Blue Galaxy Nails

Hey there! :) So, for this post I have some galaxy nails for you! Yes, they've been done a million times before. I know. There's nothing new about galaxy nails. But I, for one, think they are still beautiful and never get old! So I went ahead and did some. THEY ARE GORGEOUS.

(outdoors - direct sunlight)

(outdoors - shade)

So pretty!! I usually don't do blue-toned galaxy nails, they're usually pink and yellow. So this was new to me! And they are pretty labor-intensive for galaxy nails. So I'm just going to list the steps and colors I used for you:

1. My base color was the blue polish end of the Revlon Moon Candy nail art double-ended thing in the combination Galactic. It's really opaque, plus I'm going to add a ton of extra colors and glitter, so I did one very thin coat. You can substitute a black polish, because this one pretty much looks black.
2. I sponged some white (Sinful Colors Snow Me White) using a small piece of makeup sponge in a random pattern on each nail to create the "nebula."
3. Then I took a shimmery dark blue (a nameless BonBon polish) and sponged around the edges of the white to blend it into the blue/black base color.
4. I then used China Glaze Ahoy! and lightly sponged it in a few places. I just wanted a hint of the rosy pink, but nothing too overpowering. 
5. Then comes the fun part. GLITTER!! I used three different glitter polishes for this. Can you spot them all? First I used one of my all time favorite polishes - a nameless BonBon polish. Yep. One of those teeny tiny bottles of polish from Walmart. It's one of the few that are still left in stores, as far as I know. I picked up three new bottles just in case they stop making them! It's a shimmery clear base with multi-colored iridescent glitters of all sizes in it. So lovely. Then I dabbed on some Pure Ice Look My Way on the shimmery blue I sponged on earlier. Look My Way is a jam-packed glitter polish with purple and blue glitters in it. It actually didn't show up too much, but it did give a nice spotted effect over the white. Then I topped it off with a few dabs of Sonnetarium's Snowfall for the white stars. Combined, it gave a beautiful effect! I LOVED these nails so much. Of course, if you want to recreate these, polishes and dotting tools can be used to substitute the glitter.

I hope you like this as much as I do! Let me know if you want to try them or if you have any questions! Thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Mario Bros. Nails

Hi there! Long time no see! I've been really busy at school and I just got a few new games for my Xbox (aka Bioshock Infinite and stay tuned for that nail design in a few weeks once I'm done with school!) and yeah. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I couldn't be bothered to finish updating my posts. But I'm going to try and do that today! Again. I'll try not to be so wordy in posts so they don't take me so long. And of course, I'm saying this on this post, which is probably going to be really long. Because Mario Bros. nails!!

(indoors)

I started with these base colors - I made sure the two green nails weren't right beside each other, because it would have bothered me, but you can do it in whatever order you want:

(From thumb to pinky - China Glaze Starboard, Sinful Colors Soul Mate, Starboard again, Wet n' Wild Red Red, and Sinful Colors Snow Me White)

Then I used acrylic paints for the details. I used white paint for Luigi's hat:

(Bonus Luigi! He's my absolute favorite!)

For Princess Peach's dress on my index, I used a darker pink, yellow, and I topped her little amulet decoration with Orly's Spazmatic:

For Bowser's shell (hopefully you can tell it's Bowser, not many people could) on my middle, I mixed together a light yellow and a reddish orange for his spikes:

For Mario's hat on my ring, I used white paint, just like Luigi:

(Sorry for the blurry picture! I think I was in a hurry when I was taking these!)

Finally, Toad was on my pinky! I just used a plain old, garden variety red paint for his spots:

(Again, blurry??)

I did the same characters/designs on my right hand, but I switched Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser around. And like I said, I used acrylic paints, but I think you could also use polishes! And if you don't have paint brushes, you could probably use toothpicks/dotting tools. Although if you're using a dotting tool, you may need to use the smallest one you can find. But this design was super fun, and I really wish it had lasted longer! I'm a huge fan of pretty much all Nintendo games, but I just needed a Mario Bros. pick me up in the middle of the semester! So let me know if you want to try it out or if you have any questions!

Thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Glowing Samurai Princess Nails

Hello again! :) I have had a busy week and couldn't finish catching up on my posts, but now I'm working on it. I guess we'll just never hear the end of me having to catch up on posts.

Anyway, after my last manicure I decided I wasn't done wearing Samurai Princess (for more info and a semi-review on it visit my last post), so I switched it up and used a different base color! One that GLOWS!

(indoors - sorry for the blur in the first picture!)

My base color is Bright Night by Blackheart Beauty. You may have seen these polishes if you visit Hot Topic regularly - they're the skull shaped bottles! Freaking awesome. I don't actually go to Hot Topic all that often, but I have wanted some glow in the dark polish for a really long time and they have a bunch of colors. This one was my favorite - bluuue! It's not the standard green or clear glow in the dark. This polish has a weird formula. It's pretty sheer - I used three coats. But it's kind of a thick jelly? It's really strange. I'm not sure if you can tell in the second picture, but after a day (I had to wait for daylight to take a picture) it starts to peel back a bit? But not entirely - just the pigment. There was still polish on the tips of my nails. Like I said, it was really weird. But fantastic anyway. Here's the glow:

SO COOL. My camera doesn't do it justice. It's waaaaay brighter in reality. And it charges under a lght very quickly, and lasts so much longer than you'd imagine. After experimenting, I even found that I could hold the flashlight on my iPhone right over it for a few seconds, and you could literally see my nails glow in full lighting. They looked radioactive! Freaking awesome.

Before you go off and get these polishes (because they are awesome and inexpensive), there is one more thing I want to mention. According to Hot Topic's website, these polishes contain lead. I don't want to alarm anyone! They are safe to wear, trust me. I wore it for a long time (and I also have worn some of their other polishes), and I haven't had anything happen to me. I just wanted to warn you in case you bite your nails, or you don't want to wear anything with lead in them (especially don't get this for kids). But the polishes contain a very small amount of lead, and they are safe to wear. I used a top coat over them, and I was able to eat and everything. So don't let that discourage you if you're interested in them, I just want you to have the facts. Because I did not know this before I bought and wore them.

Anyway, thanks for reading, have a nice day, and happy painting! :)

Sonnetarium Samurai Princess Nails

Hello! I don't know about you, but I am ready to be caught up with these posts!

Anyway, I have another super special amazing swatch for you! It's Sonnetarium's Samurai Princess. The prettiest of all the pretty glitters. I don't have a picture of the bottle itself, so I'll just jump right in to what I wore it over.

(indoors)

Samurai Princess is so freaking awesome. You can wear it over any color and it just gives it a fantastic effect. I tried to get a close-up of one nail, but it wasn't successful. This was my first time wearing it since I bought it, so it was really hard to decide what colors to use it over. I knew I wanted a gradient, but I don't have very many colors that just look absolutely great together. I ended up using L'Oréal Now You Sea Me (the teal) and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue (the bright blue) - they don't really go together either, haha! But I liked it well enough! Here is what they looked like without the coat of Samurai Princess:

(indoors)

I did have to use a couple of coats to get it that opaque and graduated. I don't really know what color scheme I was going for, I just knew I wanted some blues and greens. But afterwards, I did find myself wishing I had just painted them Pacific Blue, because it and Samurai Princess really complemented each other and Now You Sea Me was just kind of out of place.

As for the formula of Samurai Princess and where you can get it: The formula is fantastic. As I mentioned earlier, I'm wearing one coat in these swatches and it has a crazy amount of coverage without being thick. It's so lovely. It looks like paint splatters! It's really unique and looks good over any color (save maybe black and white) - I would suggest wearing it over neon colors. It only makes them look even more amazing. If you like Samurai Princess and want to buy it, you can get it from Sonnetarium's website. The 9mL bottle costs $6, the 15mL bottle is $8.50. I bought Samurai Princess with my own money and am in no way being compensated for this review. My opinions are honest - this glitter polish is amazing and I would recommend it to everyone! So if you love it as much as I do, go and support Sonnetarium! :)

As always, thanks for reading, have a nice day, and happy painting! :)

Peacock Feather Nails

Hello again! :) Still catching up on my posts.

For this post, I'm not going to show you my nails. I'm showing you my sister's nails, which are very long and perfect to paint on! She's really indecisive about what she wants (I'm beginning to think it runs in the family), but she finally decided to let me paint peacock feathers on her nails.

(indoors)

Sorry, I only have the one picture. For some reason, the other one I had became corrupted and now half the photo is gone. Oh well! 

The base color I used is Sinful Colors Love Nails. We decided we needed something bright and almost metallic for the background, because the feathers themselves were going to be mostly matte colors. I started off by painting on the black feathery part with black acrylic paint (Apple Barrel) and a liner brush, and then I went back in with a light green acrylic paint (FolkArt 408 Green) over the black - the green was mixed with bright gold paint (DecoArt Emperor's Gold) to give it some shimmer. Then for the bullseye, I used a bronze gold (Folkart 658 Metallic Antique Gold - it is definitely gold, but it's slightly darker if that makes any sense?) with a dotting tool and then outlined the bullseye with the black and a liner brush to give the bullseye the correct shape. I finished off the bullseye with a large dot of Love Nails, and then a smaller dot of OPI Swimsuit... Nailed It!. Then I added the topcoat, and violá! Peacock nails!

Let me know if you've ever tried something like this, or if you plan on it! It's really easy if you have the right brush and acrylic paints. Thanks for reading, have a nice day, and happy painting! :)

Sonnetarium Snowfall Nails

Hello there! Today I have a super special awesome swatch for you! Trust me, it's super special. It's an indie glitter polish by Sonnetarium called Snowfall!

(9mL bottle)

Snowfall is a beautiful glitter polish with 4 different sizes of white hex glitter and also iridescent transparent glitters that usually shine orange and blue - it looks just like a snow globe! So pretty. And since it's white glitter, it looks good over everything and is nice and delicate. It looks so good, I had a really hard time deciding what color to swatch it over. It came down to China Glaze Spontaneous and China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le. In the end, Spontaneous won because I actually had not worn that one before, so why not wear it with this beautiful glitter?

(indoors)

(natural lighting - you can see how much I loved this manicure because I retouched the tips where the polish was wearing down! This photo was taken several days after I painted them.)

I loved this manicure. LOVED IT. Spontaneous was the perfect base color for Snowfall, and the iridescent glitters just gave it a small pop of color. The formula of Snowfall is fantastic - in my pictures, I'm wearing one coat of snowfall. And not even a thick coat! It is really jam-packed with glitter. And as far as having to place the glitter on my nails, I didn't really have to do that too much. Occasionally with the bigger glitters, but not so much that it got annoying. It's almost a perfect polish. The only qualm I have with it is actually the bottle; The bottle is small (which is fine, because a little of this polish goes a long way), but the brush is even smaller. It's too short for the bottle, which makes it extremely difficult to get a good amount of glitter on the brush in the first place. I'm afraid it'll be impossible once the bottle starts to run low (it is important to note that this is not the case with the 15mL bottle, I also have that size in another polish from them and it is perfectly fine). But overall, Snowfall is worth the money ($6 on their website for the 9mL, $8.50 for the 15mL) and is so pretty. I loved it. I can't tell you how many times I went back and retouched this manicure so I could keep wearing it. 

So, if you love Snowfall, definitely get it. I've seen other variations of this kind of glitter, but Michelle (the creator of Sonnetarium polishes) does such a fantastic job and she cares about her customers first and foremost. So please, if you like it, go support her and buy it! Pretty much all of the glitter polishes she creates are absolutely gorgeous. The website is www.sonnetarium.net. 

Thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Pure Ice Twisted Swatch

Hello again! Yep, you guessed it. Still trying to catch up on my blog posts! I didn't realize how often I paint my nails until I got behind on these posts, and now I have to go back and remember what order I painted them in, yadda yadda yadda. My most recent problem is some missing photos, because I know I took pictures of one of my manicures, but now they're gone! I'll have to do some searching for those. Anyway, hopefully I will be caught up on my posts by tonight, because I really want to share what I just painted on my nails with you, and I can't do that until I'm caught up, haha. So here's a swatch that I did a few weeks ago - Pure Ice Twisted.

(indoors, under a lamp)

(indoors)

Isn't it beautiful? My camera doesn't actually pick it up, but Twisted is more blue in reality (it's a duochrome blue and green glass fleck polish - it even has a small hint of purple in the bottle, but you can't see it on the nails). And it shines normally like in the first picture most of the time. It's awesome. Before I put it on, I didn't want a crazy shiny polish - it was one of those days when I wanted something really toned down. But then I realized I don't have very many toned down polishes! So I slapped on some matte top coat:

(indoors, under a lamp)

(natural lighting - sorry about the tip wear/ugly cutitcles, I took this photo a day or two after I painted them)

They looked fantastic with the matte top coat (I use Essie Matte About You)! I got a lot of compliments on them. And this is one of those polishes that has glass-like flecks in it, and when you put the matte top coat on you can see them in their full glory. I could stare at these nails for hours. And of course they felt fantastic - so smooth and soft with the matte top coat. I loved them! Still not toned down like I wanted, but it all worked out in the end! I picked up Twisted at Wal-mart, it's one of Pure Ice's new polishes they released recently. It's inexpensive and beautiful - my kind of polish! 

Thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)