Saturday, March 29, 2014

Ombre Nails with Flakies on Top

I am a little obsessed with teal right now and decided to try an ombre style mani with a variety of different polishes. I also wanted a good reason to slather Zoya Maisie over all my nails because it's just so pretty. This mani is from a week ago so it's not as pristine as a fresh mani, but I think it held up amazingly well.

These are the colors I used. It ranges from Black to teal to mint green. The lighting is lousy and doesn't really show off the true colors. The Julep is a matte black (Julep calls it a latex finish), but I put a top coat on it to make it shiny. BL Bluey is the only shimmery base color I used. Slapper, Wednesday, and Re-Fresh Mint are all cremes.



All of the following photos were taken in shaded outdoor lighting. The direct sun photos didn't do the polish any justice.



 The only pic with my thumb. The others turned out weird and didn't show it off well so I didn't include them.

Shaded outdoor lighting

I love Zoya Maisie so much! I love how it looks different, yet similar on each nail.

Shaded outdoor lighting

This picture shows off the shimmer of the ring finger nail with BL Bluey as the base. I didn't think I'd like Maisie with a shimmery base, but it looks pretty nifty after all.



I used a base coat of OPI Nail Envy and Seche Vite for top coat. In the photo with all the polishes, you might've noticed some numbers on top of the bottles. That's part of my cataloging system (that I'm a tad behind in updating), but I'll do a post about it another time. 


Thanks for reading!
-Melissa



All polishes presented here are from my collection and were not provided for review. All opinions are my own.








Friday, March 21, 2014

A Beach-Inspired Mani

Well, hello there! My goodness, it's been a while since my last post! Time seriously flies by. I went into this blogging thing thinking I'd post at least a couple times a week, preferably more, but, man it has been difficult to find the time lately. I have lots of pictures to post, it's just getting around to doing it. Sometimes I'm quite the procrastinator. Over the next month or two, posts will likely be limited as I'm finishing up my dissertation so I can (finally) graduate this Spring. Basically for the next several weeks, I will have no life and will live in a cave, but I will emerge with unyielding glory and triumph (or something like that).

I have some pretty nails to share with you today. During my recent unplanned blogging hiatus, I went to Hawaii for a wee vacation and needed appropriate nails. (Note: Pictures were taken on camera phone and the lighting isn't the greatest.)




For this mani, I used Zoya Zuza on my index, middle, and pinkie fingers. The thumb and ring fingers were done using a damp sponge to create the gradient. I did a base layer of Essie Marshmallow (to make it squishy looking and to help the neon pop). Then I put a line of China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, a thin line of Essie Marshmallow, and a line of China Glaze For Audrey on a damp makeup sponge and dabbed it on the nail. The glitter topper is Elevation Polish - Stay Behind, Catch A Wave--one of my absolute favorite polishes. Unfortunately, in the thumb close-up, Essie Marshmallow doesn't really show up. I dabbed it a bit too much, but you can see it on the ring finger.

I love the sparkling ocean effect the glitter gives. The turquoise color looks just like the water in Hawaii and the white from the Essie polish is meant to look like the foam from the ocean. And the neon? Well, it's fun and sunny...like the beach!

Thanks for reading!

-Melissa



All polishes used in the mani are from my own collection and were not provided for review.