off my nails. All photos are taken in artificial light.

Searching online, there are many posts and videos featuring this design. Rihanna continues to impress me with her nail designs. More stars should take note of her style.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

What I've Been Up To

I can't believe how long it has been since I blogged. I feel terrible that I left and how my stress got in the way of blogging. Anyways, my exams and projects are over now. I'd rather move ahead and be positive about my many backlogged photos that I can share.(edit:new nail post is up)

So, stress aside, I had an amazing opportunity to travel to France over a month ago. It was the trip of a lifetime without exaggerating. I had not been to any foreign countries before. I fell in love with the architecture, the sights,and the patisseries. I visited Paris but also got the chance to stay in a small town. I also got to explore Germany and Luxembourg. I have 1200 photos to prove that but rather than bore you I'd thought I would share some of my favorites here. Regular nail-related programming will continue in the next post. 

First is the Eiffel Tower. To me it was very surreal to see the monument right in front of me. It just seemed something out of a dream. And yes, I am a tourist. I definitely have over 100 maybe 200 pictures of la Tour Eiffel. I love how this photo turned out. Yay for my camera not entirely focusing! 

A shot of my new shoes. Not necessarily a great shot, but some great shoes.

The beauty of the cathedrals left me awestruck. Especially the intricate stained glass covering every wall. I particularly liked this pattern. 

Like a typical tourist, I also visited the Arc de Triomphe. The views on top are spectacular but the stairs to get up are painful. 

A view of Champs D'Elysees.

The moon on top of the Eiffel Tower.

The french patisseries were amazing. Walking outside my hotel, I had three easily in sight. Furthermore, I'm in love with macaroons. I need to find a recipe.

Finally, another picture of la Tour Eiffel. Love how the moon looks in this picture.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

On To The Next Polish,

Katie