Fishtail Nail Art

Have you ever gone to a spirit/food pairing? It's, uh, pretty great. Andy and I went to one last night at The Winking Lizard, oddly enough. There was kind of this little side room with about 40 people in it at tables at the back of the restaurant. We go there late (of course) and were enthusiastically greeted by Laphroaig Master Ambassador Simon Brooking in all his Scottish-accented glory (swoon for days. Scottish accents are absolutely my favorite accents in all the world) and two delicious Laphroaig 10 Year cocktails as we awkwardly made our way to our seats. It was a four course dinner (Scotch Egg Salad, Maple Glazed Duck Flatbread, Prime Rib with Sweet Potato Frites and Bleu Cheese and Bacon Brussels Sprouts, Hand-made Spicy Chocolate S'more) which were paired with four Laphroaig scotches (10 Year, Triple Wood, 10 year Cask Strength, 18 Year) and it was delicious. I've never been much for scotch (and Laphroaig, by nature, is incredibly smoky and peaty and a little intense to a scotch novice like me) but the event was informative, entertaining and fun. I was definitely a giggly doofus by the end.

Little Bottles of Scotch.

So I saw this fishtail nail art at Vampy Varnish and decided it would be the perfect thing to jazz up my fingies. I hadn't tried the fishtail yet so I was apprehensive at the whole free-handedness of it but it was actually pretty painless, and the result was exactly what I was looking for.

Colors used were:
Literary Lacquer - Some Glad Morning (turquoise)
Colors by Llarowe - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (blue)
Essie - As Good As Gold (gold)

Taken in direct sunlight with my very fancy vintage Hermes Deux Éperons bracelet that I'm waaay too lower-middle class to properly own.

What do you think? I miss my length but I'm happy to be able to somewhat pull of nail art, if only simple designs, still.

Legend of Zelda Triforce Nail Art

Just to, you know, really drive it in that I'm a huge geek.

Let me tell you a little story about my first Legend of Zelda experience. I was 12 and I was staying at my dad's apartment for the weekend. I had brought my Nintendo 64 over for entertainment purposes (not that he wasn't entertaining, exactly, he was just studying to be a paramedic) and we had rented Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I haaaated it. My problem was that I couldn't find the frigging Kokiri Sword. I played for all of 20 minutes, decided the game was lame, and went about my life.

Fast forward a year; waiting at a bus stop with my friend from elementary school's big scary sister. I was a freshman in high school and I didn't belong anywhere. This big scary sister and I started talking video games, and she lauded about a game called Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was like, girl, whaaaat? That's shit's lame. And she's like NO. So she let me borrow it (and helped me with the sword) and thus began the most epic journey of my life up to that point and a best-friendship that's still intact to this day.

We defeated Ganondorf during New Year's Eve of 1999/New Year's Day 2000. EPIC.

Ocarina of Time is very near and dear to my heart (I say it's my favorite video game of all time but I'm pretty sure that's just in a sentimental way... it's definitely in my top 3). That's the end of my story.

Courage! Wisdom! Power! I know I'm holding a GameCube controller here (I don't know where my N64 controller is, thanks) but just go with it. Windwaker was pretty great too, if we're going to get all crazy about it.

Colors used were:
Zoya - Storm & Raven
Sinful Colors - Ruby Mine & Emerald Envy
Ciate - True Blue
OPI - Oy-Another Polish Joke!

I was going to freehand the Marks of the Goddesses instead of just the individual Triforce bits but I just so happen to be taking a medicine that makes my hands kind of shaky, which is also super awesome for doing nail art.

I was going to re-take the pictures after I reviewed them because I kind of hated how they turned out, but I was going to do it after we went to the grocery store. But then something suck-filled happened, which you can read about tomorrow </3 

Easter Candy Nail Art

Happy Easter!

I'm the kind of mom who shares a pint of Cherry Garcia with her 21-month-old while watching Grey's Anatomy. Just a little bit of insight into my parenting style, here. I obviously don't have major issues with our kids eating crappy food in moderation, but Lord knows my threshold for a sugar-induced house-destroying running-around-squealing eff-fest is only about 28 minutes, so I'm not real big on kids + candy. That being said, with the abundance of grandparents involved in our blended family, there's going to be crap tons of Easter candy in this house soon and I'm gonna eat it all and the kids won't even KNOW.

Okay, I probably won't eat it all. I don't know. I can't predict the future, guys.

I'm not real big on pastels. Bunnies and duckies and flowers and little cracked eggshells with cute little black peepers peeping out are all super sweet and adorable and Easter-y, but candy.

As a true blue-blooded American, I wanted to go as commercialized as I could with this manicure. It's how we roll.

Valentine's Day = Chocolate & Roses
St. Patrick's Day = Beer
Easter = Candy

I'm pretty sure it's written in the Constitution. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, do candy for Easter and stuff. And dye eggs. Amen.

Actually I think that's the whole thing.

So anyway, God, this post is such a mess. I did NAIL ART on my NAILS and I will show it to you now.

L to R: Cadbury Mini Egg [the cop-out nail], Jellybeans, Chocolate with a Bite Taken Out, Bunny Peep.

The jellybeans look less suck in real life, promise.

O hay guise.

So there we have it. Candy on my nailz. Not the cutest, pastelest thing in the world, but it works for meee.

Colors by Llarowe - Young Turks and The Mighty Red Baron Stripe Nail Art

I bought Young Turks and The Mighty Red Baron a few weeks ago and somehow haven't done anything with either of them despite their awesomeness. I also bought Sally Hansen - Lick-O-Rich (bluuuughhh) for $.90 at Big Lots to use pretty much for this exact reason. I love texture stripes over regular polish. I heart it!

I used two coats each of Young Turks and The Mighty Red Baron, applied the tape, then carefully painted on one coat of Lick-O-Rich (the formula for the Colors by Llarowe polishes is freaking spectacular, by the way).

I wish my nails were, you know, the same length and all. I have no idea for what occasion I could possibly wear these (oh, you know, a funeral maybe... job interview...) but I like them. And I like feeling them. Since stopping biting my nails I've become a nail-messer-with. I fidget around with them constantly. Texture polish is like tactile crack to me.

The mooore you knooow!

Nail Art (Super Loosely) Inspired by Rangoli

Hiya!

Colorsutraa's hosting a giveaway that has two ways to win: via Rafflecopter and by submitting your nail art that's inspired by a category chosen by a blogger. I chose 'Inspired by India' (which was, of course, prompted by Colorsutraa) for many reasons, but mostly because of how freaking awesome Indian color palettes and designs are.

After much Googleage, I found information on an art form called Rangoli, which is where beautiful designs are made on floors using materials like colored rice, flower petals and sand during Indian festivals. There's a lot more that goes into it, but that's the Lazy Brandy description. Anyway, it's awesome, and I totally wish I could have dedicated more time to my design because actual Rangoli is super intricate and stunning and my nails are, you know, neat and all but pretty watered-down. Hence the super-loose qualifier in my title, there. Ha.

I used sixteen colors of polish (most of which were Sinful Colors) and topped it all off with copious amounts of Essie G2G to try to hide the insane amount of teeny tiny brushstrokes. I love this and I wish I was ambidextrous.

Side note: I don't know if it's my hand anatomy or what but doing the claw hurts me. It, like, tugs on this tendon in my arm. My thumb doesn't rotate like a normal person's, or something. Buuut you get the idea, even if it's presented in a gimpy way.

Look. At. How. Crooked. My index finger is. What the heck? I've never broken it or anything. Yet my nail insists on growing straight up, parallel to the rest of my fingernails, like a tree growing on a hill. It's weird how woman-y my hands look in pictures. Is that a strange observation to make? I always thought I had little girl-looking hands. I guess I am almost 30 and all, perpetual sigh/vom.

Colors by Llarowe - Ocean Water & Cult Nails - Baker Simple Nail Art

Foreword: I was once on a search for a teal jelly polish. I am no longer on that search.

The walls in my room are the color of Ocean Water (or, possibly, a touch darker and more blue) and I love it. I plan on painting a room in my house that color, every time we move, because I love it so much. Hopefully we're not going to be moving so much because I really hate painting walls.

I have a pair of sunglasses that are kind of Ocean Water teal with yellow arms. I did this manicure with those colors the other day and it was too much -- the colors look great together, but not with this design. But I liked the design, so I found a pretty nude: Cult Nails - Baker, and it worked, and I like it, all right?

I love hole reinforcements too, FYI.

For this look, I stuck the reinforcements to the top halves of my nails, making sure to wrap them completely around the nail so I could polish all the way to the sides without there being that strange angled gap between colors. I applied three coats of Ocean Water and, after letting it mostly dry, removed the labels. I then carefully applied Baker to the area of nail that didn't have Ocean Water on it (I'd say three coats here too) and then once everything way pretty much dry I put on topcoat.

Just something a little different than your typical half-moon manicure. Like, a reverse half-moon? Upside-down half-moon?

St. Patrick's Day Nail Art

Hey! Hey, guys!

Once upon a time I used to celebrate St. Patrick's Day the only way Americans know how: green wearin' and copious amounts of alcohol starting at the crack of dawn, usually in the form of Killian's, Guinness and Baileys or any creative and shudder-inducing combination of the three. St. Patrick... Patron Saint of hangovers.

Now I'm all old and wrinkly and fun-resenting (but hangover free, bitches!) and I celebrate St. Patrick's Day by making corned beef and cabbage (the recipe is, like, a freaking book and kind of all over the place but i results in DELICIOUS WONDERS). Holidays seem to be the only thing inspiring nail art out of me these days. Meh. Too busy being a grumpy old person I guess.

I started with a base of Essie - Good As Gold and after that was completely dry I used page hole reinforcements to tape off  at the base of each nail. Then I applied two coats of Sinful Colors - Emerald Envy. For the accent nail, I just used my super fancy DIY detail brush and, starting at the cuticle, painted rainbow arches! I had this really great idea to use the reinforcement labels so that the arches would be super crisp and perfect buuuuut no. Nope. Too impatient for that noise.

The rainbow consists of:
Formula X for Sephora - Hyped
Color Club - Wild at Heart
Colors by Llarowe - Young Turks
Sinful Colors - Happy Ending 
Cult Nails - You're My Dandy Lion 
Essie - Meet Me at Sunset 
Colors by Llarowe - The Mighty Red Baron 
..and a coat of Essie G2G

Uh, yep! That's a potato.

Daring Digits - Horde Swatch & Review (and some Warcraft nail art)

Back when the baby was immobile, I Warcrafted around with a Night Elf Hunter babe named Pancayk. Then I started working from home (cue quasi-adulthood) aaaaand my days of dungeon crawling were over. *Nostalgic siiiigh*. I first played WoW in the summer of '06 at my friend's house-- it was the first time I really played an MMORPG (as I owned a cute indigo iMac which wasn't exactly suited for online gaming) but that was my only frolic around Azeroth until last year when my boyfriend bought a computer built specifically, seriously, to play WoW from one of his co-workers. Ughhhhh. Some people long after previous lovers, previous jobs, previous living conditions... my heart yearns for the sweet touch of my Razer Naga.

Going right along with my unintentional theme of TV show/video game inspired polishes, I bring you Horde by a polish brand I had never heard of until I saw this polish on Storenvy: Daring Digits. It's from an entire WoW collection which I can basically find nothing on. Oh hwell.

Horde is, of course, a blackened jelly base with small metallic red dots and larger, I want to say, like, satin-finish hex glitter. Application was meeeehhhhh. Trying to get the glitter on in a single smooth coat was akin to finding Ashes of Al'ar-- lots of glitter fishing to be had, and the base was pretty sheer so I would definitely recommend layering it over a black or other dark polish.

Shown below is two coats of German-icure by OPI with Horde applied in a dabbing sort of way (with a thin coat of the base applied between dabs for more dimension). Accent nail is two coats of Zoya - Raven with China Glaze - Xtreme Thrash for the Horde symbol (touched up with Sinful Colors - Cross my Heart). All topped with two coats of Essie G2G (I found it!).

This was my first adventure with free-handing nail art and I'm pretty relieved that it doesn't look like complete poop-poop. I didn't have a super tiny brush so I, um, found the smallest one I had and cut the bristles on the side so just a little tuft remained. I thought that Xtreme Thrash (ridiculous name, by the way) would be too orange-leaning to match the red glitter but it was spot on. I also realized that I don't own a single red creme polish. Is that some kind of crime in nail world? (Also were you completely creeped out by my spider-hand in picture 4? Good).

The formula with this guy definitely left something to be desired, and I kind of desperately wished it included tiny red glitter too to break up some of the glitter-less space, but I do like how it looks on the nail. Definitely evocative of Horde-y things.

Valentine's Day Gradient Nail Art

I say this a lot, but I don't often have time for nail art-- if I do manage to do any, it's while the kids are napping so I only have around an hour these days. I wanted to do something cutesy and pinksy and heartsy for Valentine's Day since that's what people do, right?

I found a tutorial about sponged gradient hearts (which can be found here) and being that I haven't successfully done a sponge gradient yet, I wanted to go a little bit out of my nail comfort zone (which, I guess, is a thing for me now) and gradate the sh out of my nails. But with a heart for good measure because Valentine's Day!

I used Julep - Joan, Essie - The Girls are Out and Madison Ave-hue for the gradient, and Sinful Colors - Pale for the background of the accent nail. Essie G2G topcoat to finish 'er all up.

 
It's not the most intricate design in the world but for me for V-day, it gets the message across all right. Happy Valentine's Day, guys. If you're not into that sort of thing, happy Day-Before-a-Bunch-of-Chocolate-Goes-On-Sale Day!

Fingr's: Lace Up Nail Art Review

I have a COLD. We're moving in two days and I have a cold. In August.
Here are my nails:

Sunlight, OBVIOUSLY.

I did the gradient using Essie - Meet Me at Sunset (favoriteeee) and Flower - Eye of the Tiger Lily. No sponge nonsense, just a couple layers of Sunset and a slow build up of Tiger Lily towards the tips.

Anyway, then I see these appliques at Wally World and decide to go for it.

Firstly, I know these are probably made for tweens-through-early-20s kinds of ladyfolk, but I have some long, skinny piano player fingers, and the width of the ring finger sticker was still, like, half of what I actually needed. In fact, none of the stickers were wide enough. Seriously, little kid sizes here. 

Application was all fine and well enough. I tried re-positioning the first one and once I started trying to pull the thing off it wasn't having it. Tear city, and some, I don't know, stress discoloration. So whatever. And I had to clip about half of it off since my widdle nay-ools are still-a growin'. 

Can I just tell you how much it bums me out that I don't feel well? I seriously have SO MUCH TO DO. Even writing this, I'm like, "meh". I would so rather just be watching TV and eating Hot Dog Chips (which are SO GOOD and I'm not even getting paid to say so!!!!!!) 

Anyway, so my nails have spots on them, and that picture is AWFUL and there's black sh all over the place from trying to fill in the blanks with black nail art polish and this living room smells like a diaper and I can't figure out why, because there aren't any diapers laying around. LIFE.

Got my Ipsy bag today finally. Happy with it. Will I start posting reviews about that kind of stuff? I MEAN SINCE I HAVE SOOOO MUCH ELSE TO TELL YOU ABOUT. Whatever. I want to take a nap.

Um, the appliques were all right. My nails look pretty neat when they're not all up in my face and I can notice all the insane flaws. OUT.

OPI: DS Illuminate Swatch

I'm seriously addicted to dusty hunting. I live in NE Ohio so there's a nail salon like every twenty feet. We don't have a lot going on around these parts, you know? I ran a few errands the other day and in between doing things I needed to do I would stop at every salon along the way. Lots of places don't sell their polish which can be a bummer, especially when one employee says "sure, go ahead and look" and I find something awesome and then the owner, I presume, says "only for customers!". I'm technically a customer, right? I mean, clearly nobody has gotten their nails done with that color in at least three hundred years... just sell it to meeeeee.

So that's almost what happened with DS Illuminate, here. I walked in and seriously the whole wall of this place was just filled with every brand of nail polish you can think of. Of course I was told that the polishes weren't for sale. I thanked her and started to walk out. "Well, I do have just a few polishes I could sell, since they're doubles of ones I already have". Fair enough!

DS Illuminate immediately caught my eye. I knew it wasn't from the older series because of the scattered holographic-ness, but I thought it was beautiful all the same. She had a couple other OPI and a China Glaze that I didn't love but am considering going back for now that I've looked at them swatched. Anyway, here ya'll!

Do you like my fancy nail polish display stage?

DS Illuminate is a burnt umber shade with copper-shining flecks and tiny holographic glitter and oh, also, it shimmers green. It looks likes if a bunch of sand got sunburned, took a refreshing shower in a rainbow waterfall and then, um, put on moisturizer made from the tears of mermaids.

The little triangle friends are SP Robin's Egg. I use that color a lot I guess

This is in the tiny amount of sunlight I was given before this big, stupid cloud came and made it all shady for about nine millennia. Sunny all morning. Go to swatch. Big stupid cloud. But anyway, does it not look like I dipped my fingertips in the melted skin of a bronze god?

In the shade

Note the bit of nail sticking out over my finger in the top right corner! Growth!

And the culprit. Look how stupid it is.

So that's that. I'm not even calling this a review because it's, you know, not one. Basically I'm just raving about how pretty this polish is. This is the first manicure I've done in months that I've kept for more than -a- day.