Nails of the Day: Turquoise Stone Nail Art

I Purchased This

Today's nail art is inspired by turquoise stones. I saw a tutorial to create a "stone" look using black nail polish and hairspray and the effect looked too cool not to try. I like how the nail art is unique between each nail and the look feels more organic as a result! This tutorial on Nail It! Magazine shows how you can do it. It does take a few tries but it looks super fancy when you're done.

The base is China Glaze For Audrey and the black polish is a no-name beauty supply polish (feel free to use any opaque black polish). You could honestly use any base color you wanted and still get a really cool effect!

Are you wearing any nail polish today? If so, what color?

Classic Color: China Glaze For Audrey Swatch and Review

I Purchased This

Today's post is a swatch and review of a quintessential nail polish color that I think everyone should own. This is China Glaze's For Audrey, their version of a Tiffany Blue (as close as they can get to it since the actual Tiffany Blue is trademarked). It's a truly classic color (thus the title) and I want to share my swatch so if you don't have it yet, you should add it to your collection. 

Two coats is all that's needed for opaqueness. It is a gorgeous color if you don't already have it!

Do you like China Glaze polishes? How about For Audrey in particular?

Essie Good as Gold + China Glaze Millennium Gradient Nails

When I got Essie's Good as Gold in the mail yesterday (thanks to Klout Perks!), I knew I had to do a manicure with it. Three years ago, China Glaze came out with their Khrome collection with mirror like metallics. I adored them from afar, only picking up Millenium, the silver chrome, but not 2030 which was the gold chrome. From then on, I've searched for a similar mirror like chrome and I've come close with the Essie Mirror Metallics collection.

Good as Gold is a neutral gold metallic polish, not as warm as molten golds. It isn't particularly flecky but positively chrome like and like most metallics, unflattering on ridgey and bumpy nails. It isn't quite like the China Glaze Khrome collection since you can see some brushstrokes but it's close enough. I put Good as Gold on by itself but felt like it was missing something so I picked up China Glaze Millenium and sponged it on for my first ever gradient. Not too good on my short nails but I don't think it looks half bad on my middle and ring finger. I followed the gradient technique from The Nailasaurus but I still need some practice.



Are you a fan of metallic nail polishes or are you not fond of how unforgiving it can be? How about the gradient nails?

A Poor Man's Crackle polish

I remember this MAC Antiquitease nail polish look that Christine at Temptalia featured years ago. It very much reminded me of crackle polish and so I thought I would replicate the look with Revlon's Gold Coin.

It's very easy to achieve this look, just paint your nail the color that you want and let it dry(or use a quick dry top coat) then paint another polish over it and immediately use a piece of paper towel (preferably textured) to blot over the polish.

Christine recommended to do it one nail at a time and I definitely agree. Try to only go over a section of the nail once otherwise it just smushes the polish badly

I tried it with both Revlon Gold Coin and China Glaze For Audrey and I personally like the results. I haven't experimented much in terms of method but I imagine you could get much more uneven results if you did!

This isn't a new thing but in the midst of the hullabaloo with crackle polish I thought it'd be great to rediscover some alternative methods :)

Day 12: Is it Christmas Yet?

Ruby Pumps one of the first China Glaze polishes I ever bought and I wore it all the time last year because of the holidays. I'm going to pretend Christmas is coming soon because it'll mean school will be over and I'll have a month to relax!

You must click to enlarge because it's utterly gorgeous and will get you in the Christmas mood

I had a rather nice day yesterday practicing my sign language with my boyfriend. He wanted me to sign without voicing (meaning I sign without saying out loud what he's signing or what I'm signing) and during the midst of this a couple of kids behind me were watching us.

My boyfriend then went to get out of our table and had to maneuver around a baby carrier that was on the seat and said out loud "Sorry" and "Excuse Me". He told me later that the kids behind us were so surprised to hear us speaking but that's what kidlings get :P

Are you getting into the Holiday spirit yet?

LGBT Spirit Day Outfit/Nails of the Day

Today was the day to wear purple to commemorate, honor and show support to those who have been victims of LGTBQ discrimination. If you wanted to get more information about this day and more, definitely go to the GLADD website.

It was cold and rainy out today but it then got hotter as the day went on. That's California weather for you.

Outfit
Because it was cold I wore a dark blue jacket, black pants and grey ankle boots (only because my other good shoes were waterlogged from the thunderstorm yesterday). The jacket is from a mom&pop clothing store, pants from Urban Outfitters and the boots are from Forever 21

and underneath...

Power Rangers! The shirt is from Hot Topic and the purple stripes on the sleeves match my nail polish.
Nails are China Glaze Grape Pop, two coats with Seche Vite.

Did you wear purple today? If so, what did you wear?

Mummy May I swatch

I'm rather fond of this color, at first glance it seems like a plain dark purple but I like the addition of the glitter. It is also appropriate for October 20th, which is Spirit Day to honor those who recently committed suicide due to being bullied for being gay.

This was 3 coats. It was weird and had sort of a sticky texture? Not as free flowing as my other China Glazes and after I added thinner, it was much better.

My day was relatively good. My Anniversary with the Boy was today and I found out that I had won Phyrra's BFTE Cosmetics Wizards of Oz-Some giveaway so it was nice. I've never actually tried out BFTE even though I've been tempted to for ages so it's nice to get a good sampling of their products :)

Grape Pop +Konad!

This was my favorite plate to use with customers because I'd always do it on the ring finger and it would look so nice with jewelry :)

This was two coats of China Glaze Grape Pop, topped with Seche Vite and the Jewelry pattern from M77

For Audrey Konad with M60

This is probably my most favorite polish to do a Konad over, For Audrey just looks so delicate and nice with white over it.

This is two coats of For Audrey, topped with Seche Vite and then stamped with M60 with White Stamping Polish and topped with another Seche Vite.

Someone complemented me on my nails today at school, it was awesome :D. I have learned that it is difficult explaining the concept of Konad as it is, screenprinting for nails is way better as an explanation!

KOTD: China Glaze OMG with M57

Excuse my messy cuticles, I'm out of pure acetone so I've been trying to manage with normal polish remover and it's not working so well.

This was an experiment but I don't know if I like the combo together, mostly because it kind of obscures the holographicness. This was 3 coats topped with Seche Vite, Konad in Black and Seche Vite again

I'm right I swear I am!

I've been working at my job for only a couple of days but I've encountered many a different kinds of customers, which is normal for retail work. I actually work at a local fair selling Konad :D so that'll definitely mean I'll have new plates to play with.

I encountered one of those all knowing customers who kept on perpetuating the idea that nail polish remover=thinner.

Now if nail polish remover is used to remove nail polish from your nails, thus breaking down nail polish, then why would it ever be added to nail polish? Logically that would break down the nail polish right?

Just oy. Anyways, Mondays and Tuesdays are my definite days off meaning I'll be able to plan posts more on these days!

Here's a Konad I did with M57(new favorite plate, hells yeah Zebra)


I absolutely love the formula for Custom Kicks (the polish I posted), it is absolutely perfect. It's extremely pigmented and smooth and just perfect. What bugs me is that sometimes the small shimmer isn't evenly distributed so some of my fingers are looking bluer than others (like with my pinky) I'm looking for a non-shimmer version of Custom Kicks because I love the color

Yay for Konad

This sort of robin's egg blue/Tiffany blue never ceases to make me feel really really classy and I love how it looks paired with a white Konad. I think it looks better with white than black.

I used the filigree/tiny leaves pattern off of the M71 plate, which is pretty beginner-friendly. The pattern has lots of spaces betwen the little etchings so if you miss a spot it's easy to stamp over that bit and make it look as if that was a part of the pattern.

China Glaze OMG NOTD

The epicness of this polish is best seen in sunlight because it will make people ooh and ahh over your fingers.

There's a better picture included...

This did take 3 coats to get it opaque but each coat dried ridiculously fast so it wasn't that big of a deal. This is 3 coats over Nubar Foundation and one coat of Seche Vite. I did a comparison (no pictures) of it without a top coat and I found that it made no difference in the holographicness.

I think this is tied with my most favorite finish, with rainbow sparkle sharing 1st. I love creme finishes, it being 2nd and sparkly polishes being my next favorite.

Past Nails of the day

I was feeling semi creative before a test so I decided to this.



2 coats of China Glaze For Audrey, 2 coats of Stripe Rite in silver glitter and topped with 1 coat of Seche Vite.

The little bow is from Konad plate M71. My boyfriend likes to say that I apply my Konad with a microscope and a very tiny brush, haha.

NOTD China Glaze Dorothy Who?

This was taken in the shade, fairly true to life as to how you'd see it in everyday life.

I'm kind of eh on this color, but am attempting to use it up.

I got this when there was a lot of hype about it being rereleased knowing that I haaaaate jelly polishes. I hate seeing VNL (visible nail line meaning the smile line) but I saw all these pictures of it and I just had to buy it.

Well. I'm using it up but I think it's more trouble than it's really worth.




These were taken in the sun.

This is 3 coats with Seche Vite Top coat, and you can see that it's darker in the middle by the way everything pooled.

It looks nice in the sun but I can't get over how uneven it gets plus the jellyness. Oh well. The wear is kind of crappy, it chipped 12 hours after I applied it when my other manicures last days if I let it.

NOTD China Glaze For Audrey

Just another NOTD. The index finger nail looks too light, the rest of my fingers seem to be color accurate, although I do apologize for the shadows, the sun was being a little bit funny with me.




Oy my cuticles look bad, I don't know why the ends of them keep getting dried/cut up like that. I'm going to blame the SoCal weather because we've had a week of normal days and cold drippy rain days.

EDIT- this was 3 coats with Seche Vite top coat