Sparkle and Smolder - Zoya Irresistible Nail Art

I recently sat down to do some nail art with the new Zoya Irresistible Collection, and three of the colors jumped out at me. They came together in a gorgeous, fiery combination, and I immediately knew I wanted to do a gradient!

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Let's talk about the three polishes I used for this look!
Zoya Kerry is a yellow gold foil. Definitely one of my favorite shades in the collection.
Zoya Amy is an orange foil. Super sparkly and warm.
Zoya Bobbi is a red-magenta foil. It reminds me of the color of red grapes.

This nail art came out so well but the process was a double edged sword.

If you're familiar with sponged gradients in nail art, you'll know that the sponge deposits polish on the areas of finger that surround your nail. It's usually not that difficult to clean up if you're using cotton swabs and acetone.

I didn't have my brain turned on before I started this nail art, and barged ahead without protecting my surrounding fingers in any way. BIG MISTAKE! Let me tell you why. These polishes are so super sparkly and flecky (part of their appeal!), but their downside is, if you get them on your skin, those sparkles can be pretty challenging to remove. I spent more time cleaning up the polish on my skin than I did doing the actual gradient.

If you guys want to try a gradient with these polishes, I would recommend applying Elmer's Glue or something like Liquid Palisade to the skin surrounding your nails first. If you let it dry completely before you start the gradient, you'll just be able to peel off the mess after you're finished.

What do you think of this look?

The Zoya Irresistible Collection is available now on Zoya.com for $8 per polish.

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Fallen Flowers - China Glaze Cirque du Soleil Nail Art

Today I have some nail art to share with you, hooray! This is the second look that I've done using the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection. If you missed my first manicure, you can check it out here. I've called today's manicure fallen flowers because it ended up looking like flowers that had fallen off of a tree onto the grass below.

I started with a base of China Glaze Running In Circles, which is a ridiculously sparkly and gorgeous emerald fleck polish. If you were to pick only one Cirque du Soleil shade (oh the horror!), this is my recommendation for the "must have" color.  I wore it for a day by itself before I added the flowers.

I started the flowers by painting on some brushy petals in Surreal Appeal, the pretty coral shade. It wasn't fully opaque at the first pass, so I doubled up on the petals before moving on to the second polish color.

For the centers of the petals, I reached for the purple jelly -- Creative Fantasy. The semi-transparent finish actually worked really well for this purpose, because I could do one sheer layer of color, and then build up the center of the petals with a second layer. It's hard to explain in words; you can see what I mean best if you look at the flower on the tip of my ring finger. At any rate, it created a lovely and easy gradient-type effect.

All in all this was a pretty quick nail art design, and I was very pleased with the results.

Here's a photo of Running In Circles alone.

I also happened to have my SLR and macro lens out while I was wearing this color, so I snapped this delightful photo of its fleck finish.

I've also got one more bonus Instagram photo for you! I did the same flower technique on my friend Kelly last night. She is about to leave on vacation, so she wanted some fun nail art for the occasion. She saw me wearing this manicure and we ran with it, but in different colors. The base is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover.

The Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Collection should be hitting shelves within the next week at salons and specialty beauty retailers nationwide, including Sally Beauty Supply and ULTA stores. Individual nail polish shades will retail for $7.

Products provided for review.

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