Unicorn Mani!

So, today I did a quick manicure. I got these unicorn decals in the mail yesterday and I was dying to try them. They didn't turn out as great as I would have liked, but I am chalking it up to experience. I will do better with these next time, now that I know how they work.

As you can see in the pic, my base accent color I put in my ring finger got a little bubbly and smudged. The decals were a bit difficult for me to get exactly centered. Some of them were a little too big for the horn to actually show and the decal was too big entirely for the pinkie nail. Anyway, on to the products I used. Orly's Nailtrition base coat, Essie's Anniversary Gala, an iridescent pink, on most of the nails and Santee's Pearl Beige, a metallic pink with multicolored glitter on the ring finger. After I applied the polishes and let them dry thoroughly, I put on the decals. These are exactly like a temporary tattoo for your nails. They come in strips of five, so you cut them out as close to the image as you can, then take off the clear plastic cover and try to line them up as evenly as possible and stick them face-down on your nail. Then you take a drop of water and place it on the paper backing and once it becomes soft and the image sticks down, you pull off the paper and voila! This is a much easier and quicker way to get awesome images than stamping, in my opinion. It just takes a little getting used to, which stamping does as well. I had to file off the excess decal at the tip of the nail and trim a little bit off around the sides when I was done. I topped this mani with a coat of Seche Vite to help lock in the decals and added a star-shaped rhinestone on the pointer finger.

Oh and I got the decals on eBay. You can search 'nail decals' or just use the seller I used: lstarstyle. The decals run an average of $2 each with free shipping, which is much cheaper than the Sally Hansen Salon Effects decals. They also have full-nail decals. 

Let me know what you think! I have many more decals that I am excited to use in the near future!!!

NYE Pedi!

I know that a lot of you guys don't showcase your pedis, and a lot of people think feet are gross in general, but I for one LOVE to get my toes done. I don't do them as often as my fingers, obviously because pedis last A LOT longer, they aren't as noticeable and let's face it: your feet are a lot harder to get to! But, I am going to showcase my pedicures here whenever I do feel inspired enough to do them.

Here is my latest and greatest pedi, inspired by the glitz and glamour of the New Year!

For this pedi, on my big toes I used these fabulous Kiss Nail Dress stickers that are textured and look just like champagne bubbles! They are gorgeous! My sister got these for me for Christmas and I was just DYING to use them. They are not the easiest things to apply, which you can see from my application on my right toe. I was used to the Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips which you just apply the whole thing and then kind of scrape off the excess around your nail. These, since they are textured, are not easy to do that with. The next time I use them, I will be sure to measure my nail and make a template on the back side of the sticker and cut it out before I apply. That way, I feel they will go on better and have a cleaner look. Alright, so to begin you basically just make sure you have nice clean nails (swipe them with polish remover to get rid of any oils) and then you can either apply the stickers on clean nails or apply a sticky base coat like I did. I used Bonder rubberized base coat by Orly and I think it helped the sticker adhere better. Then, if you haven't made a template and you have a lot of excess, you can use an orange stick or metal cuticle pusher and push around the sides of your cuticles to attempt to remove the extraneous sticker and use a nail file in a horizontal motion first and then vertically to trim off the excess at the end of your nail. Finish these off with a nice coat of Seche Vite and you're good to go! For the rest of my toesies, I used Essie's Over the Edge, a nice silky deep charcoal grey color. I know they look black in the picture, but I assure you this color is just the most sultry grey. 

I felt this pedi was just perfect for the New Year! I did these about a week and a half ago and the stickers are still going strong with just the slightest amount of tip wear. Let me know what you think in the comments :-)

First Post!

Okay, so I am officially OBSESSED with nail polish! I know that many of you out there suffer from the same affliction, so I felt that in order to further our compulsion I would start my own blog about my manicures and general nail polish experiments.

So, here goes: my first official mani post!

Since it is January, I felt that an wintry mani was in order. This one reminds me of a chilly winter morning. I live in sunny So-Cal and, needless to say, it is not icy or even reminiscent of winter here at all. Nevertheless, here it is: my ice-cold mani!

For this look, I used Orly's Nailtrition as a base coat (because my nails take a lot of abuse and I need all the help I can get), then I applied two coats of Zoya's sultry deep blue lacquer (the label has fallen off the bottle, but from looking at their website, I think it must be Cynthia) which goes on almost opaque at one coat. I followed this with two coats of a polish I am absolutely GAGA over: China Glaze's Dorothy Who?, a gorgeous blue jelly glitter with flecks of blue and silver sparkle from their Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection <-- BEST NAME EVER! Then I decided my mani wasn't *quite* fabulous enough, so I stamped my ring finger with Konad plate M57 and their silver special polish. It didn't quite go on as smoothly as I would have hoped, as you can see in the pictures, but I am too lazy to remove it all and start again! The icing on the cake is the aquamarine rhinestones which I placed at the base of each nail for a little pizzazz!!! Topped it all off with two coats of Seche Vite. What do you think? I wish my cuticles looked a bit better in the photos, but the blue polish stained them and after working on them for about an hour, I gave up!