Today's mani: Bridesmaid's nails!

Happy Monday everyone! We had a great time this weekend celebrating my sister-in-law's wedding. She and her new husband are both amazing people, and Mr. ALIQUID and I were honored to be part of the wedding party. This was the first wedding we've been to since our own wedding two years ago, so it was nice to let someone else get all the attention while we got to enjoy the food!

Of course I did a mani for the occasion, and I made sure to grab a few pics for you! The wedding colors were navy blue and coral, and my bridesmaid's dress was navy, so I went with coral and silver for the mani.

I decided to do stamping decals over nude nails for a delicate look. I used an image from MoYou Pro 09 and stamped it with Julep Harley (the silver) onto a plastic bag. I colored in the flowers with OPI Sorry I'm Fizzy Today, and also removed parts of the image with acetone (the solid color flowers looked like fuzzy blobs, so I didn't want to keep them). Once the decals were on my nails, I added some silver dots to fill in some of the empty space.

This was one of those manis where you could see all the little bubbles and wrinkles up close, but it looked great from a normal viewing distance, so I was happy with it!

Here's a rare glimpse of Mr. ALIQUID with me--aren't the flowers beautiful?!

I was totally blown away by the job the hairstylist did on me, especially since I didn't give her much direction! I just told her "I want an updo, but not too high up," and she did the rest!

Last but not least, here's Trudy after we picked her up from the boarder's yesterday. She was pretty wiped out after the experience and has spent the entire day so far sleeping it off.

Swatch: OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-go?

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Hi everyone! Wow, the weather here has suddenly gone into high gear, and it feels like summer today! I grabbed a random polish out of my Helmer to swatch, and it turned out to match the weather perfectly.

OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-go? is a bright orange creme that, to me, is somewhat red-leaning, not very mango-like at all. (A lot of the swatches I've seen online are inaccurate; I've color-corrected this to be as close as I can get.) I know orange is absolutely awful on me, but it's so pretty in the bottle that I keep getting more orange polish!

Please pardon the tipwear!

OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-go? Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

I wasn't terribly crazy about the formula; it was thin but really didn't want to go on evenly. It was also still a little patchy at two coats--I'm surprised that's not visible in the pic. In my opinion, if a polish isn't opaque in two coats, it's not a very good creme! Still a great color though.

See ya soon!

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Today's mani: Ikat chevrons for Hanukkah

Good evening and happy Hanukkah! Although I'm only Jewish by proxy, I decided it would be fun to do a Hanukkah manicure since I'm seeing my in-laws tomorrow. Plus, the blue/white/silver color combo looks really good on me!

I decided to try my hand at an ikat-style mani for the first time. I have to say, ikat is a lot harder to do than it looks! It's supposed to be a little messy, but not too messy, and that's the hard part. I'll definitely have to work on this!

The colors I used were Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, OPI My Signature is "DC", Zoya Sailor and OPI My Vampire is Buff.

We'll be traveling starting tomorrow, but I'll do my best to keep you up-to-date on all my nail-related activities!

Today's mani: Sideways ruffian for my birthday!

Good evening ladies and gents! Today I turned 29. That means after today I've officially stopped aging forever (right???).

The highlight of my day is the chocolate cake, still upcoming, but of course I did a fun mani as well. I used a brand new polish that I bought myself as an early birthday present: OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid. It's a pretty light teal that I think is different from anything else in my collection. I decided to do a sideways ruffian, because I've just started seeing the design everywhere and it's really classy!

The sideways ruffian is very easy if you want to try it. First you polish your nails with your base color and let it dry completely. Then stick down a French tip guide along the curve you want for the ruffian (use tweezers to make it easier). Paint the side of your nail with color #2 (in this case Zoya Ziv) and immediately remove the tip guide. Done!

He Picks My Polish: Grandma's couch

Hey all! I'm really happy to join in with He Picks My Polish for this month! In case you don't know how this works, you have a guy in your life pick three polishes from your stash, and you have to do a mani with them. You can't add any other polishes besides neutrals. It's fun and potentially hilarity-inducing. (Feel free to join in this month!)

If you've seen my previous installments, you know that my husband likes to pick colors that match his favorite fictional ladies. I was expecting a similar thing this time, but he surprised me by going a different route. The polishes he chose were L'Oreal L'Orange (orange, of course), Nails Inc. Bruton Mews (a dark green), and OPI You're So Vain-illa (off-white). After I gave up trying to guess, he informed me that the colors represented one of his favorite foods: orange chicken. (The green stands for broccoli.) Yes, he's a weird dude.

With orange and green, I at first naturally thought of doing a pumpkin design, but changed my mind and went for a floral pattern. It turned out kinda vintage-couch, don't you think? It still looks very fall-like to me.

Check out the other manis for this month!

An InLinkz Link-up

Today's mani: cappuccino watercolor gradient

Happy Monday! Today I decided to try out a new-to-me nail art technique. I was inspired by the Nailasaurus mani that I featured in my Museum-Worthy manis post for September. She did a beautiful gradient using a nail art brush instead of a sponge, which makes it look more rustic and artsy than a traditional gradient. (There's a tutorial in her post if you want to see how it's done!)

I decided to do an all-brown gradient. The end result looks like a cappuccino to me!

The polishes I used were, from dark to light: Revlon Stormy Night, Julep Annemarie, Julep Otte, and OPI You're So Vain-illa.

I actually did this mani twice. The first time I put too much polish on the brush and lost the brush-strokey look I was going for. You almost want to do a dry-brush technique, and don't forget that you can go over the same place again if the color is too sparse.

Have a great week!

An ode to brown polish

Hey there! Fall is almost here, and that means pumpkin pie, apple cider and brown nail polish!! I love brown polish of all shades, but I know that's a pretty unpopular opinion. I see a lot of comments like, "that's a nice color, but I never wear brown."

But I think brown gets a bad rap. Think about how many shades of brown there are; you are bound to find one that you like and that goes nicely with your skintone (don't forget that nude/off-white shades are technically brown too!). Brown polish can work as a great neutral/work-safe shade, or a super vampy shade that's a little less harsh than black.

I have over 30 brown polishes in my stash, and I picked out a range of them to show you how versatile brown can be. Join me, won't you??

(I apologize in advance for the yellow stains on my nails in some of these photos. I accidentally got Yellow #5 all over my fingers!)

Today's mani: Coca-Cola clouds

Good morning everyone! A few weeks ago I won the entire OPI Coca-Cola collection in a giveaway, and I was excited to use some of them in a mani! I think a lot of the colors in this collection go really well together.

I did and quick and dirty cloud mani using OPI Get Cherried Away, My Signature is "DC" and Green on the Runway.

I'm kind of in love with all three of these polishes. Get Cherried Away is a gorgeous warm purple, Green on the Runway has a cool green-to-reddish-brown color shift, and My Signature is "DC" is super blingy. It would probably be good for stamping!

Do you have any polishes from this collection? I'm excited to use the glitter polishes sometime soon too!

Today's mani: nubby watermelons

Hi all! Tomorrow hubby and I are off on vacation for a couple weeks. First we're visiting his family and seeing my favorite band, Barenaked Ladies! Ahhh can't wait! Then we're going to my family in Michigan and taking a little trip up north. We're going to some of the places that inspired my polish collection, which will be awesome.

Since we're driving, I'm going to be able to bring some polish with me, so I'll try to post my manis as usual. I'll also post a lot of vacation pics on Instagram! So you guys hopefully won't miss me too much.

I decided to cut my nails down to nubs just so I won't have to worry about them breaking on our trip. I dunno how you folks with nubby nails manage! I can't wrap my tips properly! Also my fingertips hurt when I type...I guess they're not used to being pushed on!

I knew I would need a fun mani to cheer up my tiny little nails. What's more summery than watermelon nails??

I started with Zoya Kate, which is the perfect watermelon-colored jelly in my opinion. The seeds are Revlon Stiletto, and the rind is Maybelline Porcelain Party and OPI You Are So Outta Lime!

I love watermelon manis, but I'm actually not that big of a melon fan in real life. Cantaloupe is especially gross!

The Neverending Pile Challenge: Two teals

Happy weekend! This is my last Neverending Pile Challenge post for now. This has been a great challenge for me, just because I finally shortened my untrieds list (temporarily at least)! I'll have to keep making an effort to wear untrieds from now on!

This prompt is dupes: match an untried with a tried. Well, the polishes I picked looked pretty similar in the bottle, but turned out to be completely different on the nail. So these aren't really dupes at all, but they're pretty so I'm going to show them to you! I have OPI AmazON...AmazOFF on my index and ring finger, and Julep Lena on the others. They're both gorgeous teals with a little bit of shimmer.

As usual, my camera can't photograph teals, so this picture has been color-corrected. That's why it looks slightly weird.

I love both these shades, but I think the formula on the Julep was better (it's a one-coater!). Both of these will stain your cuticles, so be careful!

Total untrieds tried: 72 + chevron decals + 3 stamping plates


 

2014 Blogger Challenge #11: My polish stash...photographed!

Good morning! I'm finally returning to the 2014 Blogger Challenge. You might have noticed that I haven't done it for a couple months--there were some prompts I didn't have much to say about, then I kinda got distracted. But I thought today's topic would be a perfect place to get back on the horse. The prompt is collections. What do I have a giant collection of? Nail polish, of course! If you like to see pictures of organized stuff, you will like this post!

This will obviously be image-heavy, so click the jump to see it all!

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #12 / He Picks My Polish

Wow, I've made it through twelve weeks of FingerFood's Theme Buffet! We're starting another set of prompts next week, so if you'd like to join in, here's our Facebook group!

This week's theme is Freestyle, which was perfect because I also wanted to participate in the He Picks My Polish challenge for March. (Facebook group here!) For this challenge, you ask a male in your life to pick any three polishes from your stash. No helping! Then you have to do nail art using only those polishes (and any neutrals if needed).

Mr. ALIQUID was skeptical at first, but he came up with an idea and went for it. I should have known that he would pick the colors that match his favorite comic book character, Jean Grey:

(I tried to tell him that Jean Grey's hair isn't actually cherry red, but oh well.) The polishes he picked were Color Club Endless Summer, Revlon Red Carpet and OPI The "It" Color. Then it was my turn!

I decided to try water marbling again, since I've only done it once before. I started with a white base and did a marble with the three colors, using clear polish in between each to let the white show through. I did two passes on each nail to get that cool layering effect!

I confess I have no idea how people manage to get such precise patterns using water marbling; I can't seem to get anything more than random swoops. But in this case I think it looks cool, like tie-dye or some abstract art!

As a matter of fact, my final mani was actually my second attempt. The first time, I tried using the yellow as a base, and it didn't work out so well. Here, I'll show you:

I'm very glad I did it over again!


Below you can check out the other FingerFood manis as well as the He Picks My Polish manis!

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #2: Geometric

Hey kids! It's time for the second installment of FingerFood's Theme Buffet! This week's prompt is shapes/geometric. Since I'm a left-brained person at heart, this challenge gave me a chance to satisfy my need for order and straight lines.

 I went for lots and lots of triangles! This was pretty easy to do--the only tools I used were striping tape, a nail art brush, and lots of patience. The base color is OPI My Vampire is Buff, and the triangles are in Zoya Sailor, Julep Brielle and Julep Harley. I added Revlon matte topcoat at the end.

Check out the other participants in today's challenge below, and/or follow the Pinterest board!

Swatch: Anne Kathleen - Adelaide

The product in this post was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

I have a ton of new polishes to swatch for you! I'm starting this week with two polishes graciously sent to me by Leanne of Anne Kathleen. Today I'm wearing Adelaide, a glitter topper from the All That Glitters collection.

Adelaide is a clear polish packed with pink microglitter and small bronze hexes. I layered it over OPI My Vampire is Buff. I've shown it both glossy and matte below so you can see the colors of the glitter better.

Anne Kathleen Adelaide. One coat over OPI My Vampire is Buff. Out the Door topcoat.

Anne Kathleen Adelaide. One coat over OPI My Vampire is Buff. Revlon matte topcoat.

I was really happy with Adelaide! As you can see, the glitter payoff with this polish is terrific. And the formula was easy to apply, not too thick, and with no dabbing required to get the glitter even. One coat of topcoat was enough to smooth out any texture. You can't ask for much better with a glitter polish!

Adelaide is available at annekathleen.com ($10 for 15 ml). It's 5-free, cruelty-free and vegan! You can also follow the brand on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest!

The product in this post was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

Swatch: OPI Silent Stars Go By

I won this polish in a giveaway. All opinions are my own.

Last week I won a giveaway at Shelby Lou Nails! I got a set of three mini OPI Liquid Sands from the Mariah Carey holiday collection. The collection as a whole isn't too exciting to me (do we need that many more red polishes??), but I had my eye on the Liquid Sands thanks to my love of texture!

The first one I tried on is Silent Stars Go By. This is a silvery blush-colored textured polish with lots of silver hexes thrown in.

OPI Silent Stars Go By, two coats.

I really liked the formula on this polish; it applied in thin, easy-to-control coats. It dried quickly without the aid of a topcoat. (I did wear a basecoat with this.)

I have to say, having tried several textured polishes from multiple brands, I think I prefer the neutral/nude ones over more colorful polishes--maybe because they look like natural stone with gems buried inside? Anyway, I'm a big fan of Silent Stars Go By; I think it would be great to wear to a classy holiday party!

I won this polish in a giveaway. All opinions are my own.

Today's mani: dots and flowers

Today I tried out a mani inspired by one I saw at Waki Laki--she did a dotted background and then stamped on top of it. Here's my attempt!

For the base color I used OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then I added dots using Revlon Eclectic and Essie First Timer, Play Date and Neo Whimsical. Finally I stamped some floral patterns from MoYou Pro 09 using Revlon Stiletto. I love the way the dots show through the stamping!

31-Day Challenge #31: honor nails you love

Well, I made it...the final day of the 31-Day Challenge! I almost can't believe I managed to do 31 manis in a row. There were definitely some days when I really didn't feel like painting my nails, but in the end I'm glad I stuck it out. This month I tried several techniques for the first time and expanded my repertoire of nail art by quite a lot; I also discovered many great blogs to follow! I'm looking forward to doing the challenge again next year (but not before, heh!).

The final prompt is "honor nails you love". I think my favorite nail art blogger has to be Chalkboard Nails; she has impeccable technique, her nails always look fantastic, plus she takes perfect photos! I decided to reproduce her metallic mani from Day 8 of this challenge. When I saw her pictures, I thought, "whoa, how did she do that??" but it turned out to be very simple! (The best kind of nail art!)

Instead of a gradient, I randomly sponged on several metallic polishes for the base color. (I think it turned out a little too subtle.) I used China Glaze Swing Baby, Sephora by OPI I Only Shop Vintage, Revlon Enthrall, Hard Candy Crush on Tin, and OPI The World is Not Enough. For the "distressed" effect I applied Revlon Stiletto after wiping most of the polish off the brush.

I made another collage for the final third of the challenge. Click to see my previous manis!




I also thought I'd be slightly vain for a moment and pick the challenge manis I'm most proud of. I think my top three would have to be:

#21 Inspired by a Color--my version of a waterfall mani. I just think it turned out really pretty, and apparently it's my #1 challenge mani among visitors to the blog!

#23 Inspired by a Movie--probably my best freehand effort so far. It's not perfect, but it makes me smile!

#30 Inspired by a tutorial--one-stroke flowers. The one-stroke technique is one I've been interested in for a long time, but never managed to get right until this time.








OK, that's all, folks. Now I'm off to give my nails a break for a few days. :-D Don't forget to check out the final challenge posts from all these other lovely ladies! (And thanks again to More Nail Polish for organizing the linkup!)

31-Day Challenge #27: inspired by artwork

I was initially nervous about this challenge, because I didn't think I had the talent to reproduce any works of art (except for maybe some really minimalist abstract art). I hope you like the inspiration I eventually came up with...

It's Lascaux Cave art--the original artwork (over 17,000 years old)! I love the style of the animals. Here are the pictures I used for inspiration:

 Here are the polishes I used:

• Julep Otte
• L'Oreal Creme Puffs
• Sephora by OPI Thyme for a Mani
• Revlon Stormy Night
• Revlon Timeless
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• OPI My Vampire is Buff
• Revlon Stiletto
• L'Oreal Spice Things Up
• L'Oreal L'Orange

I sponged several colors on the background to get a "rocky" look. At the end I used Revlon's matte topcoat.

Don't forget to admire today's other artsy manis!

31-Day Challenge #23: inspired by a movie

I don't know about you, but my favorite Disney movie of all time is The Lion King. I've watched it probably at least a hundred times, and I've seen the musical twice. I gave myself a very ambitious (for me) goal for this challenge, which was to recreate this scene from "Hakuna Matata":

I was terrified the whole time that I was going to do something horribly wrong and have to start the whole thing over, but miraculously that didn't happen!

OK, Simba's expression looks more doofy than carefree. But all things considered I'm pretty darn pleased with myself. :-D

I used a zillion polishes for this (in many cases I mixed two or more colors together):

• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• Revlon Stiletto
• Julep Otte
• L'Oreal L'Orange
• L'Oreal Spice Things Up
• L'Oreal Caught Red-Handed
• OPI My Vampire is Buff
• L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight
• Essie Sand Tropez
• Julep Parker
• Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!

Don't forget to check out today's other movie-themed manis, and remember...ya gotta put your behind in your past!

31-Day Challenge #21: inspired by a color

I wasn't totally sure what "inspired by a color" means, so for today's mani I just picked a color I love and went crazy with it. :-P Teal is my favorite color besides purple, so I gathered a bunch of blue-green polishes and did a waterfall mani a la The Nailasaurus. Mine is not as neat as hers, because I used a bigger brush, but I like how it looks (it's quite waterfall-ish, don't you think?).

I started with a base of OPI My Vampire Is Buff, and did stripes of Essie Naughty Nautical, Color Club Age of Aquarius, Color Club Wild Cactus and Julep Lena, and accented it with OPI Goldeneye. I like how the off-white base looks like foam at the bottom of a waterfall!

And here's a bonus Trudy for your enjoyment:

Don't forget to check out today's other inspired manis!