It's been four months since my last post. I promise it wasn't supposed to be this way; I had an entire schedule charted out, from Week 1 of second semester till the end. But spring semester proved a different creature from fall (thanks organic chemistry and Metcalf Research Lab!), and I fell behind only two weeks into the plan. At least my last post wasn't just a swatch...

That also means it's been four months since I've done any serious art. I vaguely remember (sans documentation) neon gradient tips for Spring Weekend and a mint-pink gradient for the end of the school year, but absolutely no detail work. There is a partially legitimate reason – in organic chem, we wash all glassware with acetone, which pretty much nullifies any possibility for intricate art. I once made the mistake of swatching Illamasqua's Phallic on my right hand... Pigment running down my fingers for days.

But that's all over now, and it's a little strange how anticlimactic it all is. A quarter of college done? Definitely doesn't feel like it.

Anyways. Nail art. After a third of a year without practice, it wasn't a surprise that I no longer had the finesse I did, and I was discouraged enough by the first two fingers that I just decided to quit while (relatively) ahead. My iPhone photography (lolol) and Photoshop photomanipulation have also suffered – they'll recover.

So, I'm not entirely sure what this is; vines and crazy glitter tips? If anything, we can appreciate the return to an almond nail shape, at least. If you really want to stretch things, stitch the two halves together into a metaphor for my freshman year. Fall was full of cautious and clean constants, and spring... chaotic. Plenty of new experiences, stochastic variability, and personal growth.

That was an awful comparison, but we'll go with it anyways.

To more nail art and more blog activity this summer!

Products used (links are swatches):

• Zoya Heather – pale lilac creme with hidden silver shimmer
• Color Club Sugarplum Fairy – dense lavender holo hex glitter
• Phthalate green, ochre yellow, black, and white acrylic paints

Thanks for reading :•)

Currently listening to the Vitalic remix of Delta by C2C. 

I've got a few looks from the end of summer and fall semester to post... This'll probably be a quick series without much captioning – let the designs speak for themselves!

You probably expected this.

If I had hinted in my previous post that the next one would involve art of some sort, you would've guessed that it would be florals. You're probably wondering if I know how to paint anything else.

Nah, not for now.

But, I did vary my style up a bit! Instead of scattered roses, these rest at the base of the nail and snake up towards the free edge. Not sure which style I prefer more... what do you say?

I warmed Zoya Heather (light purple shade) a bit too much, but it looks pretty similar to this in yellow lighting. 

Of course, you gotta mix up the roses with a couple studs and metallic accents. After a tragic tear on my index nail, though, I could no longer support a piercing. :(

Still think this is one of my favorite looks, though!

Polishes used:

• OPI Vant To Bite My Neck? – deep eggplant crème
• Zoya Heather – light lilac crelly with hidden silver shimmer
• Skin Food Sparkle Sun Yellow – metallic yellow-gold smooth microglitter
• Zoya Hunter – deep hunter green crème
• Forever 21 Overcast – light grey crème with hidden silver shimmer 

Unrelated: I'm back on the East Coast, and the snow is dwindling surprisingly quickly... I was able to wear normal shoes today without any sort of puddle nonsense at all. Not sure how I feel about this. 

Thanks for reading :•) 

Bethany

Currently listening to Miles Away by The Maine. 

All products shown here were purchased by the author. Photos taken with an iPhone 5s and color-corrected in Adobe Photoshop CC 2015. 

I've got a few looks from the end of summer and fall semester to post... This'll probably be a quick series without much captioning – let the designs speak for themselves!

You know I love my florals. Of all the things I could put in my navigation bar, #floral gets its own special notch in the #nail-art drop-down column.

In the past, though, I've mostly limited myself to roses. With one particularly inspired exception, I've never strayed far from my comfort zone – I know I can reliably paint roses, and I know they elicit reactions. (Also, how many self-referencing links can I get in the intro to one post? Haha)

Well, I finally attempted something new! It's truly a miracle :•) Fresh daisies on a gradient bed framed by white-pearl latticework. All with gold accents. And a pretty psychedelic pastel thumb. Pretty random and eclectic when phrased as such, but I like how it turned out! A mellow mixture of hippie and summer.

Polishes used:

• Julep Bess – light sky blue crème
• Julep Hope – white satin-finish crème
• China Glaze Tart-y For The Party – pastel lavender crème
• Essie Cute As A Button – surprisingly bright pink-coral crème
• Estée Lauder Shimmering Pink – semi-sheer pearl
• Skin Food Sparkle Sun Yellow – bright microglittery gold
• Barbie-pink homemade franken
• White and yellow acrylic paint

Small postscript: this was the mani I wore during my August 2015 Hong Kong trip to visit my extended family! I'm definitely not a photographer (just another small tourist with an iPhone), but here's a photo I took of the famous HK skyline looking out to Central from Tsim Sha Tsui.

 

I'll always love it there.

Thanks for reading! :)

Bethany

Currently listening to Little White Lies by Deaf Havana ft. Portia Conn. 

All polishes and materials in this post purchased by author. Photos taken with an iPhone 5s and color-corrected in Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.

I've got a few looks from the end of summer and fall semester to post... This'll probably be a quick series without much captioning – let the designs speak for themselves!

Sounds like a recipe for hipster pop punk.

This first mani is from the beginning of October, right when I had just begun getting used to college life. I remember asking a random dorm neighbor to hold a lighter as I heated a safety pin for the piercing; previous attempts included holding the pin to our weak communal kitchen stove, which resulted in an ominously rusty glow from the burner but insufficient heat for piercing.

Pre-piercing, as are the rest of the pictures.

The lighter certainly worked! I also clearly remember him and other hallmates being astounded by the fact that I just pierced my nail, haha.

"Does it hurt?" asked multiple friends.

An understandable question, considering it's usually the go-to after someone gets a new piercing.

Yes, this picture is nearly identical to the first one. Minus ring, plus better background.

But, does it hurt when you clip your nails? No, unless you're really awful at navigating your free edge. To answer the question – absolutely not! I haven't yet had the misfortune of being burned by the needle / stabbed / otherwise horribly mutilated, so let's hope nail piercing continues being painless.

Polishes used:

• Zoya Hunter – dark yellow-green crème
• Nature Republic [name unknown] – cool beige crème (base & blending)
• Color Club Be Bold – oxblood crème

If you're a longtime blog reader or are familiar with my nail art (hello friends), you're probably wondering if the only detailed nail art I can do is limited to florals. Well... probably. For now. But I'm working on it! Check out the first version of this design, done seven months before this reiteration.

Just a lot of practice, shaping work, and nail growth. It's as if this design has gone through puberty... Or maybe the new one's just the college version. Complete with new piercing.

Thanks for reading! :)
Bethany

Currently listening to Impossible Year by Panic! At The Disco
the new album dropped today and I could not be more excited

Hello! It's been a while. Again. I know I've been having some pretty spontaneous hiatuses, but hopefully this is the last in a while... It's now summer, I'm officially a high school alumna, and I'm getting ready to move across the continent and live out the next four years of my life in a city where it snows for five months a year. I'm from the sunny Bay Area of California. Our winter lows are about 50º Fahrenheit. Can you imagine?

That being said, I'm definitely not ready. My North Face jacket hasn't arrived yet, and I have yet to search for sturdy winter boots. So, for now... California poppies. A healthy dose of the home state (state flower!), translated into nail art. I'm going to miss this Mediterranean climate :(

And here it is! Honestly, I'm not sure how long this took – two layers of Zoya Charlotte (from the 2015 mystery mini trio!) and many, many layers of acrylic paint. I originally took inspiration from this beautiful embroidered set of lingerie I found on Tumblr, as inserted below. This is my first manicure I've ever done inspired by an online photo or design, and I'm fairly proud with how true to the original the mani turned out!

Here's another first – a (nearly) full length tutorial for the design. Check it out! I unfortunately did not grab photos of the first poppy acrylic layer, but as the yellow is a repeat of the red (the non-photographed step), it all comes down to the same techniques.

Here are the individual steps:
(Not shown – paint two coats of Zoya Charlotte. Dab on some red acrylic paint in rough "sickle cell" shape, forming the base for the red poppies. Add some yellow acrylic paint as shown for the poppy detail while the red is still slightly wet, and a little orange to ease the blending. Red poppies are done!)

1. Paint on lemon yellow acrylic paint in sickle cell shapes to begin the yellow poppies.
2. Add some medium yellow paint (for depth) where the yellow paint went on the red poppies.
3. Add some red paint over the medium yellow, but don't entirely cover the medium yellow. 
4. Dab on some tiny clusters of purple dots. I did not have bright purple acrylic, so I mixed sky blue and neon pink. Make some dots tiny v's. 
5. Add some darker purple to the bottom of the small v's for depth. (I know – it's subtle.)
6. Mix a greyed-out green to your satisfaction, and begin painting on tiny stems and leaves. (You can see the trial-and-error process on my middle finger! I personally used a mix of white, grey, phthalo green, yellow ochre, and a tiny hint of blue.)
7. Add some darker green accents to make the leaves and stems pop a little more. Topcoat and you're done!

Materials used:

• Zoya Charlotte – greige (heavier on the beige) creme
• Various colors of Reeves acrylic paint
• Various colors of Apple Barrel Colors craft paint
• Various colors of DecoArt patio paint

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it potentially helpful! Time to return to a regular posting schedule... Thanks for reading :')

Spring!

Time for obnoxious amounts of florals, all in 358 shades of pastels. No powdery pastels here, though. Neon pastels. Well, the neon peach, at least.

Shot at the Chicago Midway airport over my favorite book, Brave New World. Apparently, the Chicago sunset provides for perfect lighting. No color correction for accuracy here. 

Although these aren't particularly innovative or revolutionary for spring, they do represent two concepts I've never tried for myself before. Multi-colored florals and non-horizontal gradients! Not terribly exciting, I know. I'm not even particularly sure why I chose to torture myself with three colors of roses, but I'm happy with the end result. Eleven brush washings! (I evaluate how intensive nail art work is with the number of brush washings.) Here's the formula for this particular set:

(3 washings per color of rose)(n colors) + 2 washings for the leaves = total # of brush washings

(3)(3) + 2 = 11

Took me almost an hour for the three rose nails alone! I'm not sure if I can still call myself a neophyte for rose florals, but as they're obviously not perfect, I guess I still am despite many rose manis. :( 

My favorite part of Brave New World, incidentally. This is from the scene where Mustapha Mond and John discuss civilization and sacrifices necessary for uniform happiness, near the end of the book.

I'm really feeling the non-horizontal sponge gradient trend. Even better under a barely-there white pattern. My lines might not have been exactly straight, but I still really dug that index finger design!

Got some compliments on this mani. :) Wore incredibly well throughout my entire East Coast trip, too.

Polishes used:

• Essie Mint Candy Apple – light aqua/mint creme
• China Glaze Tart-y To The Party – lavender creme
• Floss Gloss Pony – neon peach pastel creme
• Julep Hope – white satin-finish creme
• Sinful Colors Dream On – neon magenta creme
• Color Club [unnamed] – neon-ish dark turquoise (you'll see it in the next post)
• Zoya Hunter – deep forest green creme

Hope you've been having some lovely spring weather lately! (And if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, then autumn.)

:•) Thanks for reading

[Click on the photo to view full post.]

Happy Pi Day! 3/14/15 at 9:26, if this posts correctly. How could I pass up a themed manicure for this very important holiday?

I never thought I'd have to hand model on a graphing calculator, but the colors look so nice together despite the graininess of nighttime indoor iPhone photography. Annnd so I decided to hand model on my TI-84.

A more typical arrangement. I'm not terribly pleased with this impromptu design, but the giant pi on my index nail gets it done! Abstract flowers on ring finger for spring – no circle or pie, sadly, because the only nail art brush I own is relatively massive. Small lines it can do, but no actual detailed coloring work. :( 

Polishes used:

• Zoya Heather - pale lilac creme
• Floss Gloss Pony - neon peach creme
• China Glaze Dreamsicle - sheer orange jelly base with iridescent glitter
• Wet 'n Wild Black Creme

A moment of reckless abandon, frustration with an overly-pink Valentine's Day mani, and a pair of nail clippers.

Thus marks the end of my pointy, stabby nails.

Can't say that I don't miss them, but I'm really feeling the more "professional" vibe of a clean-cut square nail shape. It's just tougher to open shrink-wrapped packages! At least I won't accidentally cut myself anymore with my own fingers as often lol. Not sure how long I'm going to keep them square, though... 

Anyhow, here's a simple classic floral accent mani done with my new Zoya colors! I ordered six colors from their annual New Years deal (three full-size selected shades and three mini mystery shades for $15), and they arrived in the middle of February. Super late delivery, but totally worth the wait when I opened the box. I should do a swatch post for that shipment sometime... Absolutely gorgeous colors, for the most part! This mani features a chosen color (Hunter) and a mystery shade (Charlotte) as the bases. 

(Apologies for this lighting! As much as I attempted levels-wrangling in Photoshop, I couldn't quite remove the overly warm yellow tones. Still learning how to use the program.)

In honor of the more classic nail shape, I went with a subdued floral design. I really do love the floral + framed accent combo – effortlessly balanced and elegant. We'll probably be seeing more variations on this theme in the future, so hopefully my rose-painting skills increase with practice!

Polishes used:

• Zoya Hunter - dark yellow-green creme
• Zoya Charlotte - greige (heavier on the beige) creme
• Color Club Be Bold - oxblood creme
• Julep Hope - satin-finish white creme (for blending)

Hope you're enjoying your day xx

Archived: manicure originally created November 27, 2014.

Hey guys! Another old mani, as usual. I think this is one of the few left in the backlog, though, so I'm finally catching up. Some of the last pics with almond-stiletto nails!

I decided to take a decidedly spring approach to Thanksgiving nails this year. Who needs autumn when you can be seasonally inappropriate? This was my second mani ever with those types of roses, so please excuse the dotty texture of the petals. I'm working on them, I promise. Not too much to say about this set – random floral accent nails with gradients and free-handed black divisions. Pretty simple!

I still remember when Julep first introduced the middle-ring finger accent nails a few years ago. At the time, I thought it looked weird. Why deviate from the traditional ring-thumb accent nails? Now, though, I've totally embraced that trend. I love how the index and pinky nails seem to frame the middle two! Super easy for creating a balanced composition in your design. 

Of course, I had to get my fix of Black Friday shopping. One of my best friends (the same one who [unwisely] lent me Ruby Slippers) and I took to a local Westfield Mall from approximately 11 PM to 2 AM. Not quite long enough to get the full experience, but not bad for a first time.

Not surprisingly, I ended up spending quite a while at the nail station area in Sephora. There was a sample bottle of Ciaté studs, and of course I had to add a few to my non-accent nails. (The index finger one ended up falling off, sadly, and the pinky one shifted around and scuffed up the underlying polish.) They're a little too big for my tiny fingers, but I love them nevertheless! I really need to get an actual nail art stud wheel.

Polishes used:

• Wet 'N Wild Black Creme
• Essie Go Overboard - dark teal creme
• Sally Hansen Cherry Cherry Bang Bang - fuschia creme
• China Glaze Tart-y To The Party - lavender creme
• Julep Hope - satin-finish white creme (for blending)

Hope you enjoyed! :)

Another post from the archives! Original manicure created December 12, 2014. 

I've gotta admit – the past few months weren't the most enjoyable. Stack a busy academic schedule on top of college applications and interviews, and you get a bunch of cranky seniors who want nothing more than to fast forward to the Promised Land: second semester. Around mid-December, everything was on full throttle. The final push for college apps. The last few weeks before first semester finals. Stress piled on stress, and the Promised Land seemed a little too far yet too close... Would I have enough time to raise my borderline grades? Would I ever finish all of these unwritten applications?

Well, as of February 16, 2015, I can say that I survived.

It was tough, though. And, of course, painting my nails helped me get away from it all for a few moments. Breathe out the toxicity of obsessing over academics and breathe in the toxicity of phthalate, formaldehyde resin, and toluene. A worthy trade! (No, I did not get high, nor did I try to.)

Let's backtrack a bit. Around December, I was sick of writing disingenuous essays that only touted academic achievements. My fervor for oceanography and neuroscience (which are indeed intact, but a little bland). My service club, Science For Youth. All that blasé stuff. I was tired of it. 

Screw it, I thought. Let's write about unorthodox things. Nail polish and embracing – not casting away! – the model minority stereotype and escape-the-room games. Hermetically sealed room mysteries. Stuff with a little more kick, a little more flavor. 

And that's exactly what I did. 

I loved it. 

Come mid-December, I had scheduled my first college interview. I then made a second executive decision: if I were to talk about nail polish in my essays, I would talk about it in real life. In my interviews. Why not? If you examine this manicure, you'll find that its color scheme may be reminiscent of another... Hence the title of this post. 

Wow, so sly.

(Nothing ended up happening. It was a fun first interview, though.) 

Since then, life's been good. We've reached the Promised Land at last, and things are just peachy. I've been uncharacteristically talkative on this post, oops. To the actual manicure!

The composition/balance of this design is a little off, what with the heavy index and middle fingers, blinged out ring finger, and the sparse pinky design. But, my nails are shiny, and the roses aren't too badly colored. (I'm relatively new to the roses scene, so they're rather hit or miss.) I'll take it.

Continue reading to see the process!

Hello!

Decided to try new things today, and this is what happened. It began with a cautious dry-marble polish applique on the ring finger and became an entire mani of new techniques, tied together with a questionable color scheme. I'm still not sure how I feel about the lavender "rose" on the middle finger and the thumb seems a little out of place, but I liked it enough to post.

Someone please teach me how to use the pen tool in Photoshop CS6. And photomanipulation in general.

I actually like the thumb now! It still feels a little out of place though because I chose a different nude polish base. Not quite sure why. The roses themselves were pretty easy to freehand, despite the relatively fat nail art brush I used. Only four polishes necessary for the actual roses. 

Thumb: Freehanded roses.
Index: Thin stripes of most colors used with my nail art brush.
Middle: Rose petals with gradient shading. Not sure if I like this technique enough to try again.
Ring: Dry marbling on a plastic bag, then removed and pasted onto nail.
Pinky: Dry marbling again.

For this manicure, I used:

• Julep Hope ("satin" white creme)
• Wet n Wild Black Crème
• OPI Barefoot in Barcelona (darker pink-toned nude)
• L'Oréal Till The Sun Comes Up (creamy beige)
• China Glaze Tart-y To The Party (lavender creme)
• Color Club Be Bold (oxblood crelly)
• Essie Go Overboard (dark teal creme)
• Sinful Colors Happy Ending (apple green with gold shimmer)

Basecoat/topcoat: Essie All In One Base. 

Still working on the photography and Photoshop skills, clearly. Hopefully we'll eventually see some improvement!

Hope you enjoyed. :)