Black and White, Post-Apocalypse

You may or may not know this about me: I'm obsessed with CND's work at Fashion Week. For this look, I was inspired by their nail artistry for The Blonds F/W 2015 show. The theme was the ultimate contrast between utopian and dystopian, with post-apocalyptic elements and all the amazing drama we've come to expect. If you're at all interested in high fashion nail art, I highly recommend you check out the CND lookbook for the show.

Some of the elements in their nail design focused in on black and white, and I wanted to do the same. I ended up with a manicure that felt somewhat abstracted, sort of tribal, very contrasted.

I used CND VINYLUX Weekly Polish in Black Pool and Cream Puff for my interpretation, and while I tried my best to channel the "hopeful apocalypse" look, I think I need a bit more practice with the theme!

Do you keep up with Fashion Week comings and goings? I know I'm a bit late, timing wise, with this one, but I just couldn't let it pass.

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Is It Spring Yet? This Linework Nail Art Seems to Think So!

Spring is a lovely time, isn't it? I think it may be my favorite season. Besides the gorgeous temperatures and blooming flora, spring brings us PASTEL NAIL POLISH! Pastels are seriously my jam... I think they suit my pale skin but also bring a certain cheerfulness that nudes just can't compete with.

KBShimmer is on the same page, and is coming in strong for spring. Their newest collection includes crellies, holos, and cremes in a color palette sure to make your nails bloom.

Polishes used:
KBShimmer Ins and Sprouts
KBShimmer Thistle Be the Day
White polish

I began by painting my nails with two coats of Ins and Sprouts. I didn't put down a base coat, which proved to be a costly mistake, as it is definitely a stainer on its own.

Then, I used a triangle makeup wedge to sponge on a gradient of Thistle Be the Day. I did four or five rounds of sponging to achieve the opacity you see here. Something to note is that sponging these shades together actually diminished the holo effect; both polishes are ultra mega super holo in their natural state.

The final step was to add the white markings! I painted them freehand with a small nail art brush and sealed the look in with topcoat.

This nail art really got a lot of complements, and it was fairly quick to accomplish. The formulas on the holographic shades were easy to work with, smooth, and quick drying, though be sure you wear a base coat with Ins and Sprouts to avoid staining.

KBShimmer is available for purchase from KBShimmer.com in the US and Harlow & Co for international orders. You can also keep up with the brand on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Wasabi and Caviar - An Exercise In Linework and Patience

Today is my birthday, and if you can believe it, my nails are actually naked right now! THE HORROR! I'm hoping to put something fun on them after I get home from work, but for now, I wanted to share a manicure I spent a lot of time on recently.

I am calling it wasabi and caviar for reasons that I hope are obvious! This entire design is handpainted with regular nail polish. It's some of my best linework to date, I think. Hooray for improvement there!

Nail polishes and products used:
LVX Midori
Formula X Dark Matter
Sally Hansen Stud Kit

If you want to attempt a design like this, I've got some tips!

1. Get a small brush. I can't tell you how long I used a thicker nail art brush, cursing my lack of talent rather than the tool I was using. Once I got a thinner brush, it helped me immensely. I still had to keep practicing, but my old brush was definitely part of the problem. Trim down an old brush with cuticle nippers if you don't have a super thin one.
2. Keep it clean. If you're using polish (instead of acrylic paint or gel), clean your brush frequently with 100% acetone and regularly put down more polish onto your palette. Polish dries quickly and can wreck your fine lines if it isn't the right consistency.
3. Small mistakes aren't the end of the world. You can use a clean nail art brush dipped in acetone to gently "erase" small mistakes from your work; just be careful not to go too crazy or it will eat through your base color. In this case, I put a layer of topcoat between the wasabi shade and my black linework for extra protection.
4. Be patient. This shit isn't fast. When you factor in my previous tips and the detail of the work, you just gotta know it's not going to be easy to bust it out in 45 minutes. I like to put on Netflix and take breaks every so often to stretch out.

I just love this kind of strange green color, and the thick blingy stud nail is just the right amount of "odd" to go with it.

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Native american tribal nail art

Hi! Today I'm showing a Native american tribal nail art, I know there's a lot of them out there in different version but I decided for a divided look with one side which is more "crazy" and the other one being more subtle with a gradient going from white, nude and to antique gold. Here you go;

See the gold at the bottom of the gradient? :)

Polishes used:
ZTIZ - 9923 (Gold)
ZTIZ - 28896 (Brownish nude)
ZTIZ - 28907(?) (nude)
ZTIZ - 9921 (White)
Kubiss - No. 64 (Turquoise shimmer)
L.A. Colors Art Deco -Black
L.A. Colors Art Deco -White

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Busy Bee - Freehand Gel Nail Art for Cosmoprof 2014

As I started planning out the manicure I wanted to wear for Cosmoprof, I knew I wanted it to be three things: freehand, unique, and done in gel. I thought back to the bee manicure that I did in September 2013, and remembered how much I enjoyed wearing it. I chose to go with a similar theme, but tried to bump up the difficulty a bit.

For my thumb, I used Lexi Martone's glitter gel technique to create a sparkly black nail. I started with a black gel base and then applied a mix of black craft glitter and Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers holographic glitter. The black glitter didn't show up very well, but it did help to space out the holographic glitter more evenly. Then, I used nail glue to attach a bee charm from Hex Nail Jewelry and sealed it in with gel topcoat.

The honeycomb pattern, bee silhouettes, tribal-inspired pattern, and honey drips were all painted freehand. I was really pleased with the level of detail I was able to achieve in the gel, and it lasted the entire time I was at Cosmoprof! The nails definitely got a lot of attention!

As this was my first time doing gel nail art, I was unsure how it would go. I remembered that the talented ladies at Hey Nice Nails use Presto Gels for their gel art and gave the brand a try myself. I used the black and white art gels as well as Presto Gel in Gradevole for the yellow base color.

Though I don't have much to compare it to, my experience with Presto was great. One thing to note, if you are ordering, is that many of the shades come in gel pots. If you are only used to the regular polish bottles that many at-home gel systems use, getting pots delivered can be kind of jarring. Regardless, it worked out great for me and I'm sure I'll be ordering more in the near future.

Bee-lieve it or not, I was even able to get the same amount of detail on my other hand! I think the mani-gods must have been smiling down on me that day.

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Lazy Maze and a Summer Gradient with Floss Gloss

Continuing my "black pattern over a neon gradient" obsession is today's manicure, featuring Floss Gloss polishes! I was stuck on a name for this post until Leslie from Work/Play/Polish suggested "lazy maze." I loved that name because it references the similarly patterned maze manicures that I've done before, and also describes what my lines look like: the easiest mazes ever.

I began with a white base to help the colors pop, and then used a triangle makeup wedge to sponge a gradient of Floss Gloss Con Limon and Floss Gloss Wet. Con Limon is really extraordinarily gorgeous. Super neon, perfect lime green.

The black lines are painted freehand with Floss Gloss Black Holy. I did each of the line patterns in pairs of two, which created an interesting "channel" effect down the nail. They feel tribal-inspired but I think they still stand on their own as something different.

This is my first experience with Floss Gloss and I was happy with it! The polishes are on the pricier side ($8 for what is essentially a mini), but the bottles are gorgeously antique-chic and the formula is nice. They would be really beautiful displayed on a vanity. Note to self: build a vanity just to display these polishes.

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Striped tribal nail art in green and white

For day 12 in the 31dnc I started with a green base (since it's Green Wednesday) and then I started making stripes with my fine liner polish, at random. After a while I realized that it started to look a bit tribal. But I don't mind, I liked the look and I'll just make something different for day 16, which is the actual day for tribal. At least it's striped enough for today I think! ;)

Polishes used:
HM - Green Street
Jordana Pop Art - Contemporary White

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South African tribal nail art

If I'm going to be done with the Where In The World-challenge this year I'll better hurry up and go to the next country on the list which is South Africa. Sadly almost the only african country in the whole list (we have Madagascar too), but it would have been fun with more African countries..think of all the wild animals, flags and cultural stuff that could have been a great inspiration to cool nail art. A country with a cool flag is South Africa, it's filled with nonetheless than 6 colors and the pattern is pretty graphical and cool. I decided to make the actual flag on two nails and then I did the pattern with a black fine liner because I figured that it looked graphical. I was in a bit of a hurry when I did this so I'm not content with the green nails but this is what it looked like. :)

Polishes used:
HM - Green Street
L.A. Colors Art Deco - Black
Claudia - 607
Isadora - Surfers Paradise
BK nail art color

Have you missed a country? Then click on on it below.

1. Australia  
2. Canada
3. Spain
4. Israel 
5. Poland
6. USA
7. Denmark
8. Sweden
9. United Kingdom
10. Russia
11. Hungary

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31DC2013 Day 16: Navajo Weaving

Today's theme is "tribal print." I wanted to make an attempt to be historically and culturally accurate in my manicure, so I started doing some research on Native American tribes. I eventually found an image of a Navajo blanket from the late 1800s that I really liked and that I thought would translate well. I did end up making a few changes to it so that it made more sense as a nail design. This is my final result!

This is the photograph of the blanket that I based my manicure off of. As you can see I did make a few changes, mainly to the red diamond areas.

Source: Navajo weaving

For my base color, I used Color Club Mod In Manhattan. This off white shade is exclusive to a collection sold in the Birchbox Shop, though you could easily replace it with a shade like Zoya Jacqueline or OPI My Vampire is Buff.

Then, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to try freehanding the thick black stripes on top. I definitely could have done them as a tape manicure (and it would have been way easier) but I need practice on my horizontal stripes. I used Duri Into the Further as the black here.

I used Zoya Pepper as the triangles, and this is one element of the manicure that I did use a tape technique on. The final step was to freehand the black points inside of the space.

I don't know about you guys, but I love the bone white combined with the brick red. There's something so "fall" about it, but it still has the bold graphic appeal from the black stripes.

More 31 Day Challenge
View upcoming prompts!
My tribal nails from 2012!
My tribal nails from 2011!

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African Patterned - Nicole by OPI Tink Nail Art

Nicole by OPI's new Tink Collection celebrates everyone's favorite feisty fairy with a color palette that sizzles with all the heat of Tink's fury summer. Two colors jumped out at me immediately, and I used them to create this African patterned nail art.

I've never done an African inspired design before. When doing my searches I saw a lot of thin lines, triangles, chevrons, and dots. I did my best to try to capture the right "feel" in this look. I think the combination of colors helps solidify the idea, too.

I used three polishes in this nail art. The base is Nicole by OPI Half Charming/Half Alarming, a fiery red-orange that applied more like a jelly than a creme. I needed three coats. It's a really flattering shade on me, I wore it for a day alone before I added the pattern! The lime green is Nicole by OPI Sweet On Pete, a pretty creme shade with just a touch of dustiness to it. It worked nicely in the nail art, needing barely two coats for opacity over the red shade. The final touch was adding the detailing in black.

Of course I also tried the design mattified. I used OPI Matte Topcoat in this case. I was really pleased with the quality of it! It dries very matte, very quickly, and of course you get the benefit of OPI's awesome ProWide brush (my fav).

I'm pretty pleased with the way this design came out, and I especially love the red with the lime. While I like it matte, I think I prefer it glossy in this case. What do you think?

Nicole by OPI's Tink Collection is available beginning this month in select Walgreens locations. Each polish retails for $7.99.

Press Sample

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