I did a gradient right!

So I decided to paint my nails again and chose to do a gradient with the two colors that both were shimmery and both had similar gold tones. One polish was purely a gold color and the other was a gold and pink toned color that changes from one to the other in depending what angle you look at it.  I thought the result would be pretty as well as subtle and I was right.

1st Color: Rumba Romance by Sephora by OPI (a shimmery, warm gold) two coats
2nd Color: Hot Lava by Sally Hansen (an optical illusion of pink and gold)
Clear topcoat

The pink/gold polish blended well into the bottom half of the nail which was the purely gold polish. The pink tips are not immediately obvious but they add an interesting visual change. Depending what angle you look at the nails you don't even see the pink color at all. This paint job is one of my favorites I've done so far, but most importantly I was finally able to do a successful gradient! Maybe next time I will attempt galaxy nails again...

Royal Pain

I got this polish from Revlon and thought it would be cool to do bluish purple nails with a gold lightning bolt and then accent the gold lightning bolt with my sparkly gold polish from Julep. But, first I took off the polish I was wearing and tried out a purple to gold gradient. I thought that would beautiful but it didn't work out so well and I decided I didn't have the patience to figure out how to fix it. I then painted my nails purple, applied the stickers (two on each nail creating an outline of the bolt shape and applied the two golds with in the outline.

The problem was that I had already spent a couple hours doing this at the point when the stickers were ready to be peeled off and I had to go eat in the cafeteria in a matter of minutes. I had had my eye on the clock beforehand and because of the time constraint I had tried to rush the whole process by applying the stickers before the blue/purple polish was ready for to stand up against the adhesive of the stickers.

When I pulled the stickers off of my nails the blue/purple polish came off with them. I tried to salvage the design by filling in the spots and then redefining the gold and going back and forth fixing the shapes but it ended very sloppily. I took all the polish of (again) and trudged to dinner.

Later on, I did my nails with the same 3 polishes. This time I didn't use stickers and only painted the tips of my nails with the gold polishes. As suggested by a friend, I used a rubber band to create the barrier for the tip. the band did an okay job but was hard to hold in position and led to a little of a sloppy job painting the golds.

1st color: Purple from "Vincent Van Gold" Expressionist set by Revlon

2nd color: Gold from "Vincent Van Gold" Expressionist set by Revlon

3rd color: Vivien from the Amercian Beauty Collection by Julep (a shimmery silvery gold with sequins)

I like the two different golds I used and the gold from revlon was very opaque, which was nice, but the bluish purple from Revlon was very thin and watery when I applied it.

More fingernail painting...

This is my latest nail painting adventure.

1st color: 2 coats "Trophy wife"by essie (a deep greenish blue)
2nd color: "Set in Stones" (a clear overcoat with different sized silver sequins)
Top coat

I love this combination! It was easy to do and had a short time commitment (the essie polish dries very quickly- I think this took about 15 minutes from start to finish.) The pictures don't do the sparkles justice- they are beautiful when they catch the light!

Fancy Sushi Night

I got a beautiful fur coat for Christmas from our local vintage clothing boutique and I really wanted to try it out. Long story short, my friends and I organized a "fancy sushi night." I wish I had a picture of all of us dressed up, but I do have this picture of my friend and I in our fancy vintage attire before heading out in the city. 

This has been a great year! I can only hope my Senior year will be as great as my Junior year has been so far.

Sophisticated, Sparkly, Charlie Brown?

This picture is from New Year's Eve. These nails looked awesome but took a while to do.

1st color: apply two coats "Rumba Romance"from Sephora by OPI (a copper-tinted gold)
2nd color: "Vivien" from the American Beauty collection by Julep (a silver-tinted gold with sequins)
Apply chevron nail stickers after the first two coats have dried for at least an hour. Too much sooner and the stickers pull up the polish when you remove them. Found that out the hard way...
3rd color: "Liquid Vinyl" by ORLY (a nice solid black that covers in one coat)
4th color: "Patti" from the American Beauty collection by Julep ( a sparkly black with sequins)
Remove stickers after all coats have dried.
Top coat

I love this design but it took a long time to complete. Definitely worth the look but not one I do on a regular basis.

I will add that my sister got me the Julep polishes and nail stickers listed above for Christmas and they have been awesome. They also make me feel like a nail snob and allow me to pretend to know what I am doing.  The fur in the background was also a Christmas gift (from my mom). It is a vintage fur coat that will appear in a post (to come soon) about dressing up and venturing in the city to for a sushi dinner.

The Beginning

I will post pictures of my nails whenever I do something cool with them.

This one was from over the summer. 

1st Color: "My Lifesaver" from Nicole by OPI (a retro pale blue) 

2nd Color: "Cherry Smash"Crackle Overcoat by Sally Hansen (a bright red polish that crackles when drying)

Top Coat- I like to add top coats on all my nail experiements- it gives a finished look and helps it last longer. 

I love this look and it is easy and quick to do! The blue listed above looks nice but it stains fingernails yellow which was disappointing and frustrating to find out. Props go to my friend Kat for getting me the Crackle for my birthday!