NYC Tudor City Teal wtih a Sinful Colors Green Ocean Gradient

This is NYC Tudor City Teal with a Sinful Colors Green Ocean gradient and reverse gradient accent nails.  Green Ocean is a flakie.  I believe this color combo would probably end up looking Green Ocean does in the bottle.  I'll have to try a full nail one day to know for sure. 

Pink and Blue Needle Marble

 

This is s needle marble technique done with Rimmel Pro Posh Pink and Sinful Colors Aquamarine.  I finished with NYC Matte Me Crazy.  To do the needle marble, you need to start with a base polish that will cover in about one coat.  Add a coat, a bit thick if necessary.  Add drops of your 2nd (and maybe 3rd) color.  Drag a needle (I used a dotting tool with a pointed end.) through the second color to marble the polish.  You may want to drag the needle starting from the base color into the second color as well.  I preferred  the nails where I added less of the 2nd color.  I tried several different designs.  I forgot that when I added the matte top coat the second day the polish underneath would soften up.  That is how the nails in the first pic got smudged. 

More St. Patrick's Day Manicures

Above is the 2nd of my green St. Patrick's day Manicures.  I used Finger Paints Go Van Gogh stamped with Sally Hansen Whirlwind White.  I was hoping the addition of white would make Go Van Gogh very spring-y.  Meh, it is O.K.  I abused my nails and this chipped in one day.

This is Zoya Poppy with Finger Paints Go Van Gogh, stamped with the Salon Express kit.  I attempted this manicure with several pastels as the base and using Rimmel Rags to Riches.  Rags to Riches didn't stamp.  So I tried stamping with Go Van Go and liked it best over Zoya Poppy.  I was wrong, those colors are terrible together.  I was trying to find a way to use the very small "full nail" stamps with the Salon Express kit, but this wasn't it.  Fail all around.

This is a repeat from last year.  Revlon Emerald City with a Sinful Colors Green Ocean funky french tip.  I like this, but I'm ready to move on to pastel and bright manicures for spring. 

Essie Shine of the Times Gradient

This is Sinful Colors Let's Talk with an Essie Shine of the Times gradient.  Let's talk is true purple in real life.  In the second pic I added a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy.  I'm not much of a glitter or flakie glitter person,  but I find I like glitters and flakies if I wear them in a gradient.  Until I saw it done on Pinterest, it never occurred to me to do a flakie gradient. 

Another Football Manicure

This is Sinful Colors Let's Talk (Purple) and Milani Good Morning Sunshine (gold).  My camera lies.  Let's Talk is a dark purple and not an almost blue color.  I used notebook reinforcement stickers to get the half moon shape at the bottom of the nail.  Put them on the back of your hand first to remove some of the sticky.  Make sure there is good contact between the reinforcement sticker and the nail.  Remove immediately after painting the nail.  I used a dotting tool to do the jersey on my thumb.  I may do a full hand of jerseys some day. 

Sinful Colors Polar Opposites (Magentic Polish)

I finally bought some magnetic polish, and I found it at a reasonable price.  It is 5$ish at Target.  What lesson did we learn?  I learned that if you wait an almost a year, you can save 3$.  That's right, three whole dollars.  Anyway, I'm cheap (you may have guessed) so I did the first coat in Milani Ms. Milani (gray) so I didn't waste my cool new magnetic polish.  Then, I worked with one nail at a time.  I painted a coat of Polar Opposites and immediately held the magnet over the nail to make the design in the polish.  As you can see with the magnet ring (right) there is a little lip on one side.  Rest that against your finger and hold it as still as you can for about 10-15 seconds.  I'm doing this in the picture on the right.  When you do it, hold the magnet ring with your other hand.  I ran out of hands to hold the camera, so I held the ring with the same hand for the picture.  Some nail polish brand's magnets are not strong enough for a very curved nail.  My nail curves a lot from side to side, but this magnet was definitely strong enough.  Make sure when you buy a polish with a magnet ring on your bottle.  In my Target, many of the magnetic rings were missing.  Polar Opposites is a gray polish with aqua shimmer.  The magnet makes lighter design then the polish with this polish.  Some of the Sinful Color magnetic polishes make magnet designs darker then the polish.  In sunlight the overall look of this polish is blue due to the shimmer.  In indoor light it looks gray.  I'm very happy with this polish. 

Minnesota Vikings Nails

This is my Vikings manicure this week.  I did the striped nails with pieces of scotch tape.  I think at this point I might make better strips just using the brush itself.  I think the stripes read more cheerleader or flag of a purple/white/yellow country then football.  Oh well.  Wet n Wild French White Creme, Wet n Wild Spoiled Mind Your Own Beeswax, Sinful Colors Let's Talk.  Sinful Colors Let's Talk is a dark, bright purple on my nails, but looks blue in the pictures.  The thumb is China Glaze Mahogany Magic and a dotting tool and Wet n Wild French White Creme for the laces.  The ring finger is Essie Smooth Sailing with Finger Paints Go Van Gogh painted in an arch along the bottom.  Wet n Wild French White Creme and a dotting tool was used to make the goal posts. 

Sinful Colors Aquamarine

This is Sinful Colors Aquamarine topped with Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love.  I find this combo a little too bright for my fingers, but I like this combo on my toes.  That is my dog Tito in the background. 

Blue Ombre Nails

This is a blue ombre manicure.  From light to dark:  Wet n Wild Megalast Bird Bath, L'Oreal Now You Sea Me, Sinful Colors Aquamarine, Revlon Colorstay Midnight, and Orly Star of Bombay.  I really liked this manicure.

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.

Revlon Emerald City

Revlon Emerald City has a matte suede finish.  The finish is matte, but not as matte as you will get with a matte top coat. The first picture (big one) is without a top coat.  The second picture is with Essie Good to Go as a top coat, which gives this polish a shiny finish.  Without a top coat, this polish will begin to chip the first day for me.  If you wear a regular top coat, the finish of the polish will be shiny, like a regular nail polish.  Matte top coats do nothing to extend the wear of a manicure.  So what is the solution if you want the matte suede finish?  Lets say you are planning to use 3 coats of this polish (2 work fine, like in the first two pictures, but three wouldn't hurt).  Put on your base coat, two coats of Emerald City, one coat of top coat, and finish with one coat of Emerald City. This way you get the extended wear of a top coat and the matte suede look. 

In the third picture I did a funky french tip with Sinful Colors Green Ocean.  Pic four is Revlon Emerald City topped completely with Green Ocean in the shade, and pic five is in sunlight.  Green Ocean is a flakie polish.  The mica like glitter flakes in this sheer polish flash from blue to green to purple.  Green Ocean is part of Sinful Colors St. Patric's Day collection.  So if you want it for about 2$, you should pic it up soon.  I got mine at Walgreens.  This polish was also part of the 2011 St. Patric's Day Collection, so it may show up again next year.  The formula for Green Ocean is thick and gloppy.  Unlike Essie Shine of the Times, you need to add a top coat for a smooth finish.  Also, if you don't have a top coat, the flake glitter will pull away from the nail.  If the flakes pull away, they look like white bits of lint instead of cute color changing glitter.  This is my first time wearing Green Ocean, so I haven't fully formed an opinion yet.  You may want Green Ocean just to stare at the pretty bottle.  It glows in sunlight (see picture five). 

To do the funky french manicure I used a DIY nail art brush to paint a straight line.  Then, I used the brush that comes with the polish to fill in above the line.  If you have more skills, you could just use the polish brush to make a french tip.

The last step in this evolving manicure was to add a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love, a matte top coat (picture six).  The versions of this manicure I liked are the Green Ocean funky French and the matte suede finish.