31 Day Challenge - Day 1: Red

It's been a long time since I've properly painted my nails. Over a month, which is probably a record for me. I've been so busy with school that it's been hard to do, and I've felt more than a little bit uninspired. To get myself back in the game, I've decided to do the 31 Day Manicure Challenge, which I've been oggling for a while but never got around to doing!

Day 1 is red nails. Red is a very tricky color for me, because in general, I absolutely loathe it. I only have around three red polishes, mostly gotten from nail polish sets, or the occasional red that I actually really like. This is one of the reds that I actually like, because it's such a dark shade: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Brilliant Bordeaux.

I feel so strange wearing red nails! It's hard for me to sport a mani that's purely red, so I added some accent nails - a glitter gradient of Sinful Colors All About You.

I'm not sure who first made this mani challenge, but if someone could point me in the right direction, that'd be great! Here's the list, for anyone that might also want to try the challenge.

My Second Polish!

I started college on Monday, and I've been too busy/tired to paint my nails then blog about it. But, yesterday I decided to paint my nails with another franken I've made! This one isn't quite as nice as the first -- I love the colors of the glitters, but in the bottle it looks sort of gross because some of them bled and tinted the base. But, as these are just for me, I don't care as long as they look pretty on my nails. So, here it is!

I can't take much credit for it, really, as the glitter is pre-mixed, but I still love it. I'm calling it My Sonic Screwdriver, as it definitely reminds me of The Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver. It's full of gold, blue, and purple hexes (the purples being the ones that bled into my base, but they've still kept color). I initially bought it because it seemed sort of steampunk-y, but once I saw it, it screamed Sonic Screwdriver at me. Hence why it's layered over Jessica Indigo, a TARDIS-like color, so the blue glitters aren't too visible. Even despite the bleeding glitter, I'm so in love with this! And it's perfect for the new season starting tomorrow.

Gradient mani and my first very own nail polish!

So, tomorrow is a big day for me. I start college tomorrow, and wanted a super pretty mani for the day, even if I'm less than excited about school starting up again. This mani is doubly special, as it's both my first time trying a gradient, and one of the three nail polishes I made yesterday! This is my favorite of the three, and the one I was most excited to make. It reminds me of mermaids, and what can be better than that?

I'm calling it Mermaid's Slumber as of right now. It has aqua hexes, fuchsia hexes and moons, and a random purple hex that made it's way onto my thumb. I bought it as a pre-made mix, but as I'm only making polishes for myself and maybe for friends for gifts, it's not a big problem.

My gradient was done with China Glaze Sea Spray and Sinful Colors Athens, and was sponged on. For my first time, I think it came out pretty well! The shift is sort of subtle, because the colors are blueish hues, so it doesn't look as drastic as other colors could. I wanted it to look ocean-y, to match  Mermaid's Slumber, and I absolutely love it, and I'm happy with how it came out. Now, here's just hoping none of my glitters bleed too much!

Rainbow Polish - Taffy

I acquired my third indie polish today! I had Copious credits, and found this on there and fell in love with it. After applying my credits, I only had to pay $1.50, which I was more than happy to pay. So here it is, Rainbow Polish Taffy. There aren't too many swatches of it online already, so my mani consisted of three colors; Sinful Colors Be Happy on my thumb, Sinful Colors Snow Me White on my ring finger, and OPI Pink Friday on my pinky, middle, and index fingers. And let me tell you, this polish looks completely different on each color, it's incredible!

Bottle shots to show the colors of the glitter; there's pink, white, purple, light blue, and light lime green in varying sizes of hexes, and light blue squares.

See how the colors seem to change? On pink, the light blue almost looks silvery. On white, the white doesn't show up, but it makes all of the other colors pop unbelievably. On blue, the blue shows up a hue lighter, but all of the other colors pop as well.

I'm so happy I bought this, as I love it already. It's just so beautiful, and so versatile. I'll definitely be ordering more, because there are also other beautiful colors, as seen here at their store.

Glitter Sandwich

I've been slacking a bit on doing my nails. No real reason for it, I just haven't had the inspiration I wanted. It hasn't stopped me from buying nail polish related things, though! I have a new indie polish coming from Copious that will be here hopefully tomorrow, and I've finally bought some glitter to start my own frankening adventures! And then there's the other purchases I made; $230 in textbooks for school, and a TARDIS tea mug! But anyways, on to the nails~

I used JLB Nail Lacquer's 06 for the base, which is a pretty pink jelly base. I haven't been able to find much about the brand on the internet, and I have no clue where it even came from since I took it from my mom. For the glitter, I used Milani Jewel FX Gems, a pretty multicolor hex glitter. I hadn't really thought of it until I was done, but the result sort of looks like Deborah Lippman and Claire's Candy Shop! On the nails with no glitter, it's a good three or four coats of 06, and for the nails with glitter it's 2 coats, glitter, then another coat or two of 06 until the glitter looked a little milky. 

Karine's Noir Désir

Here's the second and final indie nail polish I own at the moment- Karine's Noir Désir! Karine is actually the lovely starter of our Birthday Club, and her collection of polishes were made for each of us. Noir Désir was mine, and I absolutely love it!

Pictures don't do this polish nearly enough justice! It's a black jelly base, packed with flakies and glitters of just about every color you can imagine. There's blue, green, turquoise, orange, yellow, and they shift to every color in between. Here I wore one coat of black as the base, with a coat of Noir Désir, then top coat, but I've also just worn three or so coats of itself and it looks great. I've never not received a compliment while wearing this polish. Not to mention the formula is great- There's no "fishing for flakies" like you have to so often!

Sadly, Karine is no longer selling this collection. If she was, I'd pick up a bottle of Naïade for sure, and now I'm kicking myself for not doing it. She has an amazing blog here, where she posts her amazing nail art and frankens!

P.S., I now have a Facebook page for the blog! Check it out here, and maybe like it if you feel compelled to.

Layla Holos - Flash Black

I have one, yes, one, holo nail polish. A bit depressing, I know, but I didn't get truly obsessed with nail polish until after China Glaze and OPI had their holo collections. But one day in Ulta, I saw the Layla polishes and new I had to get one, despite it being around eleven dollars. I don't regret it one bit. (And, my holo collection will be expanding, as I'm in the middle of a very lovely swap with a girl in a nail polish group I'm in, for the Hits No Olimpo Collection, which I'm sure I'll be showing off when I get them).

Anyways, I'm going away for the weekend and wanted to wear something that would last. Last time I wore this, it lasted for quite a while, and it's beautiful so it's all perfect. I did two coats of the polish, a coat of top coat (which then dulled the holo, of course), then another coat of holo on top of the top coat to bring that shine back.

Thankfully it was nice and sunny today for pictures, but my camera couldn't quite pick up the holo as well as I wish it could have, but it still looks beautiful I think! $11 is probably right around my limit for nail polish (unless it's something super amazing. I might pay more for the Nerd Lacquer Doctor Who nail polishes, but who wouldn't?), but it's a polish that's very much worth it's price.

Springy Grass Mani

Usually I like to do my nails every other day, but yesterday I was just completely uninspired. I had no clue what to do so I skipped a day, and later on my super awesome friend Alice suggested a grass mani, and it sounded perfect. Sadly, by then the sun was going down, so I knew I'd have to wait to do it today so I could get decent pictures in the sun.

I used Sinful Colors Be Happy as a pretty sky blue base, Sally Hansen Going Green as the base color of the grass (applied with a paint brush to try to give it that uneven look of blades of grass), and an unnamed green glitter from the Shades of the Season Holiday collection from CVS. I'd started it with just this, but it looked a bit... plain. So, I added some simple birds with a black nail art polish on my thumb and ring finger, because what's a sky without some birds?

On the topic of how awesome Alice is, she made me this awesome phone case! I was going to post about it in my last post, since I actually received it in the middle of doing my David Bowie mani and some of the glitter got onto it, but my SD card stopped registering in my computer for some reason. Anyways, here it is! She's literally amazing at everything and she started a blog when I did, so you should check it out. She also loves nail polish as much as I do!

David Bowie Inspired Lightning Mani

While watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics last night, I came to a great realization from the British  music montage, and the song that Great Britain walked into the games to -- I need to do a David Bowie mani! I love the man, and have a tattoo of lyrics from Space Oddity on my foot, but never really thought to do a manicure inspired by him. When I think of Bowie, one of the first things to pop into my mind is the Aladdin Sane album cover, and the blue and red lightning bold painted on his face. So, that's what I wanted to do! Sadly, it suddenly turned cloudy as I was finishing my nails, but I wanted to try to get pictures in case I muff them up before tomorrow if it's sunny again.

I used an unnamed gold from a random Shades of the Season collection from CVS that I got for Christmas last year. They have some beautiful colors, I just wish they had names! It's a shimmery gold, with small holo glitters throughout, which make it amazing to see in real life, especially when it's actually sunny! I made the lightning bold using the tape method and Revlon Mysterious (which is also my go-to TARDIS Blue, and the bottle is half empty for that reason. I needed to paint a tiny TARDIS for a friend, and decided that it'd be easiest to do with nail polish. Good thing I used cheaper brands and not anything too expensive!) and Sally Hansen Brilliant Bordeaux. The Brilliant Bordeaux looks a lot more brown in the photos than it really is, again due to all of the clouds. Either way, I'm quite happy with this one, especially looking at it in real life opposed to the photos.

Fishtail Braid Mani - OPI Pink Friday, Fly, and Essence Icy Princess

After seeing the Fishtail Braid Mani's all over the place, I finally did one of my own with this pictorial tutorial from Lucy's Stash, and I'm extremely happy with the results! I used OPI Pink Friday from the Nicki Minaj collection as the base color, as well as Fly from the same collection and Essence Icy Princess for the braid. I think it turned out well!

The only problem with the mani is that by the end, there are so many layers of nail polish that it takes forever for it to dry, and it still wasn't completely dry when I took the pictures. But, better to take the pictures then instead of risk messing it up before I got a chance!

This mani is no where near as hard as it seems. The lines don't need to be perfect stripes, and it looks beautiful with any colors you use. You can even do it with more than three colors, which I think would look awesome with an ombre manicure, with a couple similar colors.

Essie Go Overboard and Once Upon A Polish Murky Water

I have a whopping number of two indie nail polishes in my collection. Some of them are just so hard to get, and that combined with being in school and not having a job makes it hard for me to get them. But that just makes me love the ones that I have even more.

Today I'm wearing two coats of Essie Go Overboard with one coat of Once Upon A Polish Murky Water over my thumb and ring finger. It may not be obvious yet, but those are my favorite accent nails.

Go Overboard is a really pretty dark teal cream, and I thought it would go nicely with Murky Water. Murky Water is a greenish shimmer base, with silver, blue, white, pink, and black glitter. It's a truly pretty polish, and I knew as soon as I saw it that I absolutely needed it. I've noticed there's a small amount of curling in the polish, but it doesn't change the aesthetic of it at all, and I still love it! I did tell her about it, and found that Murky Water is sadly no longer being produced, but there's obviously no longer a problem with curling glitter for her.

Once Upon A Polish can be purchased here at their Etsy shop. She has tons of beautiful Disney related nail polish, so I suggest taking a look! I know I'm definitely wanting to order from her again in the future.

China Glaze Agro and Sinful Colors All About You

In the time that I posted my first post, saying I was hoping to make this into a nail blog, I managed to figure out how to take clear photos with my camera. That's always what was stopping me from starting a blog before, and maybe now that won't be a problem!

I know the Hunger Games collection from China Glaze has been out for ages, and I'd gotten all of the colors I wanted right when it came out. Agro was a color I hadn't really wanted - until I saw it yesterday at Sally's. Yes, it was on sale for only about $2 or so, but I wanted it for more than that. Suddenly, it was an amazing color that I just needed, and here it is, with Sinful Colors All About You, a gold glitter, on my thumb and ring finger.

Not perfect pictures, but much better than I'm used to! I do have to figure out a better way to actually hold the bottles - I broke my left wrist when I was younger, and mobility is still really bad with that wrist and hand. But that, and my photos, will get better, especially as this is only my first post.

Anyways, Agro was only a whopping one coat, and that I was especially happy with. Not many of my polishes can be used with full coverage and no streaks, and it's a beautiful green shimmer, almost metallic. For a color that I didn't want at all to start with, I love it now!

I'm still working out kinks, but I'll hopefully be using this blog as time goes on. Ideally for nail polish related things, hence the name.