Black n Blue Matte Colorblock

I watch a decent amount of prime-time cable (okay, I watch A LOT of cable) and lately I’ve noticed a definite fashion trend:  almost every leading lady in the last few weeks has worn dark blue and black together!  Personally, I’ve always steered clear of blue and black since the old rule is that ‘navy and black clash’.  But the more I see these two colors together, the more I likey!  This trend inspired me to do a color-block nail design using the following:

♥ one coat of Orly Ridge Filler as a base

♥ two coats of Cynthia Rowley unnamed neon blue polish

♥ a striper brush and Wet n Wild ‘Ebony Hates Chris’ for the black accents

♥ MASH Nails Matte Topcoat – I needed two coats to make it matte since the black Wet n Wild was super-shiny!

Why doesn’t Cynthia name her polishes?  I’ll never understand that!  Well, I’m gonna go ahead and name this neon Shark Week since it’s a vivid dark blue that reminds me of the bottom of the ocean.  The shade really lightens up for the camera so I tried some different lighting conditions to get the blue to stay as true as possible. It’s still way darker in real life… but c’est la vie!

I have heard that Cynthia Rowley nail color is hard to find.  Luckily, I received a three pack set from my lovely sister for Christmas!  In case you’re trying to get your hands on some in the US… I think she found it at Marshall’s Department Store.

I LOVE NY nails!

I ♥ NY!  is the theme of my nails today.  Ya see lately I’ve had an urge to ‘buy local’.  So I searched Etsy for some cool polish made right here in New York and I think I scored big!  Just check out this glitter!  I am wearing Borough Babe Made nail color called LIC Queen.

I got a lot of glitter coverage in just two coats!  Pictured here is one coat of Orly Ridge Filler, two coats of LIC Queen, and no topcoat.  Looks beautiful even without a topcoat!  I didn’t have any application issues.  The base polish is relatively thick so the glitter suspends nicely.  It dried pretty quick and I love the peachy nude base color.  I tried three coats but that was overkill.  No reason to go overboard when surprisingly, two coats is just perfect to give you plenty of the yellow, blue and orange hex glitter.

This polish is part of Borough Babe’s ‘NY Hoods” collection and is ode to Long Island City. I would like to add that I hope everyone in LIC is recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  The devastation from that storm was unparalleled and I hope that the NYC and Long Island area is rebuilding and regaining normalcy.  The news barely even mentions it anymore, but your neighbors have not forgotten!

Borough Babe nail color can be found here on Etsy.  The seller has a promotion right now…get a free gift with international orders and free shipping in the US!

My Green Mystery

This is one of my absolute favorite polishes of all time!  I’ve had this Orly bottle for a while and the sticker on the bottom is ripped off.  That means I don’t know what the shade is called!  After much web research I found that it could be Green with Envy.  A lot of other swatches of this color look teal, so I wasn’t quite sure.  Mine is a beautiful green shade with a touch of aqua.  I would describe it as a deep dark sea foam green.  And it’s the perfect shade for St. Patrick’s Day.

The craftynail in me originally planned to do some purple nail art on top of this.  But after applying 4 coats of this green Orly (it’s a jelly so it needed several coats) I realized that it’s just perfect as is!  I’ve got no craftiness for you today, but maybe you can revel in this jelly beauty with me.  Orly has Green with Envy listed online as part of their ‘permanent collection’ so it shouldn’t be hard to find if you are interested.

Spidey nails!

 

My boyfriend and I have been playing a lot of this awesome fighting game called The Avengers Battle for Earth on our new Wii U console.  So this weekend I have superheroes on the brain!  I really wanted to do Hulk nails, mostly because I love green and the Hulk is the bomb.  But I couldn’t find my Hulk comic books.  So I tore apart my boyfriend’s old Web of Spider-Man comic and used the newspaper nails technique to create this look.

 

I wish I could say that I used My Boyfriend Scales Walls as the base color for this design.  That woulda been perfect!  But poor moi does not own that OPI shade so I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Lavender Cloud.  I wish that newspaper nails worked a little bit better for me.  The detail here is not that crisp and the colors are sorta muted.  But all in all, it came out nice and it’s fun to experiment with!  The rubbing alcohol can do a number on the cuticles though- so I’ll stop experimenting for now! Lol

 

DIY Nail Soak

Today I’d like to share the nail soak recipe that I whip up at home.  It makes me feel like I get a deep clean, some moisturizing, and a nice fresh canvas for my next manicure. I usually soak my hands once in a while and especially if I’ve worn dark polish and my cuticles are a bit stained.  I use the following treatment after removing all my polish.  It’s sorta relaxing and only requires a few ingredients that we already have in our kitchen…

  Easy DIY nail soak

  ♥ drip a few drops of dish soap in a small bowl

  ♥ add about a teaspoon of honey

  ♥ add about a teaspoon of olive oil and stir it

  ♥ then add some warm water and stir again

You can soak your nails in this for a few minutes… and then softly scrub them (and underneath) with a nail brush.  Then I like to soak them again to help lift off any dead skin cells that were loosened by scrubbing.  Dry your hands with a soft towel and moisturize and you’ll feel like you pampered yourself a bit!

Interested in more DIY soaks? This blog called Nail Files has a list of easy-to-make varieties which target specific nail problems.  I really want to try the milk or egg soaks because they claim to replenish the protein in your nails!  I love whipping up these kind of concoctions….besides, natural remedies always work best 🙂