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!

Watermarble Nail Art!

When I started really getting in to nail art, it didn't take me long to discover the art of water marbling.  I tried it once, but the polishes that I was using didn't marble well.  After a few attempts I gave up and would all but growl at every water marble tutorial video that I saw.  (This How Not to Watermarble tutorial by Simply Nailogical resonated really strongly with me.)

Then, for whatever reason, I recently decided screw it, I want to give this stuff another try!  I had this amazing neon mani planned out in my head, with negative space and utilizing my KB Shimmer zig-zag nail vinyls.  I've been fairly obsessed with neon manis lately, in case you couldn't tell.

Blessed by the Nail Art Gods, it actually worked this time!  The marbling worked so well that I wound up bummed that I had cut off half of my nails with the vinyls.  This mani looked a bit better in my head, but I'm still super happy with it because it's my first successful water marble!

I used my favorite neons that I own for this: Sephora Pink Bikini, Papaya Daiquiri, Brazilian Sun, and Caipi Freeze.  The last two, the yellow and green, are so similar that you can't really tell them apart in the marble.  I just love the way these polishes pop over white!

What do you think of this design?  Should I do a video next time I try water marbling?  Let me know in the comments!

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!

What did I do on vacation?

I spent the last two weeks of July in Michigan with my family and friends.  It was an amazingly fun time!  But, of course, I can't go two weeks without redoing my nails.  And, since my loved ones universally recognize me as The Nail Girl of the Family, I got several requests to do peoples' nails.  Let's have a look at what I spent my vacation downtime doing!

My first few days in Michigan were spent at my oldest sister's house.  Unfortunately, she couldn't take much time off of work.  But it was kind of okay, because I got to spend one entire day with my two year old nephew, and I had another whole day to myself - in which I spent most of the day painting my nails.  I wanted to match my new bathing suit and my new dress, a feat that would admittedly have been easier in high school when 80% of my wardrobe was the same shade of blue.  But I accepted the challenge with my intermediate nail art skills!

 

the clothes in question.

I used Jamberry Arcade on my thumb and pinky - a wrap that I bought specifically to match my dress.  Zoya Ryan was another easy choice for my middle and ring fingers to match both the dress and my bathing suit.  And to help match my bathing suit, I threw in one nail of CDB Lacquer Passionate.   

(side note: I used a blow dryer to heat up my Jamberry wraps this time, and 

they went on SO smoothly!  never using my space heater for wraps again!!!)

I painted my toes to match my bathing suit a bit more exclusively, but I was silly and didn't take a picture of it!  I used the dry brush technique and ORLY Saturated, Zoya Oceane, Sephora Papaya Daiquiri, and Passionate and Ryan again.  I'm so bummed that I didn't take a good picture of it!  Maybe I'll just have to recreate the pedi soon.  I am, after all, going on an end of summer vacation to Ocean City, Maryland this weekend, where I will be wearing my bathing suit a lot!

The same night that I did my nails, I painted my sister's nails.  Purple is her favorite color, so I definitely wanted to use Saturated on her.  Still on a dry brush kick, I did two accent nails using Zoya Tallulah and Sinful Colors Bikini.  The white background is Salon Perfect Sugar Cube.  

She loved her nails so much!  Steph has never much bothered with makeup or nail polish, and now that she's a mom she bothers even less.  I painted her nails in her basement hunched over an end table, but we might as well have been at a high-class spa for how excited she was about her manicure!  Then, when she woke up her son in the morning and was trying to put his clothes on, he grabbed at her nails and said, "what's that?!"  <3

At a girls' night with my best friends from high school, my friend Melanie wanted a simple grey manicure.  I used China Glaze Intelligence, Integrity, and Courage on most of her nails with an accent of CDB Lacquer He Sees All.

I painted a few other peoples' nails, but I was having too much fun with them to really think about taking pictures for the blog.  All of the other manis that I did were simple colors with an accent color, though, so you're not missing out on any super-special nail art!

What's your favorite look from this post?  Have you ever painted your nails to match a vacation or trip?  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!

LPL Glamghouls Day 16: Witches

All right, I missed day 13, which was bats.  I had some business things to attend to during the day, and I also had an important networking event in the evening.  And I didn't think to paint the designs the day before - I was busy swatching the We'll Take the Lot collection that day.  Anyway, nevermind all that, because today is...

 

Witches day!  Holy crap, these designs took forEVER.  At least three hours.  There's just so much going on here!

At first I thought I'd do the same designs on both hands, like I have previously during this challenge.  But when my left hand started taking for-freaking-ever, I decided to just do plain socks on my right hand.

I used a kajillion different polishes to do all of this, and as before I gathered inspiration from a plethora of different YouTubers.

 

Those darned thumbs are just too hard to photograph with my other fingers! 

My left thumb was inspired by PackAPunchPolish, and I used Nina Ultra Pro "Black," Zoya "Malia," Zoya "Mitzi," and Sally Girl "Crazy."

The cauldron on my pointer finger was inspired by part of HotPinkZebraPolish's video.  I used Sally Hansen CSM "Trouble Maker" for the background, Finger Paints "Ch-Art-Coal Black" for the cauldron, ORLY "Ablaze" for the fire, and a combination of Sally Hansen "Peace" and Spoiled by Wet n' Wild "Show Me the Money" for the potion bubbles.

The witch face on my middle finger comes from IHaveaCupcake's Halloween monsters video.  Her face is Sephora "Caipi Freeze," her hair is Finger Paints "Monet Money," the buckle on her hat is Zoya "Ziv," the hat stripe is Ch-Art-Coal Black, and her hat is ORLY "Hot Tropics."

I LOVE the bubbly potion on my ring finger, which I borrowed from ArcadiaNailArt.  The background is a mix of Malia, Trouble Maker, and Zoya "Nyssa" - I wanted a murky purple like in the video, but I think I just ended up with a slightly lighter version of Trouble Maker.  The potion bubbles are Twisted Colors "PS I Enjoy Acid Pops" with a thin coat of Show Me The Money on top.

My pinky is pretty simple - a broom, inspired by the same HotPinkZebraPolish video - though I think she did a much better job of it.  By the time I got to my pinky, I was beginning to get impatient with this nail art and I just wanted to be done.  The background is Ablaze, while the broom is made up of Nyssa, OPI "How Great Is Your Dane," and a few stripes of Ch-Art-Coal Black.

My right hand is a lot more simple - just some solid-colored witch socks and shoes.  I still really like them!  From thumb to pinky, I used Spoiled by Wet n'Wild "Green to be Heard," Malia, Mitzi, Crazy, and China Glaze "Happy Go Lucky."  I actually painted all of these colors on top of Black, because originally I thought I'd do striped socks on my right hand - but then I decided that it'd still take way too long.  The shoes are all Ch-Art-Coal Black, and the buckles are all Ziv.

What do you think?  What's your favorite design that I used?  Let me know in the comments!

And as usual, here's the challenge image for you!

Laidback Polish Lovers October Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Ghosts!

Recently, while browsing the nail polish community on reddit, I came across a nail art challenge for the month of October.  I've never taken part in a nail art challenge before, largely because painting my nails every day for a month sounds exhausting!  But this one is a "laid back" challenge, with 3 days between manicures, so I decided to give it a go!  Here's the original image detailing the challenge:

I just want to note how awesome it is that #10 is Frankenstein's Monster, not just Frankenstein.  That's

a pet peeve of mine!

Apparently Laidback Polish Lovers is a Facebook group, but unfortunately I can't find it, not even through Google.  If any of my readers know how I can find this group, please let me know!

Anyway, as today is October 1, here's my ghost nail art!

 

I decided to mix it up a bit, and not do only white ghosts on top of black.  The green you see on my left hand is Twisted Colors' "P.S. I Enjoy Acid Pops," a color from the We'll Take The Lot collection that I've been waiting for!  My order of the whole collection came in today, and I decided to use it as a background for some of my ghosties.  (You'll see the color swatched with the rest of the collection in the next week or so!)

 

I used a lot of different nail art tutorials as inspiration for my ghost shapes - including ones by Naileditnz, SaraBeautyCorner, and BeautifulYouTV.  The white I used is China Glaze "White on White."

 

The face on my middle finger is based off of Ghostface from Scream!  I like these multicolored little guys.  I think they kinda turned out like the ghosts in PacMan!  My black polish is Nina Ultra Pro "Black."  From left to right, the ghost colors are Sephora "Pink Bikini," ORLY "Saturated," Sephora "Caipi Freeze," and ORLY "Ablaze."  (The Sephora colors are part of a mini collection, called "Paint Rio in Neon.")

 

Here's a closeup of my thumbs, since you can hardly see them in the picture of both hands.  The one on my right hand is actually 3D - I used Scribbles 3D fabric paint to draw on the face, then painted over it.  I think it really makes the ghost face pop!  And I like the little guy on my left thumb - I think he looks like he's singing. :)

I had a ton of fun with this manicure and I'm super stoked to paint the rest of the challenges!  If you choose to partake, even in just one of the challenges, be sure to include the hashtag #LPLGlamghouls in your social media posts!  Which design are you most excited for?  Let me know in the comments!

Back to School Nail Art!

I may not be a student anymore, and I'm not a teacher either, but it being back-to-school season, I wanted to do some school-themed nail art!  I had tons of fun with this, and it didn't even take as much time as I thought it would.  Only about two hours from applying basecoat to applying top coat!

   

 

More details ahead:

Left thumb: Converse again!  I used Nina Ultra Pro "Black" and China Glaze "White on White."  Instead of using a striper brush for the laces like I did last time, I used my new Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art White nail art pen!

Left pointer: A simple piece of paper, complete with stupid smears from applying my top coat.  It had been dry for at LEAST twenty minutes.  Whatever.  I used the same white as before, Essie "Strut Your Stuff" for the blue lines, and Sephora "Pink Bikini" for the pink stripe.

Left middle: Chalkboard!  Same black as before, same white nail art pen, and a thin strip of OPI "How Great Is Your Dane?" for the wooden panel thingy where you put the chalk and the eraser.  This one got a matte top coat to simulate the matte-ness of a chalk board.  (I use OPI's matte top coat.)

Left ring: Dry erase board!  Same white as before, same blue as before, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Hi Ho Silver" for the metal panel thingy where you put the markers and eraser.

Left pinky: A ruler!  China Glaze "Happy Go Lucky" as the background, and my Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art Black nail art pen.

Right thumb: A locker!  I chose Finger Paints "Magritte's Masterpiece" as the blue, because it's the closest color I have to my high school's blue.  Same silver as before for the locker vents, and the same black and white nail art pens for the lock.

Right pointer: Another Converse!  Zoya "Robyn", along with the same black and white paints as before.

Right middle: The eraser end of a pencil!  Same yellow as before, with stripes of Finger Paints "Master Muse", the same silver as before, and the same pink as before.  The eraser part got a matte top coat as well, to better represent the texture of an eraser.

Right ring: A crayon, inspired by reddit user vanillabean's post.  I used Spoiled by Wet n'Wild "Green To Be Heard" for the green, and somehow managed to do the crayon stripeys by using a combination of my nail art pen and Finger Paints "Ch-Art-Coal Black," which is a striper polish.  What design would be complete without topcoat smears? :(

 a detail of my pinky because the darned finger is too short to play nice in the other photos.

Right pinky: An apple!  My nails are still stained yellow from a previous mani, so I used one coat of China Glaze "Innocence" as the background - otherwise, I wouldn't have used a background color.  The apple is composed of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Red My Lips," and the same brown, green, and white as before.  And, of course, some of the red from the apple picked up onto my top coat brush and smeared above the apple.  Sigh.  The apple design was inspired by YouTuber cutepolish.

I love, love, love these nails, and I'm kinda tempted to show up to a random college class at the nearby University of Maryland just to see if anyone notices my nails!  What's your favorite design?  Is there a symbol of back-to-school that I left out?  Let me know what you think!