The first blog post in a very, VERY long time

So, there's no brief way to summarize the last - what - two and a half years?! since my last post.  So much has been going on in my life and while I've still been doing my nails about once every week or two (sometimes three!), I have not had the time or the energy to blog about it.  Some of my nicer manis have made it to my Instagram, but I've even lost momentum on that account.

Until now!  My sales job at a pipe manufacturer/distributor company has been deemed essential to maintaining infrastructure, but I have not felt safe going in.  I won't bore you with the details but the short of it is simply that I'm taking a few weeks off to protect my physical and mental health, as well as that of my boyfriend.

The last two weeks have felt a lot like my life back when I was blogging actively: I can only communicate with my friends and family via the phone & internet, I'm not working, and I have very little motivation/need to leave the house.  Luckily ALL of the reasons for this situation are VERY different from my old life, but here I am all the same.

So it was pretty much a matter of time before I spent 2-3 hours on my nails, took proper photos adjusting the white balance and everything, and actually wrote a whole blog post about it!

This manicure was a whooooole ordeal, let me tell you.  It's way different from anything I've done before because - 

- it's gel!  And multichrome powder!

I used the gel base coat and top coat by ASP, sandwiched around Chick Pick Polish Neon Blue.  Can I just interject how much I LOVE this neon blue?  It has been an amazing base for several fantastic manicures.  It's truly neon on the first coat, but it needs at least two coats as it's pretty much a jelly.

I thought ahead and did my research before attempting this mani.  First, I learned that when you're putting a powder over regular polish, the polish needs to be dry to the touch, but not completely dry - still slightly smooshable.  Second, I learned that when putting gel top coat over regular polish, the polish needs to be COMPLETELY dry - no smooshing whatsoever.  These two facts, luckily, can be stacked since you can just let the regular polish keep drying for a bit after you rub in the powder.

So the layers on my nails, from bottom to top, are: gel base - regular polish - chrome powder - gel top.  I considered layering polish - gel top - powder - more gel top, but I thought that might be one layer too many.

I got this powder a million years ago - well before I stopped blogging - and never got around to using it because I didn't have any gel polish, a lamp, or a water-based polish top coat.  The cap says it's by Born Pretty Store, but sadly I have no memory of what the color name is.  I couldn't get a photo or video of the powder itself to show off what a GORGEOUS white base with purple, blue, and pink multichrome shifts it is.  But I promise you it is all of those things!

Guys.  This powder is SO. FINE.  I'm pretty sure it will never truly be gone from the shirt I was wearing or the floor around the table.  It's probably deeply embedded in my lungs and my nail brush, too.  But it's SO PRETTY that it's DEFINITELY worth the mess and effort!

Also, back to loving on this Chick Pick neon.  It. is. N E O N.  My lamp for the gel is LED, and look how this stuff G L O W S under the lights!  I wish I could go glow-bowling with this on!!

I MEAN.  This photo hasn't been edited AT ALL.  I put my phone on the auto setting and let it choose the white balance, shutter speed, etc to capture this amazing neon glowy goodness.  (Please don't ever do this with a bottle of gel polish!  This regular polish was safe under the lights, but I wouldn't want you to partially cure your gel polish through the bottle and ruin the whole thing just for a cool photo!)

I don't think this is a perfect powder application, but I would definitely say that it was at least mostly successful!  Some of my struggles were definitely a learner's curve; it could also be because powders work better on top of gel polish rather than regular; it could also be that this powder isn't the best quality, because I'm pretty sure I remember it only being a couple of bucks when powders usually run anywhere from $12 - $25.

There is no possible way that I will ever be able to do a full blog post for every manicure of mine in the last three years, but I will look through my pictures and find some of my favorites to share here!  After all, blogging kept me sane back when I had essentially nothing else going on in my life.  I'd like to honor that by blogging at least a little while the coronavirus pandemic has me cooped up at home!

What's on your nails right now?  Have you ever used a chrome, holo chrome, multichrome, or mermaid powder yourself?  Let me know in the comments!

Neon vertical gradient holo nail art happyfuntimes!

As much as I'm excited for autumn and cool weather and pumpkin spice and Halloween nail art, it is still summer.  Technically autumn doesn't begin until September 22; it doesn't feel like autumn begins until at least October here in Maryland.  So, behold, I have more in-your-face neon nail art for you!

This is pretty similar to the last vertical gradient that I did, except this time I used a white base and focused on neon polish rather than holographic polish.  (But don't worry, I still added a holo top coat because YASS.)  Also, this time I didn't go in the order of the rainbow, but in the order of however I felt like it.

 

My nails almost-flawlessly transition from Essie Strut Your Stuff to Salon Perfect Loopy Lime to Sephora Brazilian Sun to ORLY Ablaze to OPI No Doubt About It to ORLY Hot Tropics.  Admittedly, the OPI to ORLY nail could be a bit brighter, but I got impatient after 3 sponged-on coats and didn't feel like doing 4 or more.

 

dat holo <3

Half of these polishes dried matte, because they're neon and apparently that's a thing with neon polishes.  I don't really know why.  Is it because science?  Do super-neon colors work better as chemicals if they have a matte finish?  Someone who knows things about making polish please tell me.  As fun as a half-matte, half-glossy nail would be, I chose to go all glossy because China Glaze Fairy Dust has a glossy finish.  And this manicure NEEDED to be holo because ALL manicures should be holo.  (I think my new-found obsession with Simply Nailogical's YouTube videos just may be turning me into a holosexual.  Cristine, be proud, you've converted another one!)

After a few days, I decided to add to the magic that is this mani.  How else to add to this besides a trippy vinyl design? :D

I didn't really feel like getting out my macro lens, but I took a sort-of macro with my regular camera.

My edges got a teeny bit sloppy, because I laid the black polish on thick and it smeared a little when I lifted off the vinyls.  A bit disappointing, but still an incredible mani, don't you think?

I still have a couple of bright summer-y manicures to show you over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!  Are you getting sick of the brightness and looking forward to deeper autumn manis?  Personally, I'm SUPER stoked for autumn, but neon polish is my favorite so I'm going to stick with it as long as I feel like it.  And by that, I mean until I start thinking of great Halloween manis!

Because it's basically summer already: Neon Gradient nail art!

I freaking love summer.  Pool time, beach time, barbecues and cookouts, sunning, everything is green, the neon fashion trends.  Especially the neon fashion trends.  The first day it hits above 70 - which here in Maryland was in April, can you believe it - I'm like, ditch the muted winter tones and bring out the poppin' neons!

I've also always been a fan of gradient nail art, because it's one of the few types of designs that I've found to be as easy as the tutorials make it look.  It definitely takes some technique in terms of speed and amount of polish you saturate the sponge with, but that technique happened to come easily to me!  So I decided to don a neon gradient, even though it's still technically spring.  Memorial Day may mark the start of summer for many people, and it has passed, but I actually did this a week before Memorial Day because yay neon!

The colors I used are my favorite little neons that I own: Sephora Pink Bikini, Papaya Daiquiri, Brazilian Sun, and Caipi Freeze.  They're from a collection called Paint Rio that came out about two years ago and I just love how they all look when used together!  Brazilian Sun and Caipi Freeze, the yellow and green, are both so similar that I'm not entirely sure you can tell the difference between them when they're sponged on.  To help the neons pop, I painted on a coat of Salon Perfect Sugar Cube before doing the gradient.

You can definitely look forward to seeing more of these four neons throughout the summer, because they're awesome and they're kind of the only plain neon cremes that I own!

What do you think of this design?  Would you like to see more tutorials for designs like this?  Let me know in the comments!

Neon Dotticure Nails!

I have a super fun manicure to share with you today!  As you all know, I love neon polish and I love abstract nail art.  So I decided to check off a manicure that I've been meaning to do for a while by combining both of those things into a neon dotticure!

This look was semi-inspired by an Instagram photo by Emily of lacquerologist, quite almost an entire age ago.

I absolutely love this look, so I decided to do my own adaptation of it.

My favorite part about the dotticure is that it takes so little planning and thought.  Sure, I chose which size dotting tool to use for each color, and I tried to keep an even-but-random distribution of the colors, but overall this design just flowed out of my brain and onto my nails very smoothly.  There was no second-guessing myself, no slip of the hand causing outrage or frustration.  Just lots of dots and fun!

I used a whole slew of colors for this manicure.  I actually had to force myself to not use any Zoya polish, because I feel like I've been neglecting my other brands for the past few months.  And aside from one indie polish that I just got a few months ago, I ended up using all polishes that I bought last summer: Essie Strut Your Stuff, Sally Girl Peace (I love Sally's eensie weensie little minis!), ORLY Saturated, ORLY Ablaze, and Sephora Brazilian Sun.  The one indie that I used is CDB Lacquer Passionate.  Such a fun cluster of neons!  And the white background is Julep Bunny, which I adore for its super-subtle gold shimmer.  I can barely see the shimmer on my nails in person, and it definitely doesn't get picked up by the camera.  But a macro photo actually picks it up in the bottle pretty well:

 

As you can see, the shimmer is made up of gorgeous gold flecks.  While the macro (and even the bottle in person) makes the shimmer look pretty intense, it's much more subtle on the nail.

The shimmer doesn't show up as much in this photo, but if you know it's there than you can kind of see it!  I'd be more disappointed in how invisible the shimmer becomes if I wasn't so in to magic and secrets. ;)  But the shimmer of Passionate, the pink dots, really stands out in this macro shot!  I love how well you can see each and every color overlapping.

What do you think of this type of blog post?  Do you really wish I'd made a tutorial of this look?  Let me know in the comments!

Do I Need Them All?: Zoya Demetria vs China Glaze I Brake For Colour

Welcome to this month's edition of Do I Need Them All!  Today, we're going to look at two fairly new polishes: Zoya Demetria and China Glaze I Brake For Colour.  Demetria is from Zoya's Paradise Sun collection, while I Brake For Colour is from China Glaze's Road Trip collection.

I have Demetria on my pointer and ring fingers, and I Brake For Colour on my middle and pinkie fingers.

This image is slightly Photoshopped; please see the bottom section for an explanation!

They're pretty close in color, but definitely different!  (Unless you're part of the population who can't see as many shades of red, perhaps?)  Demetria is a bright, summery red that borders on neon, while I Brake For Colour is more of a bright pinkish coral.  In the bottle they look very close, but on the nail, they definitely belong to two different color families!

The formula on both polishes is very similar: both apply very smoothly and are highly pigmented, and both require two coats.  I Brake For Colour leans a tad to the thin side, so be careful of flooding your cuticles with too much polish.

So, do I need them all?  Sure!  It's always fun to have bright reds and pinks in one's nail polish collection.  These are definitely not dupes.

*    *    *

Okay, these polishes photographed kind of horribly.  My camera has a tendency to highly over-saturate very bright colors and reds.  So ask it to photograph a bright red polish, and it looks horrid.  I couldn't even hold either of the bottles in the photos because of how badly it flattened the reds and whitened my skin (as if my skin isn't already white enough)!  No amount of adjusting the white balance, ISO, shutter speed, or aperture seemed to help (for the non-photography savvy: I tried changing how much light the camera let in).  Here's how grossly over-saturated the polishes actually showed up on my camera:

As you can see, both polishes look much more orange than they truly are, and they don't really look all that different.  So I cooled down the color on the computer by adding a LOT of blue to the photo.  This photo more accurately shows the colors of the polishes:

My skin is so blue here that it's pretty jarring.  So for the first image that you saw, I crudely Photoshopped my nails in the blue photo onto my hands in the non-blue photo.  I know it's not the best job, but I wanted to show you what the polishes actually look like on my skin, rather than make you try to picture the blue-d nails on my non-blue skin.

What do you think of this new series?  Want to see more posts like it, or other types of posts that I haven't done many of?  Let me know in the comments or by giving your feedback here!