Blue Hues and Silver Accents

We met up for brunch over the weekend and by pure chance we had almost identical matching manis!! Great mani minds think alike I suppose!! LOL

My(Vicky) mani features my new Julep polish I received in my April Julep Maven Box.  Lena is a beautiful turquoise with a hint of gold.  The accent nail is 2 coats of Pure Ice Silver and Sephora by OPI Flurry Up glitter topcoat.  

My(Erika) mani is China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, one of my new purchases. I was so excited about this polish because I really wanted a mint polish. This looks a lot like a robin's egg blue to me and others agree. I just don't see the green hues in this polish at all!!! So my search for a mint polish continues. My accent nail is 3 coats of Essie Luxeffects Set in Stone. This polish definitely needs a base color, even after 3 coats you can see my bare nail. No bueno!

Is showing up to a party with the same mani as someone else just as bad as having on the same dress?? We say NO, but only if the other person is your sister. 

:)

I LOVE NAIL POLISH!!

Who doesn't love nail polish????

It's been gloomy here the past few days so I wasn't able to get a great photo of how amazing this glitter polish is, but it is truly amazing!!!

I started with a base of one coat of OPI Black Onyx. This amazing glitter bomb is I Love Nail Polish (ILNP) Babes In Toyland, a mix of green, fuchsia, blue and gold glitter.  

It's so pretty, I can't wait to try it with a different base color!!

ILNP has amazing glitter nail polishes. Check them out on Etsy here!

Colorful Plaid!

This mani is inspired by a method I read about on Rebecca Likes Nails.  To achieve the straight lines of a plaid design I used painted Scotch tape.  I painted several strips of tape in the colors I chose and let them dry thoroughly.  Then I cut the tape in strips with varying widths.  That's the most tedious part of the mani.  After that you simply stick the strips in a plaid design and trim any excess tape.  A thick coat of topcoat is key with this kind of mani, especially if you want it to last.  So far I have worn this mani for 2 days and it's holding up well!

This is the first time I've tried this method and I have to admit that it was pretty time consuming, but having straight, clean lines made it totally worth it!

These are the colors I used:

Revlon Sheer Petal (pale pink base color)

Revlon Violet (purple)

Essie Camera (hot pink)

Julep Kaylen (neon orange)

Nicole Not A Gold Bigger (gold)

Glitter Bomb!!

Part 2 of my Lush Lacquer haul is this beauty, Neon Blast, a glitter bomb of neon and bright colored glitter in a sheer black base.  

I used 2 coats, but probably could have used 3. You can see the sheerness at the base of my thumb nail where a 3rd coat would have given a more opaque look.

For the accent nail I just had to use another new polish I picked up, Essie Luxeffects Set in Stone, a silver glitter bomb in a clear base. I used Sephora by OPI Social Climber, a silver metallic, as the base to make the glitter really POP!

I'm in love with this mani!! I'm so happy with my purchases from Lush Lacquer! Check out their Esty store here!

I've seen a lot of bloggers use a matte top coat over glitter polishes and I really love the effect. I decided to try it on this mani.  These last 2 pics are mattified using Sephora by OPI Matte Top Coat. I don't love this top coat because I don't think it fully mattes the polish. 

I'm in search of the perfect matte top coat. Any suggestions??

Silver and Mint Chevron Design

I've tried the chevron design many times and could never get it right.  Free hand with acrylic paint or nail polish was close to impossible.  I even tried cutting scotch tape with pinking shears and it just wasn't working for me.  I finally found something that works for me, a Sharpie!!  

I started by painting all of my nails in Sally Hanson Mint Sorbet.  I looovvee mint green polish and this one is a great shade and covers nice and evenly.  It's important to let the polish dry completely before you start to draw with the marker.

I have heard of people using permanent markers for nail art and I wasn't so sure it would work for me.  But I love it!!  I'm ready to run to my local craft store to buy a whole rainbow of colors.  The best part about it is if you mess up (which I almost always do) you can easily wipe off the marker with a tissue (or a tissue with rubbing alcohol if necessary) and try again without messing up the base polish.  You certainly can't do that with acrylic paints! 

What kind of designs have you tried with permanent markers?

My First Indie Polish!!!

I had no idea indie polishes existed until I started following nail blogs on Facebook. Then we started this blog and I realized that there were a TON of indie polishes out there. I knew I had to have some, but I didn't know where to start.

Lush Lacquer recently came out with a Neon Collection that is amazing and different from all the other polishes I've seen! I chose Clowning Around, a clear base topper with different sized neon hexes. This will look great over pastel and neon polishes. I will be using this ALL Spring and Summer!!

The base colors I used are Zoya Sweet, a creamy bubblegum pink, and Essie Play Date, a lovely pastel purple. 

The thing I love about these hexes is that they are translucent, so they layer over each other really nicely. The only complaint I have is that I wish there were more large hexes. I had to dig for them to get a least one on each nail.

Lush Lacquer offers these great minis. I love minis because I rarely use I WHOLE bottle of polish. You can check out their products on Esty or on Facebook. 

Springy Color Block Mani

Essie's Tart Deco and Long Stem Roses come together beautifully in this color block mani.  The base color is Sephora by OPI Chamomile-ion to One, a pale pink with gold shimmer.  Tart Deco is a great coral color, not as orange as it looks in the pictures.  Long Stem Roses is one of my favorite pink-reds from Essie. 

Creating this look was very easy.  I used striping tape to make the Long Stem Roses section first and let it dry before painting the Tart Deco section.

I'm really happy with how this came out.  The colors are perfect for spring!

This is a fun design that I will definitely come back to in the future.  What other color combos do you think would look nice with this design?