An Abundance of Ugly Greens

Of all the pretty colors in the nail polish world, ugly greens are some of my favorites.

Huh?!

I don't know. I've always loved lime green and for whatever reason "ugly" greens are strongly reminiscent of that certain shade of punchy neon lime that got me hooked.

This ugly green, Spoiled I Only Eat Salads is unfortunately OOP (Out of Production), so good luck finding it. You may stumble across a threadbare Spoiled by Wet n' Wild display at your nearest underfed, if you will, CVS. This brand was exclusive to CVS and they have now replaced it with Pop-arazzi, a deathly-smelling concoction disguised in cute polka dot packaging. Sigh. 

Spoiled made some pretty good polishes. I have features several on this blog and I have a lot. I Only Eat Salads has a great formula, creamy and opaque in two coats, no streaks. 

I accented this color with a coordinating glitter "party nail." Sinful Colors Call You Later is an ugly-toned (lol) spring green microglitter with some yellowish glitters sprinkled in. It could probably become opaque with four or five coats, but it's perfect as a topper with one or two.

Where do you stand on ugly greens? I'd love to know!

XOXO

Is

Quilted Nail Art

Hi guys! Happy Monday! Did you guys tune into the Super Bowl last night? I didn't except for Katy Perry, because I'm not much of a football person! Haha!

Today I have a quilted manicure to show you. I first saw this type of manicure on The Polishaholic, and was inspired by two of Jen's quilted mani's, this blue one and this matte and shiny black one. 

For my quilted manicure, I chose to do black matte and shiny but add some flair with gold microbeads!

I had to include this picture... so shiny!

I first applied a base coat and then my OCW black polish, Sinful Colors Black on Black. I then applied NYC Grand Central Station to speed up the dry time.

Once the black was fully dry, I used striping tape to create the quilted pattern. I then painted over the whole nail with a fairly thick coat of  matte topcoat. I used Wet N' Wild Wild Shine (irony) Matte Top Coat. Seriously, this topcoat rivals Essie Matte About You, my former go-to matte topcoat. However, once I ran out (actually, I still had about 1/4 left, but it was too thick and flecked with white specks to be usable) I decided to try out Wet N' Wild's. In terms of mattifying abilities, it's fantastic! Probably just the tiniest smidge less matte than Essie's, but I find that this gives it more depth and a "plush" look.

After applying the matte topcoat, I immediately peeled off the striping tape and was left with a cool, luxurious looking mani!

From there, I decided to enhance the feeling of luxury by adding gold microbeads at the areas of intersection of the shiny lines. 

Done! (No topcoat to preserve the texture.)

For my "Cinderella" hand I did plain matte black with an accent nail of OPI All Sparkly and Gold, a fine cool gold glitter topper. These kept the mani cohesive, but allowed me only spend two hours on this mani instead of four, lol. Because really, ain't nobody got time fo dat. ;)

What do you think of this mixed texture mani? Thanks so much for reading!

XOXO

Is

OPI Fall 2014 Nordic Collection: My Picks

Today I'm going to share my picks from OPI's Fall 2014 Nordic collection with you, and how I wore them.

First up is Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm? This is a dark purple with strong blue undertones. I've seen a lot of swatches where this leans very blue, but it is definitively purple, but very cool-toned. It still manages to be bright and vivid while being dark! It applies perfectly, super-easy formula (not too thick or thin) with two easy coats. Can I just say that I love OPI's brush? It makes application SO easy and it's the perfect size and flexibility.

I paired this with an accent nail of Funky Fingers Sand and Stilettos, a really dense  silver holo glitter topper. One coat is better coverage than you'd think! 

Next up is My Dogsled is a Hybrid, a beautiful jade/seafoam green. It manages to be bright but muted at the same time! It's really a great pop of color for fall without being too loud. And the formula? This polish, I declare, has the best formula I have ever worked with. It just glides on quickly and easily with the help of OPI's ProWide brush, and the polish isn't too thick or thin, again. Two coats.

I wore this polish twice this week--that's how much I like it! I paired it the first time with an accent nail of Essie Beyond Cozy from their winter 2012 collection. (This was a lemming of mine for a while and I recently came upon it in a dusty nail supply store!) It's a gorgeous, sparkly, unique glitter that's opaque on its own on two coats. It's an interesting hue: a very cool-toned gold or a very warm-toned silver. Or platinum... Depending on your skin tone and the light, it can lean gold or silver. 

I'm also wearing this polish for the second time this week as I type this! I saw a beautiful look on Instagram by the super talented Mllr Design and I recreated it with slight modifications to suit my preference as my nail length. Here's the link to her original nail art on her blog: http://www.mllrdesign.com/?p=204

I used Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art studs in gold and microbeads in copper and Capri. 

It's so pretty in the sun!

I've heard that the formula on all the polishes in this collections is fantastic, so I might go back for Suzi has a Swede Tooth and With a Nice Finn-ish. 

Do you like these polishes? Have you purchased any from this collection? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

XOXO

Is

Some Recent NOTD's

Greetings, nail lovers! I have A LOT of catching up to do with my NOTD's, so I guess now's the time! Some of them are recreations of various YouTubers' or bloggers' designs, in which case I will link to their post. Oh, and one more thing! I've been doing my lovely friend's nails recently, so some of these mani's are hers.

Here we have a lace half moon mani. This is a sort of recreation of Lucy's Stash's Lace Half Moon Manicure, one of several that she's done. I used Spoiled Correction Tape to paint the white base. I waited for it to completely dry, then applied reinforcement stickers to the "half moon" area and painted over it with Sinful Colors Cream Pink, a squishy neon pink with gold shimmer, and peeled off the reinforcements, revealing a white half moon. I waited for THAT to dry, and then used a black Hot Designs nail art pen to make a smaller half moon inside the white one and then black dots at the edge of the white half moon, and then connected the small black half moon to the black dots with black lines. Wheeee!

Here is just a simple mani with an floral accent nail. This are the gorgeous nails of my very dear friend, who I am currently getting addicted to nails. The hot pink is Essie Mod Square, which you can find a review of here. The accent nail is Essie Fiji, with flowers made with a dotting tool. The blue is Essie In The Cab-ana and the silver centers are Essie No Place Like Chrome. This mani definitely shows that I LOVE Essie!

This mani is based on the Chit Chat Nails' technique called a Skittlette, which she describes here. I like this idea a lot! However, I didn't quite like the result. Originally I had made the my pinkie completely covered in pink glitter, but I didn't like the look of that, so I took it off and changed it up. I started with a black base (Spoiled Visually Slimming). I then used a tiny paint brush to paint small swirls on the middle and ring fingers with Essie Mod Square and then went over the swirls with Essie A Cut Above. I finished with a matte top coat and then added a faux rhinestone with A Cut Above at the base of the nails. Done!

This is a nice mani, cute and sweet. It is a recreation of cutepolish's Pearls and Pastel nails, which I really liked! I painted the bottom half of my nails with Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac. I then added white stripes to the purple with Spoiled Correction Tape with a tiny brush and used a dotting tool to add white dots where the purple met the naked nail. I added OPI Happy Anniversary! to the white dots to imitate the nail art pearls (which I don't have). I finished with top coat, and then added a matte top coat to the polish! Pretty!

Here are my awesome friend's nails again! This is a simply triangle look. I started with Sally Hansen Pixie Slicks, a nice bright pink. I then blocked off a triangle with Scotch Tape at the tip of the nail with Spoiled Paying With Platinum, an interesting duochrome. It's grayish with flashes of purple, and at extreme angles, green. It went well with the pink... I like green and pink and purple together!

This is a recreation of a look from a video by MissJenFABULOUS, a YouTuber. I started with Essie In The Cab-ana on my thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers and Sally Hansen Pixie Slicks on my middle and ring fingers. I stroked In The Cab-ana down the middle of my middle and pointer fingers and then, with a tiny paintbrush, I flicked white (Spoiled Correction Tape) and the pink over the blue. On my 

thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers, I made a large dot of pink at the base of my nail and a smaller pink dot above it, and smaller white dots inside the pink dots. Voila!

This was a rainbow dotticure. I used (in ROY G. BIV order) Essie Mod Square, Essie Really Red, Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, some non-brand random yellow ice cream shaped polish, Spoiled I'm So Jaded, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away, and OPI Funky Dunkey. I made rows of dots with a dotting tool. I wore it like that, then a few days later added Maybelline Clearly Spotted on top. It looked sort of ombre this way!

Now we have watermelon nails, again on my BFF. I started with Sally Hansen Coral Reef for the watermelon color, and then with the Kelly Green polish from the Hot Designs nail art pen I made a green French tip. I added a white line with the white Hot Designs pen in between the green and coral. Then, with the black pen, I added three seeds on the coral.

Last (and kind of least), we have a jelly sandwich. The polish I used was a bit too opaque, but oh well. I started with two coats of Orly Sky Blue Color Flip, a blue polish with a lavender and sometimes sea foam green sheen. I added a coat of Essie Set In Stones, a silver hex glitter, and then another coat of Orly. It turned out to be a bit thick, but it was a really nice mermaid-y look.

Whew! Well, that's it! I'm all caught up. I hope you enjoyed, and maybe it gave you some inspiration! If you decide to recreate something, please show me in the comments down below! See ya!

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XOXO

Is