Pink and Gold Rococo Nails

Today’s “metallic” nails for the challenge are very unlike my usual personal style. It was nice to step outside my box though, as I was super happy with the way these turned out! Girly and fun and kind of rococo-esque, don’t you think?

My pink base is American Apparel Coney Island. I haven’t used an AA polish in a really long time… I always forget how great they are. Their colors are lovely and the formula is really nice.

The frame embellishments on my pointer and pinky are from a grab bag I ordered at Ocean Nail Supply. I can’t remember where I got the brass studs from, but I imagine you could find something similar from ONS or a site like Daily Charme.

I chose one of my favorite gold polishes for the accents: China Glaze Goldie But Goodie. I like the complexity of it — it has these gorgeous flecks and a sort of coarse visual finish to it. I used nail vinyls from Love, Angeline for the pattern on the middle and ring fingers.

More metallic manicures:

• Nfu Oh 61 silver holographic
• Magnetic metallic with gold leaf
• Distressed metallic gradient
• Matte metallic gold French tips

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Essence - Be My Marshfellow, swatch

This is so not my type of color..Almost regret buying this. But anyhow, Be My Marshfellow is from Essence's LE Fun Fair collection and is like the others chalky matte and has a candy scent. This one smells like ice cream or well, maybe marshmallow? It's a super sweet artificial scent, not overwhelming but you can definitely feel it. The color is a varm pastel pink, like a pink with orange in it, salmon like, or what you used to make "skin color" on white people when drawing as a child. In the bottle I also see a soft shimmer which is completely invisible on the nail. This one needed 3 coats, whilst its green buddy only needed two. What do you think? Do you like this color?

Price: 10ml/1,79€ which I bought at Rossman.

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Lakobotan Franken Polish - Party Starfish, swatch

Here again I have a rare piece of polish, a franken which only have 2 bottles in the whole wide world, and I got one of them. ;) Lakobotan named it Party Starfish and it is a middle tone to dark high saturated pink, almost berry like with linear holo and also loads of prismatic glitter. The prismatic
glitter often glitter in a reddish tone together with the rainbow spectra, probably when it's half covered in pink polish.

This was 2 coats and easy application but with a gritty result without topcoat (this is very glitter packed!), but with a couple of coats topcoat this looks really nice! I'm really happy with this polish! Thanks Lakobotan. ;) And now a photo spam..

With flash.

This polish has many faces depending on the light, from top to bottom, natural light, with flash and with direct sun light.

With flash.

With flash.

With flash.

Natural light.

Natural light.

Natural light.

Direct sun light.

Direct sun light.

Direct sun light.

Also I have a nail art with this which I barely can't wait to show and also please check out my swatch of the blue Little Mermaid, also from Lakobotan, if you haven't already. 

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Ride the Waves with a Pop of Pink

Black and white with a pop of color is a tale as old as time. It's such a classic combination: black and white on either end of the spectrum, with a color that falls somewhere in between. I had this manicure in my mind for a while now, and just had to pick the perfect base color. I found it in Gelish Tokyo A Go Go, a beautiful, bright pinky-purple.

And there's good news for those of you that don't wear gel: this pretty pink is also available in regular lacquer form from Morgan Taylor!

To begin this manicure, I applied Gelish Foundation before adding two coats of Gelish Tokyo A Go Go. It's just... ugh. So pretty. I'm obsessed.

Then, I used Akzentz Gel Play Paint in white to block out the general shapes of the waves. It was pretty opaque, but I went back after curing the first coat to fill in a couple of patchy areas. I used Akzentz Gel Play Paint in black to add on the thick and thin wavy lines.

Finally, I finished the manicure with Gelish Top It Off.

I was really happy with the outcome of this manicure and enjoyed wearing it quite a lot! It's always satisfying when a manicure you have in your mind turns out how you hoped it would on the nail.

Purchasing Information
The Gelish Hello Pretty collection is available from Esther's Nail Center, as well as Amazon.com. You may still be able to find the LE collection in Gelish MINI at Sally Beauty.
Morgan Taylor lacquer equivalents are available from Loxa Beauty.
Akzentz products can be purchased through Gellipop.

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Floral Bouquet Accent Nail with OCC Cosplay Nail Lacquers

Way back in the day, when I was first getting into nails, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics held a sale. I think they were changing their bottle shape and wanted to clear out their old inventory. I figured it'd be a good opportunity to try a new-to-me brand, and picked out "Grandma," a pretty coral, and "Ghostly," a lavender-grey. When I gave them a go, I remember being really impressed with the formula.

Now, here we are, some three or four years later, and I'm still just as pleased with the quality of OCC products. You may already know them for their Lip Tars, but if you haven't tried out their nail products yet, I definitely suggest picking a few of them up.

All of the shades I used for this manicure are from their latest collection, "Cosplay." I thought it'd be nice to do a floral accent nail to show off the range of colors, and drew inspiration from Paulina's Passions' distinct floral aesthetic.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics - Silence (greyed beige, base)
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics - Femme (pink)
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics - Cosplay (green)
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics - Cha Cha (orange)
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics - Belladonna (purple)

I created the shade variations by mixing the colors with a white nail polish, and finished the manicure off with a matte topcoat.

The standout here, for me, is definitely Silence. It has this gorgeous silver shimmer to it and covered well in two coats. Super chic, very "me," I'm in love!

These lacquers are available now for $10/ea from occmakeup.com.

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Kawaii Watermelons, or How to Make Your Fruit Cute

I love watermelon, but I don't know that I would necessarily think of it as cute. UNTIL today. I've done some summery watermelon nail art before, but I wanted to take it in a different direction this time. In a cute direction. In a SUPER cute direction! And now I want to kawaii-fy ALL the things! All you gotta do is add faces!

I used two of the new KBShimmer summer shades for the classic watermelon pink/green! I did this as a ruffian with the pink over the green, but I think it probably would have been easier to just paint a green band on top of the pink.

KBShimmer Lei It Again
KBShimmer For Sail By Owner

Both polishes were opaque in two smooth, easy coats. I really enjoyed working with them.

I also used black and white polishes for the faces and other detailing.

Formula X Dark Matter
Essie Blanc

I dunno what else to say! I just love their little faces so much! KAWAII FOREVER

Disclosure: This post contains press samples.

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Vintage Striped Wallpaper with China Glaze Desert Escape

Have you guys checked out the China Glaze Desert Escape collection yet? I really dig the color makeup of it. There's something for everyone, you know? You've got a neutral, a metallic, a squishy red, a girly pink, a funky turquoise, and a silky magenta.

I reached for four of the six shades from the collection to put together this easy nail art. I think it's kind of charmingly vintage, yeah? Like, maybe you'd see it in your grandma's bathroom, and she's had it like that since the 1960s.

And gueI think just about anyone could pull this off. All you need to be able to do are vertical stripes (the easiest of all the stripes) and dots!

The shades I used are:
China Glaze What's She Dune? (nude)
China Glaze Don't Mesa With My Heart (pink)
China Glaze The Heat Is On (red)
China Glaze Meet Me In the Mirage (rose gold)

1. Begin by applying a base of the nude. 
2. Use a nail art brush to paint on a wide stripe of rose gold down the middle of your nail. 
3. Stack a medium red stripe on top of the rose gold stripe.
4. Stack a thin pink stripe down the middle of the red stripe, then add two sets of two thin pink stripes at the edges of each nail.
5. Add red and pink dots in pairs of two in the open spaces.

Unlike China Glaze collections you may be used to, the Desert Escape collection is only available on LockandMane.com. Each shade retails for $7.50. Have you picked up any? Do you have plans to?

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P2 - Strawberry Frosting, swatch

Here we have the pink in the Crisp Color collection by P2. The color is bright pastel pink and the shredded particles is in red and blue. The color reminds me about strawberry milkshake. 2 coats here as well and easy application. :P

2.45 euro at DM.

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Catrice - Call Me Princess, swatch

An unusual purchase to be me, it's pink! ;) Basically I thought that Call Me Princess from their Crushed Crystal collection was a texture polish, similar to something Isadora had 2014. However, as it turned out, there is no noticeable grit! Surprisingly I liked this and the color shifting has a huge part of it. When angeling the nail I think the pink goes from gold, to warm light pink to dark hot pink in the edges. Basically it contains color shifting glass-flecks/tiny glitter ranging from pink to gold, all in a pink jelly base.It covered surprisingly well and I used 3 coats even though 2 could have been enough (the 3rd didn't make that big of a difference), there is some VNL going on but adding more coats doesn't hide it in this case. And I must say it shows a bit more in the pictures than IRL. The polish formula is good and covers fast however the brush is more of a wide "brom" even though I prefer wide over tiny brushes.

I think this picture shows the color shifts the best, darker hot pink going towards warm golden pink.

This last picture is the only picture taken with cellphone, it's also in the sun because I wanted to show how much CMP is glittering. ^^

Awesome price; 1,35 euro (on sale) at Rossman.

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Girly Gradient Nail Art with EverGlaze by China Glaze

This spring, China Glaze throws their hat into the ring of longwearing polish systems, joining the ranks of lines like CND's Vinylux and Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel. These systems are set apart by claims of gel-like wear and shine, without the need to cure in a lamp or the lengthy removal process. China Glaze's EverGlaze system brings CG's signature bold colors and fun finishes among more traditional color choices, ensuring that there's a shade for every type of gal.

The system includes a nail prep solution, the range of colors, and the EverGlaze Active Top Coat. The prep solution is similar to a nail dehydrator, and it is meant to remove dirt and oils from your nail plate before polishing. This helps the polish stick longer! The Active Top Coat comes in a UV protected bottle.

For this nail art, I used:
EverGlaze Case of the Mondaze
EverGlaze Adrenaline Rush
EverGlaze A Toast to You
EverGlaze Back to Black

Case of the Mondaze is actually a gorgeous cobalt blue, but when I sponged it over Adrenaline Rush in my gradient, it turned purple! A happy accident, I say!

The Active Top Coat is thick and shiny, dries quickly, and doesn't smear nail art. It's a winner, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it (I can be very picky with top coats, you know).

Unfortunately, I'm unable to do a wear test of my own at this time -- nail school is tough on polish, and even my full-fledged lamp cured gels don't hold up sometimes!

EverGlaze is available now in Sally Beauty stores and on SallyBeauty.com.

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