#TheBeautyBuffs – my favorite yellows!

Welcome to another Wednesday with The Beauty Buffs! We are discussing YELLOW this week.  I’m always on a quest to find some yellows that don’t need a zillion coats… and today I’ll share my findings with you.  I’m showcasing my top three yellow two-coaters!

Now I know that yellow is not a fave among nail bloggers. The formulas can be disappointing and a lot of ladies find yellow unflattering with their skintone.  But, I happen to love yellow! This stems from my childhood where one year the Easter Bunny gave me two Revlon polishes.  (The bunny never gave me candy.  So sad.  Yet I wonder why I have food issues.)  So one year my easter basket contained two cream polishes- a robin’s egg blue and a pale butter yellow.  I cherished them.  If I got peanut butter cups they’d be gone in two seconds flat.  But my nail polishes… they were the gift that kept giving!  I still remember the exact images of the bottles in my head.  I can’t remember my school teacher that year, but I remember my pastel Revlons.  Oh, Jacqui!!  Anyway, I think those nostalgic feelings about yellow polish carried into my adulthood.  Plus, my mom loves yellow polish and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I don’t know if one-coat yellows exist or not.  But for now, I’ll covet these three yellows which need only two coats each to be opaque:

First up is I Just Can’t Cope-Acabana by OPI.  We’ve all seen a lot of swatches of this one lately.  It’s the perfect true yellow- nice and bright and most similar to the primary yellow on the color wheel.  I thought the formula would be a little chalky since a couple of the other Brazil collection polishes were a wee bit chalky to me. But honestly, the formula is really nice for a yellow.  It dries glossy and you can’t go wrong with OPI !

Next I’ve got Pull Over by Sinful Colors.  This mustard shade has a touch of orange to it.  It’s similar to egg yolks, or a school bus.  I like that it’s a little different than your average yellow.  The formula is so fluid and juicy.  It has some jelly-esque qualities too it, but it’s opaque in two coats so it’s definitely not a jelly.  But it looks sorta glassy on the nail and I really enjoy the hue.

Last but not least is Inspire by AVON.  Remember when the 2013 Peter Som Trio came out by Zoya??  The collection contained a yellow, an orange and a mint?  Well AVON sorta copied them and came out with a trio of their own last year.  The AVON shades were darker, but still, very similar in concept.  I jumped on that train and picked up the AVON yellow called Inspire.  Wow, I love it.  How do I describe it?  It’s a bright yellow cream that has a tinge of green to it.  It’s almost a little bit pukey (especially in sunlight), but in the best way possible LOL!  It sorta has a 70’s retro feel to it.  The formula is really good and opaque (but as it ages I notice it’s getting a wee bit string-y).  I love how intense and opaque this yellow is, especially for nail art. I’ve used it tons and tons and now my bottle is getting low.  Good thing I have backup!  Surprisingly, Inspire is THE ONLY bottle in my entire stash that I own a backup of.  That says a lot I think.

My post wouldn’t be complete without a little yellow nail art…

I hand painted some blue triangles on the base of my nails using Orly Sweet Peacock.  I think the metallic blue really looks cool against my AVON Inspire.  I loved wearing this to work yesterday.  It’s simple but a little quirky and definitely bold.  I hope you like it!

After all this, if you still hate yellow-  oh well, I tried.  I look forward to hearing your opinions though!

Don’t miss what the other Beauty Buffs have to say:

 

 

Abstract Fall Leaves based on a tutorial

First I wanna say that there’s only about two hours left to enter my giveaway!  Get your free entries in right here!  Sometime tomorrow I will announce the winners via email, and I’ll put out a blog post too.  Can’t wait to pick the winners!  Good luck everyone!

The prompt for week 2 of October’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup is Autumn Trees.  I’ve had so many great ideas for this theme and decided on an abstract leaf design that MrCandiipants came up with.  You can see her youtube tutorial here.  Someone commented on the vid and said that the design looks a little weird on square nails- so I wasn’t sure how I would pull this one off!  Then yesterday, I had a major nail snafu on my thumb!  I had to file the side of my thumb nail way down after a section of it cracked off.  😦  I was being a scaredy-pants but I managed to file my nail to a semi-stilletto shape to disguise the break.  It came out great!  I loved the way my pointy nail looked!  So I did my other thumb too just for spits and giggles.  I’m really contemplating making all my nails stilletto.  But get real Jac…. who am I kidding?  I won’t have the guts!  But my new thumbnail shape is a great reason for me to try out MrCandiipant tutorial now.  Well, on two nails at least.  So here we go!

I used a variety of colors for the leaf design…and it was a little hit and miss.  I changed my mind a few times and in the end I wound up using similar shades to what Candiipants used.  Here’s a list of my colors:

dark orange ♥ Art Orange from AVON

light orange ♥ Orange Creamsicle from AVON

yellow ♥ Inspire from AVON

green ♥ Limelight from Ulta

teal ♥ Read my Palm from Sephora by OPI

black ♥ Liquid Leather China Glaze

Is it okay that I only did my thumbs?  I really didn’t know how to make the design look nice on my other square nails… so the others are painted nice and simple with Kalahari Kiss.  I’ve been dreaming of getting Kalahari Kiss for a while now…. and when I recently placed an order on Cherry Culture I had to add this one to my cart.  That site sells China Glaze real cheap!  I think it was $3.99 and I had a discount code so I made out like a bandit!  Kalahari Kiss is one of those fugly kinda colors… but I’m so glad I got it.  It’s versatile, smooth and opaque and will be very handy for nail art I think.   Believe it or not, I only needed one coat for this mani.

Here are the other prompts for October.  Join in whenevs!

30th Sept – 6th Oct Breast Cancer Awareness :

7th-13th Oct Autumn Trees :

14th-20th Oct Things That Go Bump in the Night :

21st-27th Oct Treats and Sweets :

28th Oct – 3rd Nov Hallow E’en :

Rainbow Nails and my gradient technique!

Today’s nails were inspired by my inner child!  When I was a little girl (back in the 80’s) I just loved rainbows!  Rainbow stickers, rainbow spiral notebooks, rainbow earrings… pretty much anything that had a rainbow on it caught my attention.  Too bad it took me 30+ years to discover this rainbow gradient technique!  Well, this mani is dedicated to you, little Jacqui from the 80’s!  I know you would’ve loved these nails. 🙂

My first attempts at gradients were total fails- until I came up with this very effective way of using makeup sponges.  Here’s a pic of how I use my sponge for a gradient:

I start out with a standard cosmetic application wedge and use sharp scissors to cut it into 4 or 5 long skinny pieces.  I take one of the pieces, fold it in half, and dab it into a drop of nail polish on my work surface.  Then I sponge it onto my nail to create the gradient effect.  I think these folded over sponge strips work well since their surface is slightly curved, yet small-so you can dab, dab, dab away to get the paint just where you want it.  I use a different sliver of sponge for each color.  The small surface area of the sponge worked great to get the skinny lines of color for today’s rainbow gradient… but it also works well for a larger-scale gradient (like this leopard design where I only sponged on one color).  I think this technique is less messy and it’s fool-proof!!  I haven’t screwed up one gradient yet since I started doing it this way !

WHITE BASE ♥ one coat of Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff in French White Tip

RED ♥ Zoya Carmen

ORANGE ♥ AVON Orange Creamsicle

YELLOW ♥ AVON Inspire

AQUA ♥ Wet n wild I Need a Refresh-mint

PURPLE ♥ Nicole by OPI I’m a Belieber

This mani makes me happy on this beautiful friday!!

Do you love rainbows as much as me??

Lime Green Retro Dots

I felt like something real funky today so I grabbed my Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Lickety-Split Lime.  This polish has a retro feel- it kinda reminds me of the ugly wallpaper that was in my kitchen when I was a child!  I added some dots in Zoya Jacqueline (cream), AVON Inspire (yellow), and AVON Orange Creamsicle (orange).  Then I dotted some lime green over top of those dots for fun.  I like the effect of the double-dots.  My nails look like they’re right out of the 70’s!  I feel ready to attend a Tupperware party! lol

I used some Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Fast Dry Topcoat when I was done and I’m regretting it.  I haven’t used that quick-dry topper in a few months so I couldn’t really remember if it was any good or not.  UGH!  It ended up being goopy and bubbly.  Maybe I should add some Seche Restore because this topcoat is currently not one of my faves!  It also didn’t dry that fast because half an hour later I got a big smoosh on one of my nails.  Boo!

I may not post nail art for a couple days since I will be doing a review of my new NCLA Nail Wraps that were sent to me by Nail Polish Canada!  Yay!  I’ve never tried wraps before and I want to do an honest review where I show pics of the wraps after a few days wear.  Yippee!  I want to apply them right now but I really should get to work.  It’s monday afterall 😦

Til next time!

Easy Watercolor Nail Art Tutorial

Ok, this is one of my faves!! It’s easy peasy lemon squeezey and gives such an awesome effect!!  Like an artist’s palette!

Step 1 ♥ Paint all your nails white and wait for it to dry.  I know, waiting is hard….so you can use a quick dry topcoat to speed it up if you’d like.

Step 2 ♥ Dab some nail polish onto your 1st white nail using the regular nail polish brush from your bottle- no special tools required!   I used 5 colors and just splotched it on kinda thick and did not overlap the colors.  Just apply enough splotches of color to cover the nail.  I probably did about 7 splotches on my nail.  Some colors I dabbed on once, others I dabbed on twice.  It’s all random and quick and easy.

Step 3 ♥ Take a small piece of saran wrap, plastic wrapper or whatever (I used small snack baggies cut into thirds) and place it over your wet nail.  You can either pull down on the plastic wrap (almost as if you were wrapping your fingertips tightly with the plastic wrap), or simply press down on top of the plastic.  Either way, you will get the same effect- the dabs of polish will get smooshed by the pressure and when you pull the plastic off you will have a beautiful watercolor effect!!  Here’s what my plastic looked like when I pulled it off my nail.

Step 4 ♥  Repeat step 3 to color your other nails. Make sure to do one nail at a time since you want the polish wet when you apply the plastic.

Step 5 ♥  Clean up around your cuticles if the nail polish bled onto your skin at all.  And then topcoat your nails with clear polish to lock in your watercolor nails.

And that’s it!!!  How lovely (and simple!) is this nail design?  It’s perfect for spring!

yellow → AVON Inspire

pink → Zoya Sweet

blue → Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint

green → NYC Tudor City teal

purple → Sephora by OPI It’s Hippo To Be Square

Arizona Green Tea Nails

Day 21 of the Nail Art Challenge is FLORAL DAY and this is my chance to finally try cherry blossoms!  Last month I got an Arizona Iced Tea during my lunch break- and look how cute the can is!   I put green tea/ cherry blossoms on my mental to-do list and I’ve been saving the can ever since. 🙂

  I did a gradient using Orly Gumdrop and a mixture of two yellows- AVON Inspire and wet n wild The Wonder Yellows.  Then I free-hand painted some branches with a black polish.  The cherry blossoms were dotted on with a dotting tool and a Sephora by OPI polish called Access 24/7.

Came out better than I could have hoped.  Too bad I have to take it off soon in preparation of  the next nail art challenge design.  I woulda loved to prance around with my arizona iced tea nails a little bit longer!  I hope you like them too!

Tribal Nails

Day 16 of the Nail Challenge is Tribal nails.  I have never tried tribal before- so please don’t judge lol. I used a dotting tool, a skinny striper brush and these polishes:

Sally Hansen ♥ Commander in Chic

AVON ♥ Inspire

wet n wild ♥ I Need a Refresh-Mint

OPI ♥ Grand Canyon Sunset

wet n wild ♥ Ebony Hates Chris

I didn’t have a plan when I started working on this design…. I just sort of started with one color and made a bunch of shapes.  I cleaned my brush, and then moved onto the next color until I ran through all 5 polishes and my nails were covered with a wacky design.  Next time I would like to plan it out more and maybe I’ll get better results!

Can’t wait to see what the other girls came up with because this was an interesting theme with a lot of room for interpretation!