Poppies

Happy Memorial Day.  (Maybe you aren't supposed to wish people a happy Memorial Day?)  I decided to do a poppy manicure for Memorial day.  The base color is Sinful Colors Aquamarine.  The poppies are Wet 'n Wild Megalast Heatwave and Wet 'n Wild Black Cream.  I wanted to use Zoya Poppy for the poppies, but the color wasn't red enough.  I followed the tutorial posted below. Cutepolish on Youtube has great nail art tutorials that beginners can do.  If you want to play with nail art, check out her channel.  I only did two things differently then the video.  I used a different base color and instead of using a large dotting tool, I used a small dotting tool and made a series of small dots for the poppy centers.

Whenever I think of poppies, I always think of this scene from the Wizard of Oz.  Poppies...poppies...poppies.

Wet 'n Wild Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie

This is Wet 'n Wild Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie.  Spoiled polishes are a CVS exclusive and 2$ each.  They do go on sale pretty often.  I have some other spoiled polishes.  With two of my other spoiled polishes, the brush was wide, but nice.  With this bottle, the brush is just a mop.  This brush is not tapered properly at the end.  I like the color.  It changes depending on the light.  It is decidedly more orange in indoor light.  Unfortunately for me, this goes on more orange then the bottle.  I was looking for something that was a pink version of Zoya Rica, which I love.  As it turns out, these polishes are pretty similar in indoor light and shade. In the pictures below Zoya Rica is on the ring and index finger and Shrimp on the Barbie is on the pinkie and middle finger.  Rica is oranger and has more gold sparkle.  Rica looks much better on my skin tone. 

Indoor Light

Outdoor Shade

Outdoor Sunlight

Daisies Manicure

The base polish for this manicure is Wet 'n Wild Megalast Garden hose, from their 2011 spring collection.  I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White and a Sally Girl polish in light yellow for the daisies.  I used a dotting tool to make the daisies.  I wish I had done the pointer and middle fingers at different angles.  They are meant to look different, but they look pretty similar.  I think it is pretty cool. I was inspired by this manicure on The Nail Newbie.

Newspaper Bar Code Manicure

The base of this manicure is three coats of Essie Nice is Nice.  Over the top of that I did a newspaper manicure with the bar codes from the newspaper.  You can find a bar code on the front page of the newspaper.  Unfortunately, this manicure chipped before I had a chance to go to a store and try to scan my nails.  This link has a video that shows how to do a newspaper manicure. 

Zoya Harley

This is one of my absolute favorite colors.  As I've stated repeatedly, Zoya is my favorite nail polish brand.  It wears the best of any polish I own, 6-7 days.  This is two coats.  Zoya describes Harley as:

Light concrete gray base with subtle flecks of silver, gold and copper shimmer. A chic and unexpected shade that's suitable for everyday wear.

I agree that it is a chic, everyday shade.  I couldn't put it better myself.  The shimmer is so subtle that you don't notice it.  It looks like a cream when you wear it.  Without the subtle shimmer, this warm toned gray would be very flat and a depressing color.  Zoya has struck the perfect balance by adding just enough shimmer to make it look like a cream formula.   I'm hoping gray will become the new classic neutral.  If gray does stay in style *fingers crossed*, I'll restock Harley every time I finish a bottle.