Ode to Orange

My quest for the perfect coral has reminded me how much I love orange polish. Despite my disappointment with uber-orange Mariska, orange based polishes tend to play well with my skin tone and make up the right mix of unexpected and classy for summer nails. Here are a few of my recent orange loving manis.

My most recent orange mani is a playful daisy design inspired by Robin Moses' tangerine daisy accent nail art. I took a more abstract take, using a small dotting tool to shape my messy orange and white daisies. The daisies and the primary color in my mani is Julep Ingrid, a cheerful all-season burnt orange. The base on my accent nail is Julep Florence, with Julep Nessa, Sally Hansen Triple Shine State-mint, a generic Sally Hansen french tip white, and Revlon Jaded Night as the other colors for my daisies.






This one isn't exactly orange-this is my standby Nantucket red, Julep Nan. Nan is a color I just love. The terracotta red shines on its own, but the right partner brings out Nan's burnt orange undertone. I stamped with Revlon Foxy for an understated, slightly shimmery all over pattern.

I'm in love with coral this summer, and Sinful Colors' Boogie Nights was the clear favorite on a recent binge. It looks bright orange in the bottle, but the undertone is sweet and slightly pinky rather than loud. This mani was inspired by Chalkboard Nails "Fizzy French" nail art with OPI's Coke collaboration polishes. Boogie Nights was bright enough to keep the original spirit of the mani, with this playful tangerine influenced coral rather than Coke can red. I used Glitter Gal Turbulence for holo glitter dots in place of the metallic silver "bubbles."







Finally, I went back to the well with a sparkly gradient, using Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Peach of Cake and NYC Color Top O' The Gold topcoat for gold flakie tips. I don't have very many CSM colors, but I like their cremes a lot-very smooth and well pigmented. This color is a bit of a chameleon. In low lights and sunlight, it's very subdued. Under florescents, the orange really pops! It ranges from a pastel to a neon depending on the light. Here I wore two coats.

Any polish junkie knows that 'orange' is a very subjective term when it comes to polish. A nontraditional red, coral, peach, or even copper or apricot are all in the right family to offer the same punchy variation on the usual colors as straight orange polishes. What's your favorite "orange"?

Weekend Nails: Water Decal Skittles

This weekend I played with a classic red, white, and black color scheme inspired by my simple, cute, and ridiculously cheap Marilyn Monroe t-shirt. While I haven't been brave enough to try the Marilyn themed tutorial-in-which-she-makes-it-look-easy from Robin Moses, I crave Marilyn nail art, and this is a step in the right direction. For this design, I used Sally Hansen XTreme Wear in White On and Black Out, Julep Catherine, Pure Ice Dazzle Me, and water decals from the Born Pretty Store (sheet BLE1770 at the link).

The polka dotted heart design on my middle finger is a direct ripoff from Kim_Ciil at Smioss.com. The rest of the designs I kind of played by ear.

This is also my second attempt at painting the back of my nails, a la this Louboutin inspired nail look from The Manicure Addict, for a little extra glam. The first time was a quiet flop. This time I made a huge mess with epic levels of smearing- my hands looked like a crime scene- but it worked out much better. It occurs to me that "wing it" is not really a strategy for success with this particular look, especially on short nails, but trial and error is the best way to figure this stuff out. If I can get comfortable doing this, think of all the fun we can have with color combos! I started with a dotting tool for the first layer and used a short pointed brush to touch up. The hardest part is the feeling that there's something under my nails; I have to fight the urge to "clean" the polish out.

I think next time a more deliberate approach is in order, possibly with some kind of tape contraption to make the cleanup easier. While far from perfect, I had fun playing with some new techniques. What do you think?

Weekend Nails: Robin Moses Lovebirds Re-creation

This weekend I tackled a look by Robin Moses featuring a cute pair of lovebirds. I've seen so many amazing bird-themed nail designs, but I haven't had much luck with getting a recognizable silhouette on my nails, and that makes me sad. Robin's birds were super simple and sweet. Since I don't have the 20+ years of experience and raw artistic talent that she does, I was a little intimidated by her video at first, and almost decided this design was over my head. However, with a few modifications, this technique is doable, even for the artistically challenged amateur.

I started with a basecoat, then applied a rainbow gradient using small pieces of a makeup sponge and tweezers. Try not to overthink this part-just line up your colors in a configuration that looks good to you and blot them on loosely with two or three colors per nail. I shot for formulas that were creme or had very subtle shimmer in a creme base. You can pick any colors you like, but I recommend something in the same family so no one color looks out of place.

For a rainbow look with a smudgy, watercolor style gradation, I used a whopping fifteen colors, plus base and topcoat, on this design! You by no means have to use such an expansive palette, but that was part of the fun for me. The colors I used, shown left to right below, were: Pretty in Plum (Nicole by OPI, Selena Gomez collection), Lively Lilac (Sally Hansen Insta Dri), Lacey (Julep), Blue Me Away (hiding in the back, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear), Octavia (Julep) Fashionista (Revlon), Jaded Night (Revlon), Retro Mint (Wet n Wild Megalast), Mellow Yellow (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear), Die Hard Fan (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails), Nan (Julep), Tough Love (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails), Black Mark (Jordana Pop Art Striping Polish), Turbulence (Glitter Gal), and Black Out (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear) with Mega Shine topcoat and NutraNail Green Tea Strengthener basecoat. Whew!

After sponging on the rainbow gradient tips, I dabbed Turbulence, a sheer linear holo, along the line where the bare nail met the polish. This was a calculated risk, but it came out very subtle, and I just adore the tiny bit of sparkle it added.

Then I formed the branches with the Jordana striping polish. In the tutorial, Robin Moses references the little dots around the ends to make it look "like lace," so that's what I thought about when placing them with a toothpick, going for a more decorative than literal look. Be sure to leave a "perch" for your lovebirds on your accent nails.

The lovebirds were fairly simple, just a small and large dot with a dotting tool and two lines with a toothpick below the branch for the tail. My daughter, who's usually pretty quick to decipher my nail art, had trouble figuring out they were birds, so I'll probably make them a little bigger next time, but overall, I think it came out really nicely!

I'm excited about this pretty and surprisingly simple at-home recreation of a professional look. Which nail artists inspire you?

Update: The popularity of this post has pushed my "secret" blog to over 200 page views! That's so exciting! I'd love to get to know the people reading, so I've started a Facebook page for the Super Secret Nail Blog. Check me out on Facebook.