essie - Braziliant

I can’t call my nails short anymore. I had to buy new files so I could shorten them, they still aren’t as long as they were before the incident, but I think I might like them more now, they are a good length. Just because they grew out doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing ridiculous tacky manicures on them. I keep wanting to do nice simple nails, and then as soon as I sit down to paint I just go crazy. If I’m not distracted by my nails I feel like I didn’t really do my job.

A few months ago one of my friends gave me a color that screamed summer, I’ve been waiting to use it until it got warmer, but after how this spring has been going I decided to just cave and use it despite the cold weather. For this manicure I used essie Braziliant, Orly Prelude to a Kiss, OPI Brisbane Bronze, Sally Hansen CSM Parrot, and Ulta Oh!.

essie Braziliant

I love the base color in this manicure; Braziliant was exactly what I wanted it to be. I sometimes forget how good the formula on essie can be since I don’t own very much of it. The lighter colors seem to be runnier, but this color had the perfect formula, and looked amazing after two coats. I’m not sure what the green blob things were supposed to be, when I started painting my nails I wanted to do a pattern that wasn’t flowers but then they ended up looking like blob flowers.

Are they flowers or amoebas?

On my ring finger I used lose glitter and it looked pretty cool, in a 3D kind of way. The glitter didn’t wear well at all though and most of that glitter is now in my bed and hair. My favorite part of this manicure is the little Orly colored dots. They make the whole manicure look kind of retro, like a kitchen from the 70s.

My ring finger looks fuzzy

You can tell by looking at these nails that I didn’t really have a plan when I started. I love the color combination but the overall design isn’t one of my favorites. Pretty sure these aren’t going to last long, but that’s ok, I like painting my nails J

Easter nails

Hoppy Easter everyone! It was a chilly Easter but Spring is in the air and the Easter Bunny left my favorite Easter candy for me (mini Cadbury eggs). I always loved Easter when I was a kid, my parents did a great job making sure that all holidays were done up right and Easter was no exception. Mom had color coded plastic eggs so my brothers and I got the same amount of eggs even though they were way better at the egg hunting process. I wish I could still get a brightly colored Easter dress and hat to wear, but I think people might look at me funny if I was wearing a polka doted Easter dress with petticoats, although I do have bunnies on my nails right now so I guess I’m not really fooling anyone.

For this manicure I used a crap ton of colors, that is a very technical term in case you were wondering. I used OPI Alpine Snow, You’re Such a Budapest, and Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie, Orly Liquid Vinyl, Lemonade, and Prelude to a Kiss, China Glaze For Audrey and Rich & Famous, Ulta Sun-Sational and Oh!, and Sally Hansen CSM Parrot. I also used three stripers so in total that is 14 (plus top and base coat so 17), and that is a crap ton. Nothing says Easter like an overwhelming number of polishes J.

Hoppy Easter nails

My boss requested that I do tie-die egg nails but I was resistant because I hate water marbling. The last time I attempted water marble nails it resulted in me drinking too much and making a huge mess on my patio table. I’m not going to pretend that this attempt didn’t involve alcohol, but overall it was much more successful. I actually like how the pointer on my right hand turned out better than the left so you are about to be treated with a rare right hand shot.

Tie-Die egg success!

I was a bit disappointed at Easter when my nails failed to impress an 8 year old girl, I don’t think that was fully my manicure’s fault but more the fact that children are like bees and they can smell my fear. I’m not really sure if bees can truly smell fear but I heard it somewhere and have decided it must be a fact.

They may not impress an 8 year old, but they make me smile J

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed my cutesy Easter nails. I mostly write this blog for my very good friend Gayle and she recently announced that she and her super awesome husband are expecting. I hope her baby can’t smell my baby related fear because I’m sure their kid will be pretty cool. Congrats Gayle and Ben!

Short nails

It’s been hard getting used to these short nails. For the first few days my fingertips were super sensitive since they hadn’t touched anything in a long time. I was happy when that wore off. You know when you get your hair cut short and the first time you shower you use way too much shampoo? I had the same issue with painting my nails, I had way too much polish the first time so there was polish pooling along both sides; these nails are going to take some practice. I have found that I’m much faster at typing at work with the short nails, further proof that my nails are indeed for form and not function. I just keep having to tell myself that they will grow back, they will grow back.

This post will be two manicures because I totally jacked up the first ones. For the first manicure I used Zoya Ray, Sally Hansen CSM Parrot, and OPI Alpine Snow. They looked really nice before I made the rookie mistake of doing dishes too soon after finishing my manicure, I wear gloves and they gloves left a wear imprint on my nails.

I really like dark colors on short nails

I was bummed when I messed these up because they were really cute, but it did give me an excuse to paint my nails again so I was ok with that. For my second short nail attempt I used Orly Prelude to a Kiss, Zoya Ray, Sally Hansen Parrot, and China Glaze Running in Circles, Deviantly Daring, Turned upTurquoise, and Paper Chasing. I think I was much more impressed with how these turned out than anyone else. I thought they looked like fish scales and I loved all the different colors together.

Layered polka dots

I just bought the Orly and Paper Chasing the other day at Ulta. I really wanted a nude since I didn’t have one and I think the Orly is going to work very well for that. It is a little on the pink side, but so am I. My nails looked really weird with just the nude on them but I’ve seen so many nude nail designs recently I just had to buy it. The China Glaze is the green I’ve been looking for; it’s a great Kelly green shade and has just enough shimmer to keep it interesting. When I bought it the lady that checked me out told me like five times that it stained her nails really bad and it looked like she had nail fungus. She then told me how important base coat is, duh Ulta lady, base coat is important.

Do you like the nude as a base?

I got tired of green nails super fast. I didn’t even do a special St. Patrick’s Day manicure. I could paint my nails pink for a whole month but I only made it like four manicures in with green nails before I was so tired of green I just stopped painting them. I’m really looking forward to Easter nails though so hopefully I’ll start painting more soon J.

Nail Tragedy

Tragedy struck today, not real tragedy but rather nail related tragedy struck today. It’s super rainy today, which means that it is super icy today. As I went to open the side door on the garage, I slipped and broke my nails. Left pointer got it the worst; she is broken to a sad little nub. Left middle and ring also were harmed. I have to cut all my nails off. It’s a sad but true fact. In case you were wondering, it hurt really badly and I cursed so loudly that Thad could hear me in the running car with the radio on. It’s my first major break in a year, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

For this manicure I had no idea what I was going to do before I started. I just got out all my green polish and just stared at them until I thought of something. I used Sally Hansen CSM Parrot as the base color, it is my favorite green that I have, I really dig the color and the formula is my favorite of any Sally Hansen. For the dots I used Zoya Ray and China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise. The China Glaze ended up looking really blue, it’s a neon so the color isn’t usually very true to bottle when I layer it but I promise it looks green in the bottle. I didn’t take pictures of my nails before the ‘incident’ so if you have a weak stomach for totally damaged nails I would look away.

I don’t always break my nails, but when I do I break the shit out of them

 

I’m still not sure what the design is supposed to be, but I like it. I almost think they look like fish eggs, or peas. I guess you now know that I have never seen fish eggs, or peas apparently. I could have easily made them into shamrocks or four leaf clovers if I had thought about it more, but instead they are just some random dots, cute, but random.

I’m not sure how I messed my cuticles up that much

I kinda feel silly about being so bummed about my nails, I always tell people that complain that their nails don’t grow like mine that short nails can be really cute too, I guess I get to try that theory out. I feel like I can do even tackier nails with them being short, although I wonder how I could make my nails tackier. Well, I’m off to paint my nails; they need a little TLC after the day they’ve had.

Mario nails

I think the Girl Scouts are stalking me. They are everywhere, calling to me from their tables laden with sweet delicious cookies. It doesn’t seem to matter where I am going, they are there waiting for me. At the grocery store, the mall, even the bowling alley, they are always there. I think I’m confusing most of them though, being innocent little girls they don’t understand the torture they are inflicting on my chubby self. When they ask if I want to buy Girl Scout cookies my mouth says ‘no’ but my eyes say ‘yes, I would like to buy six boxes and spend my weekend on the couch in my sweatpants while I eat all of them and watch Bridesmaids’. Please stop mavens of packaged baked goods, I’m losing resolve and I really don’t want to stuff my face with Tagalongs.

I’m not a huge gamer, but I will always have a soft spot for Mario. I remember playing it on the original NES, you remember the one that the other person had to die before it was your turn so you would play with your older brother that never died because they were way better at it than you so you just didn’t get to play, yeah that one. I thought it would be fun to do Mario themed nails and I was right, they are fun :). For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Parrot and OPI Alpine Snow.



Will these nails make me live longer?

The whole time I was painting these nails I had the music from castle levels stuck in my head (dun dun dun dun dun dun) and perhaps I said it out loud to everyone I showed at work, perhaps I also said it out loud to my doctor after she commented on them, perhaps. I’m not super pleased with the shape of my mushrooms, I feel like I could have made them rounder. I also don’t like that I wasn’t able to get a straight line to separate the green and white, I was having issues with my brush choices.



I’ll admit he is a little wonky

I’m very happy with how the polka dot tips turned out, I think they are a really fun contrast to the mushroom nails; they make me want to do more polka dot tips. These ended up being my first March nails so that’s why I went with green instead of red. I haven’t decided what my next ones will be but I imagine that they will also be green.

Wallpaper nails

I get asked with some frequency how many polishes I have. This is a question I have purposely avoided finding the answer to. I guess part of me thought that if I knew the number perhaps I would be shamed into not buying more polish. Well, guilt be damned, I counted my polishes tonight. Right now I envision my throngs of avid readers guessing and waiting with baited breath to find out just how many different polishes I have. I have 25 striper polishes and (drum roll please) 74 other polishes (this includes base and top coats so I’m not crazy). I need to buy another polish and make it an even 100, don’t you think? Now, some disclaimers on my number, it includes my trial sizes too, I have five trial sizes I think, and as stated above it also includes my base and top coats, so really this number is actually very small.

My manicures lately haven’t been turning out the way that I originally set out for them to. For this one I was trying to do a vintage rose but ended up with something that looks a lot more like wallpaper with an amoeba print. For these nails I used China Glaze For Audrey, Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up, Parrot, and Frutti Petutie, and OPI Alpine Snow.

Who doesn’t want amoebas on their nails

I really love how the colors go together, it almost makes up for the fact that these do not even look somewhat like roses. For Audrey was a pain to mix up (as always) but went on really well; this is two coats of it. I went too fast with my SV and the pointer got a ridge in it as a result. Just a nice reminder from the top coat gods that SV is super think and needs to be put on evenly. I also got over zealous on my middle finger so there is extra SV on the side, I hate how pictures of nails are super up close so you can see every flaw.

They turned out really shiny and smooth (except for mr. pointer. . . and mr. middle)

I have so many ideas of nails I want to do, hopefully I can get them from my head to my nails a little easier than they have been going. I secretly really like these nails even though they were an epic fail, what can I say, I like ugly nails I guess. J