More Adventures in Nail Polish

Hello again. I've been painting my nails like crazy in the past few months, and in the past week it's gotten even more frequent -- I've had three different manicures on my claws in the past seven days alone! One could say this is getting a little... out of hand *snort* but I like changing it up pretty often, and with having to do dishes by hand the polish usually starts to chip after a few days anyways (and usually because I'm lazy with reapplying my top coat). So I thought I would share some of the manicures I've done lately, as well as some practice sessions that didn't quite work out the first time I tried them.

Neon Pink French Mani

This one was a favourite just because it was so easy and turned out so well the first time I tried it. For the white tips I finally got a Sally Hansen nail pen, specifically made for making white tips for French manicures. I can't seem to find the pen itself at the moment, so I can't show you what it looks like, but you could find it at any drugstore in the nail section for around $5. I found it super easy to use, although it took two coats to get a nice solid white line. The pink colour I used was Avery from Julep. The colour swatches on the website make it look more like a creamy pink, which is odd, because in real life it's pretty dang neon. On first try it was pretty translucent, which was a bit disappointing at first, but then I learned you have to put neon colours over a white base to make them really pop. But this translucency made it perfect for a French manicure as it let the white tips show through just the right amount.

Yellow & Green Half-Moon & Experimental Abstract Designs

Sorry it's so blurry. I had to use the timer function on my phone while holding it between my legs. SKILLS.

I was so excited for these colours from Julep because I think they look fantastic together and really pop when they're put right next to each other on the nail. These two were from the June Boho Glam set. They are Lexie, a bright opaque lemon yellow, and Dianna, a soft creamy green that almost borders on seafoam. Each one offers great coverage and could really only be done in a single coat if you wanted to, but I like to do two especially with yellow as it can sometimes have thin spots that show through. I love the idea of using these colours together in a half-moon mani, however I haven't quite perfected the use of those little round stickers. It's hard to get the placement exactly centered and the same on each nail, and I find they pull up the polish as I remove them which is frustrating. So I only did it on one hand and experimented with tape lines on the other. I had the same issue, but thought of using a striper brush to go over the lines where the colours meet. The white looked good, and I wanted to make a super thin black line over top using these tiny nail art pens I have but for some reason my black was clogged. Argh. So I had to use another striper, which was too thick, and so it kind of got messed up. But I will definitely be trying again, since these colours are perfect for summer. Onwards!

Galaxy Nails

Oooooh STARZ

I had been wanting to try these for EVER but I had lost my makeup sponges in the black hole that's under my bathroom sink. I finally found them the other day and promptly thought GALAXY NAILS YESSSSS. I had to use a whole bunch of colours for this one:

Galaxy friends.

The colours are, from left to right: Midnight in NY  by Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, Co-Bolt Blue by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, a no-name small blue sparkle in a clear base by Art Deco, Please Me Ceam colour by M.A.C., Spit Fire by Pure Ice, and Nail Junkie by Sinful Colours Professional. I started with three coats of the sparkly black, followed by sponging on little blobs of the flat blue and pink colours in random spots on each nail. On the blue blobs I put a coating of the blue sparkles, and on and around the pink blobs I used the pink sparkles which were a little bigger and looked more like stars. Finally I put a tiny amount of the yellow-green sparkles on the sponge and just dabbed them around in random spots. I really love how they turned out, but next time I think I'll leave slightly more black areas just to give the illusion of more depth. Galaxy nails might sound like a lot of work, but they really aren't--each colour goes really quickly since you're only doing a small area of each, and you don't really have to wait as long for each of them to dry since you're not doing full coats of each. Make sense? Give it a try!

Fuschia to Pink Ombre

New fave.

This one was super easy and had a great result. I'm loving how simple the concept is and the contrasting stunning result. You could do this with any two or three colours theoretically, however lately I'm sticking to two polishes that are darker/lighter shades of the same colour. As you can see the makeup sponges leave quite a lot of polish on the sides of your fingers, but it's easy to remove since it's a really thin coat. These colours were that same pink from M.A.C. above, and  a darker pink from Suzy Shier number 14033.

Watermelon Toes

Juicy.

After finally getting myself some dotting tools, I wanted to have some fun with them. I had a green polish with a striper brush, so I instantly thought of watermelon slices! How cute for summer, right? I again used the pink M.A.C. featured above and the same Art Deco brand of striper brush. The dotting tools were only a few dollars on Amazon, and the light green colour was one from Julep which I seem to have misplaced somehow. I'll post the name of it when I find it.

So there you have it! If you have any questions about the colours or techniques I used, you can send me a shout on twitter @hannahxb. 

Product Review: Joan by Julep

Last week, while looking around the internet for various nail art / manicure blogs, I kept hearing about some brand called Julep. After visiting their website and signing up for the mailing list, I was offered a free trial box (for which I only had to pay the shipping, which was $3.99). How could I pass this up?! I went for it. And yesterday, my package arrived. Hurrah!

Yay!

Let me explain in more detail how the Maven program works. After ordering my free trial box, I decided that I would sign up to be a Maven. Basically you take a quiz to determine your style profile (of which there are 4). After that you're taken to a preview of past boxes in all the style categories, just to give you an idea of what they offer. On the 20th of each month, you're sent a preview of the box they plan on sending you. If you hate the contents, you're allowed to switch boxes entirely, or you can opt to send your box to a friend for that month, OR you can opt out of the box for that month completely. The option to change my mind was a big plus for me, since I am the most indecisive person ever (I took the style quiz three times and switched it up when I signed up). The boxes are shipped on the 27th, the same day you're charged on your credit card.

When you sign up for the Maven program, boxes are $19.99 per month with free shipping. You can pick any add-ons upon checkout starting at around $5, which isn't bad. With every box you receive, you earn points called Jules which you can redeem for free stuff. The box above is a sample box for the It Girl style profile. It contains, from the top: a silvery shimmer polish called Rebel, a teal shimmer called Marion, and a dark burgundy red with gold shimmer called Joan. All their nail polishes are "3-free" which means they're free of the three most horrible chemicals found in nearly all of the nail polishes out there, which is a huge plus. It also came with a little packet of pedicure cream, which Julep calls the best ever. I'll have to review that one later. That reminds me: not only do they offer nail products, but beauty products as well--nail conditioners, hand cream, and the like.

Here's what Joan looks like on my nails, through my phone's camera:

Pretty, no?

In real life, the colour is a bit less purple and leans more towards the dark red / burgundy part of the spectrum. Wearing it feels like it's a better and more fancy version of a dark red that you would wear if you were a classic 50s beauty, like my grandmother. The gold sparkles really give it a kick. I just love it. The polish itself goes on smoothly, and if you were really in a rush you could probably get away with a single coat. I always do two just to make sure it looks even. They are high quality polishes that really deliver on their promise of fantastic colours, and without the big 3 chemicals to boot.

All this adds up to a pretty sweet deal! I get a ton of new pretty polishes to try, for a reasonable price, which is probably equal to or less than I would spend on nail polish each month (no lie, I'm a nail polish addict these days). I highly recommend the Julep Maven program!

(If anyone reading this wants to try the Julep program, feel free to click on this referral link: http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/117750/ and you can enter the unique invitation code 9066750.)

Product Review: Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in "Midnight in NY"

Right! So here we go with another product review. Hopefully it will be the first of many. I say hopefully because I have a huge list of products that I want to review (probably over 25 at this point) but whether or not they all get reviewed is completely dependent on how lazy I am in the next few months. Ideally spring would come early and we would all get super-energized with all the sunshine and melting snow and longer days and whatnot. OFF TRACK. Anyways! If you're interested, here's what I think about this brand and colour of nail polish.

"Midnight in NY" ... sounds fancy.

 At first glance I was thrilled at this colour. I, like many girls (ie the weird girls) had had my own stint with black nail polish in late grade school/early high school. And so the thought of a black that was different, and a wee bit fancier, than the regular old black excited me. It had sparkles! And little tiny ones at that! So it seemed a bit more grown-up, refined, and just... better.

SPARKLESSSSSSSSSS

And so I was so excited to try it... until I tried it. It went on super sheer, so in order to make it an opaque black I literally had to apply about 4 coats. Annoying! (Though this seems to be a common trait throughout much of the Complete Salon Manicure line. Why?!) Not to mention it chipped and flaked only 2 days after I had applied it. And once it's on your nail, you barely see the sparkles. They should have been made a TOUCH bigger.

I've had better luck with other colours from this same line (Plum Luck is a favourite of mine; only 2 coats to awesome solid colour!) but this one just did not do it for me. And it hurts a little, because I wanted to love this colour so much. I guess I'll just have to start with a regular black base coat, and apply this over top for a bit of sparkle. 

Would I buy it again? Probably not. Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes, if she wanted something a bit fun for a night out. Otherwise a no-go. Sorry Sally.

xo B.