Bieber Border Manicure

It’s day 20 of the nail art challenge for April and the theme is border manicure!  When I think about border manis I think, “what two colors work well together?”…  and most times I think out loud.  So my man suggested purple and yellow.  Well, I have a two-pack of Nicole by OPI polishes with those exact two colors!  How perfect is that?

I can think of a lot of young girls that would love this manicure.  WHY? Because these Nicole by OPI shades are inspired by Justin Bieber!  I’m a Belieber is a nice basic purple cream (Bieber’s favorite color is purple) and the yellow is called My Favorite Gold.  I’ve swatched My Favorite Gold before- here’s the post.  It’s a beautiful and bright gold color, but it needs a lot of coats (and preferably some undies too)!!  Next time I try a border mani I will use more opaque colors.  I’m a little embarrassed to say how many coats I’m wearing here!  Even still, I love the final result and how the purple really stands out against the gold.  I think Justin Bieber would be proud! 😀

Water Marble with Clear Nail Polish!

We’ve made it to the halfway mark of Short And Sweet in Texas‘ nail art challenge!  Day 15 is all about water marble..if you don’t know what it is here’s a good youtube video by DearNatural62.    If you’ve ever water marbled before then you know how fun it is to pick out a bunch of cool colors for your swirly design!  But have you ever thrown a clear polish in the mix???  That’s what I’m experimenting with today- water marbling with clear polish!

I started by painting my nails with a cool combo of 3 neon colors.  It looked awesome so I took some pics which I may share on day 22/neon day of the challenge 🙂    Then I did the water marbling technique using only 2 polishes- clear and black.  So basically I dripped drops of black, then clear, black then clear, etc into the cup… and when I swirled it around with a toothpick I got this cool black design with clear ‘spaces’ in between.  The spaces allow the bright neon to show through from underneath.  Pretty neat!  Then I made a few polka dots using my black polish and a dotting tool just to spice it up (and fill in the gaps).

And in case you are wondering how clear polish works for marbling…. other bloggers have said that topcoat or clear polishes don’t spread well in the water.  I actually experienced the opposite- I found that my Sally Hansen Nail Shine Miracle actually spread better than all of my other pigmented polishes!  This is great news for me since I thought I hated my Nail Shine Miracle- I never use it as a topcoat since it bubbles and takes forever to dry.  But now that I know it works for marbling- it has a new purpose in my stash!

I like how bright this design is in real life- it’s kinda crazy lookin!  I went outside during sunset and my polish was so neon it nearly jumped right off of my fingers!  Too bad I didn’t get that cool ‘signature’ swirly marble design though- I wound up with these black and clear stripes instead.  No matter what I did I just couldn’t get my polish to drag properly with the toothpick.  So no swirls for this girl…. but my black and clear stripes still look cool!   Water marbling… why you so tricky?

Stamped Leopard with a Gradient

Day 11 of the 30 Day Nail Art Challenge is ANIMAL PRINT!  Who doesn’t love animal print?  And what’s the foolproof way to get animal print?  KONAD!  I love my Konad Stamping Kit and plate M57 with leopard print is perfect for today’s theme!

I started with two coats of AVON Nailwear Pro Inspire.  This awesome yellow shade is from a special collection of 3 avon polishes called Zenergy and it curiously reminds me of the The Peter Som Trio for Zoya.  Hmmm?!  Inspire is great because it’s perfectly opaque with two coats which is more than a lot of other yellows can say!  I’m glad I picked this one up- it will be great for nail art.

I waited for my yellow to dry and then I did a gradient using a small piece of a makeup sponge and some Orly Coffee Break.  It looked pretty cool-  I was a little afraid to stamp over top of it in fear that I might mess it up!  Ya see, my nail beds are the EXACT same length as the stamping design on my Konad plates.  That means I have no wiggle room when I’m stamping…. I need to get the placement just right so it covers my nail completely.   I really wish Konad would make their designs bigger!

I finished off the look with some MASH matte topcoat to lock it all in.  Matte topcoats go great with busy designs like this.  It helps diffuse the light so you won’t have a glossy shine to distract from the design. I think it came out great- I love this wild look!  The gradient really helped add some dimension to the leopard print too.  Can’t wait to see what the other bloggers come up with!  Check out this inlinkz link to see the other designs.

Oh speaking of other bloggers… I’d like to mention that I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award and I really appreciate it so much!  Thank you for supporting my little blog!  I haven’t forgotten- and soon I will type up a proper post to thank the girls who nominated me!  😀  Blog on!

a mani makeover just for me!

Today I’m wearing one of my new spring polishes from the Zoya Lovely Collection called Jacqueline.  I just had to have this polish since it’s my namesake.  Jacqueline- that’s me!!

I applied my 3 coats (whenever products say they only needs 2 coats,  I always need 3 for some reason) and wore it for 24hrs.  The light yellow/nude shade is subtly beautiful… but it was missing something.  It just wasn’t quite Jacqueline-esque enough for me! So while watching the season finale of The Bachelor (woot!)  I fancied up my manicure and gave it a crafty touch.

On top of Jacqueline I painted on some chevron tips with Orly Faint of Heart.  This grey is one of my absolute faves- it looks like smooth wet concrete with the faintest dark specks hidden inside.  For a creme grey it’s very unique and the formula is superb.  Also, there’s something about yellow and grey together- I just love that combo!  I added some metal studs from Claire’s Boutique as a final embellishment to top it off.  Et voilà…..

This studded mani is sooo Jacqueline!  I hope you like it too!

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!