Monster Blood 3.0

Ok, I've officially got a Problem. I just can't resist drip art in October. Halloween has the best nail art color combinations: rich blue purples, the full range of pumpkin oranges, shimmery blacks, sparkly golds, sassy greens, warm crimson...how do you choose? Drip manis let you play with lots of colors really easily, and something about them just says Halloween to me.

So I did two more this year to add to my collection of Halloweenie drips from last year and the year before. This year I started with a skittlet-I guess I got excited.

You'll recognize the green and red combo from my first Monster Blood design. It's Sinful Colors Happy Ending with NYC Crystal Couture in Ruby Queen. Happy Ending has a great gold shimmer, and I completely objectively think you need it in your collection. This time I added a new shade to the party: Broadway Nails Gel Strong in Black. This color will not satisfy the craving if you're looking for a solid black creme, but is still very much worth picking up. It's got a red shimmer that makes it special, and the application is very good in two coats.



Once I saw the full mani, I decided I liked the red and black best. Next thing I knew, it had transmogrified onto all of my nails. Spooky!

For the red, I started with one coat of Julep Catherine, a red-red jelly, to get Ruby Queen to "take" in fewer coats (you can get similar coverage in 3/4 coats of Ruby Queen alone). Then I doused it all in Out the Door topcoat for big time shine. While it's hard to see the red shimmer in Black in photos, you can spot it in the bottle shot pretty clearly.

I can't promise this will be my last drip of the season. What colors would you want to monster-mash up? What colors do you use for drip manis outside of the Halloween season?

Easy Halloween Nail Art: Orange and Black Drips

After moving, getting a dog, losing my camera, finding my camera, going on a billion business trips, and surviving a nail art slump, I have new nail art for you for the very best nail art holiday: Halloween! I kept it simple and semi-local, with Gryffindor from Paint Box Polish, based out of my hometown, Richmond Indiana.

Gryffindor is a sparkly burnt orange with gold glittery shimmer and a great formula. This is two easy coats. For the accent, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails XTreme Wear in Black Out, my go-to shiny basic black.





When I was running my topcoat over this mani, I noticed an unexpected but super awesome quirk of using these two colors together: Gryffindor surrenders a tiny amount of it's orange and gold sparkle into the black, leaving a lit from within subtle shimmer. It's hard to describe, but it's pretty cool.









This dripping blood look is probably familiar to you if you've been reading for a while. I admit it, it's a total throwback to my Monster Blood nails from 2014. Drip nails are just so incredibly easy and versatile. Black and orange makes it distinctly Halloween-y, and Gryffindor combined with the patent black shine keeps it classy. It also looks good on shorties. About a day into this mani (yeah, by the way, this mani was 3 days old when I took the photos!), my thumb rebelled. I refused to go gentle into that good night, so I filed it down and repainted it with the same design. Still works!

So how does one create this super easy drip design? All you need is a dotting tool (or toothpick, or bobby pin, or anything else with a small, roundish tip). Make three largish dots, then drag the polish upward to the top of the nail, Connect with a stripe of polish on top, arching it a little bit. I like to add a teardrop shaped dab a little further down the nail, too. It's seriously one of the easiest nail art looks I know. It doesn't have to be perfect-in fact, it's a little better if it's not.


What are you wearing on your nails for Halloween? Do you agree that it's the best nail art holiday, or do you have a different favorite?

Budget Beauty Wins

To my surprise, I just realized I've never done a "beauty on the cheap" post. This must be remedied! I love beauty products, but I'm very selective on what I spend a lot of money on. It stinks to take a chance on something new to find out it's nothing special, or worse, that you hate it. I can justify the occasional splurge if the rest of my arsenal is inexpensive. Plus I'm an instant gratification kind of gal, and I think it's awesome to just be able to pick up something I like at a drugstore or grocery. I hate those cheap beauty posts that are like "this awesome lipstick is only $10!" A $10 lipstick is not cheap. These are some products I adore, several of them recent discoveries, that I promise are actually inexpensive: $5 or less.

Dollar General Brand Face Wash: about $2-3

When I initially bought this, it was for my kids. I was trying to teach them about skincare, and didn't want them practicing with my $28 cleansing oil (ok, I didn't pay $28 for it, but it still was not cheap). However, recently I started to get low on my fantastic oil, so I took the plunge and tried the DG Beauty brand face wash to stretch out my bottle of the good stuff for a little longer. 

When I first squirted it onto my hands, I was not impressed. Ew. It felt gross. It smelled like soap. For a foaming face wash, it was not getting very foamy. But then I shut up and put it on my face...and wow. I'd been looking for something that made my face feel really, really clean for a while, and this was what did it. A swipe of astringent verified that my face was completely makeup free in no time flat, and it felt soft and clean. This wash converted me from a cleanser snob. My one complaint: it did make my skin feel dry. A little of my regular moisturizer and I was fine, but if you have very dry skin, YMMV. I can't find this on the Dollar General website now, and I have to admit, I'm kinda panicked. I'm going to need more soon!

Wet n' Wild Coverall Coverstick Concealer: $1.99

This buy came from necessity. I've tried several concealers to deal with my undereye circles, and all have disappointed. When I ran out of my good-enough liquid concealer, I was broke, so I picked up the cheapest one that looked like it might work in Medium. This is not the chalky stick concealer I tried in the 90s. It was creamy, easy to apply, and did a better job of minimizing my dark circles than the past three concealers I'd tried combined. I'm hooked. It also played into my weakness for easy beauty: as much as I like products, I'm not a morning person, so makeup I can put on in a hurry without looking like I did it half asleep in the dark (even if I did) is my friend. This stick? We're friends. Downside: no option for dark skinned beauties. Even though the medium shade was fine on me, it's always a bit of a downer when a company doesn't even attempt shades for darker skinned women. I'm not as familiar with the variation in light skin tones, but I'm guessing that very pale lovelies would be out of luck, too. 

Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Mousse Foundation: $4.97

The priciest everyday makeup is generally foundation, and it's also the item most likely to make you look ridiculous if you buy the wrong shade. So much pressure! Luckily, I found Rimmel Stay Matte Liquid Mousse. I love this stuff. I'm currently on my third bottle. The bottle looks tiny, but it lasts a while because you don't need a lot for good coverage. It spreads evenly, never drips, and gives noticeably smooth coverage with a little buildability for blotchy days. I love it. My main complaint, once again, is a low range of shades. It does have a good balance of cool and warm tones, and the very light faired a little better this time, but I wear Sand, the darkest shade, and I am far from the darkest skinned person I know. On the up-side, if you're somewhere between porcelain and sand, I'd highly recommend it. 

Contact lens solution: $3.88

Ok, I cheated a little on this one. I usually get the two pack of Equate sterile multipurpose solution, which is $5.98. The single 12 oz bottle and the two pack linked in the headline for this section are both under $5 though. I spend a touch more because I actually wear contacts, so it does double duty for me. What I recommend that you use it for is removing eye makeup. I discovered quite by accident that a cotton ball with a little bit of regular old saline solution removes eye makeup beautifully and leaves your eyes feeling refreshed. I also like to dip a cotton swab in it to correct eyeliner mishaps. Since I do wear contacts, I'm hesitant to use the pink, cosmetic-y fare typically marketed for eye makeup removal, and this is something I'm already safely using on my eyes. It's designed to keep your eyes clean, so why wouldn't we use it for that? And if you're not fussy about the brand, it's crazy cheap. For your actual contacts, that's between you and your doctor, but for taking off day old mascara, cheapo contact solution works just fine for me.

I love a good beauty bargain so much! I'll be on the lookout for more beauty finds at pocket change prices to share with you. What are your favorite inexpensive beauty steals?

Recreation: PGS Glitter Ruffian

I was a huge fan of now-defunct blog Pretty Girl Science, and I'd saved one of Nichole's posts on my Bloglovin' Nail Ideas folder, where all the really cool nail art posts go to languish, waiting fruitlessly for me to recreate them. (Never fear, PGS's Nichole still posts at Bedlam Beauty, while Amanda can be found at Some Weird Sin.) This time, though, I actually did one!

I had held off on recreating Nichole's black and glitter ruffian (original here) because the glitter she had used was so unique. She packed Octopus Party Nail Lacquer's Glow for the Gold and The Royal Tannenbaums for a multicolored glitter extravaganza. I didn't have anything similar, and it was the color combination that had won me over, so it sat. I had almost written it off as one of those manis that was built around a random indie polish I'd likely never own.

Then the wheels started turning again when I bought Sinful Colors Pride, a multicolored, multisized round and hex glitter topper that layers to full coverage relatively easily. To get the color effect I wanted, I started with my black base, then used a short striping brush to polish on a thin layer of NYC Fashion Queen into my ruffian shape to give the extra pop of gold that glammed up Nichole's mani. The pre-shaped design made layering in Pride super easy. It took about 2 coats with a little spot dabbing to get the glitter saturation I wanted, but boy was it sparkly!

I think that Pride is a little chunkier than the OPNL glitters Nichole used, but the overall look that prompted me to hit Save on that post is definitely there. I love how this mani turned out-a really classy take on a very, very high sparkle look that was, as she promised, quite easy to achieve. I was especially excited to have recreated it with easy to find, inexpensive shades. Both Pride and Fashion Queen are drugstore polishes (and you could actually use any gold glitter as your ruffian base for a similar effect), and my base is a basic black- Julep Cleopatra this time. I topped it with Sinful Shine Top Coat.

As a PGS devotee, I was sad to see it end, but two blogs are better than one, right? I was glad to finally recreate this throwback to their starter blog. What other glitter combos could be fun for this look? Have you ever recreated an indie look with mainstream polishes?

Nail Crazies Unite: Rainbow

February was such an awesomely bad month, and the beginning of March was super busy, so I'm glad to be back to the Nail Crazies Unite challenge. This week's prompt was Rainbow, a pattern I love, but can never quite get right. After a few much more complicated ideas, I finally went with something simple.

For this design, I used a new-to-me shade, Sally Hansen XTreme Wear Golden-I. I really like this one a lot. I bought it because my go to gold metallic, Revlon Copper Penny, was running low, and this turned out to be not quite a dupe, but an acceptable substitute. I used three coats thin coats here.

My other shades, chosen for their super shimmer sparkly qualities, were Julep Karmen (red), Sephora for OPI What's Your Sign (yellow/orange), Sinful Colors Happy Ending (green), and Black Dahlia Lacquer 90 in November (purple). I didn't want a glitter rainbow (this time), but I wanted it to sparkle like crazy. While the level of bling looks subtle here, I assure you, it is obscene.

Have I said lately that I love rainbow nails? They're fabulous. I may even do some more before the week is out. Be sure to check out all of the other delightful rainbow creations from the NCU ladies below!

An InLinkz Link-up

March Julep Maven Review and Simple Dotted Nail Art

I got home Tuesday from a weeklong trip to fabulous Las Vegas! One of the only moments the whole trip when I wished I was home was when I found out that my Julep Maven box had arrived in my absence. This month I wasn't as excited about the beauty products as the polish, so I ended up with four polishes from the Pop! collection: Janet (a pale peach in their new soft focus finish), Ali (a mint green soft focus), Nayely (a peach/papaya creme), and Nedra (a denim creme). This month, I was all over variations of hues I've been passing over lately like peach, mint, and blue. Every month it seems like I go for a more unique shade and end up kicking myself for passing on something I know would look good in a staple shade...so this time I snatched them up. Take a look at how they look together.

First up, the soft focus finish. I'm not really sure what the difference is between "soft focus" and regular old matte pastels, but they do have a soft, hazy quality without topcoat (I used Julep Freedom Polymer topcoat in the pictures here). Both are very pretty, and I would say I got what I expected from them. Ali is very, very similar to the swatches on the Julep website, and Janet is a little paler than it looks on my monitor. Janet is the base color for my accent nails. Both are more matte in person than they appear on the website. As pastels tend to be, they're a touch uncooperative in application and required three coats for full, clean coverage.

Nedra and Nayely are well behaved cremes, opaque and shiny in two coats. I wondered if Nayely would be super similar to Princess Grace, a papaya shade I regretted passing on last year, but it appears to be lighter and more peachy. It's a great seasonal transition color for people like me who aren't nuts about most pastels but don't want to completely skip spring shades altogether. Nedra, the main color in this mani, is a great all season shade. "Denim creme" is an accurate descriptor. It's rich and cool with the tiniest hint of grey undertone, not a weird color, but also not like any of my other blues. Even though I liked all of these enough to recommend them, Nedra would be my must have from this box.

What did you get in your Maven box? I love how well all of the shades this month coordinate with each other. If you're not a Maven and decide to give it a try, do me a favor and click here or on the cute little "Classic With A Twist" button on your right to use my referral link.

$5 Mani: Jelly Sandwich

I love indie polish...because who doesn't anymore? It's the best. But there's still a special place in my heart for drugstore polish. The sad reality is that I can't afford to buy all the indies and high end stuff. Luckily for us, there are some really good polishes readily available in most areas for decent prices. For those of us who can't go on an indie shopping spree every time we decide to get a new polish (insert brief fantasy of being able to waltz into K-Mart and pick up baskets full of A England and ILNP), I bring you $5 Mani! In these posts (hopefully there will be lots of them), I will feature full nail art looks with two or more polishes that I purchased for $5 or less, and most will be easy to find at mass retailers.

For my first $5 mani, I went back to the jelly sandwich, a trend that I never got to when it was cool-typical. Jelly sandwiching is when you take a jelly polish and layer it both over and under a glitter. I hadn't tried it because I have a preference for opaque looks, but the sheer squishiness of jellies is winning me over. I brought out NYC Color NY Princess as my base and layered with Sinful Colors Love Sprinkles, an LE matte white heart and hex glitter. NY Princess has its own glitters, which made it fun for this look. Oddly, I mentioned back in August when I reviewed the NYC Fashion Queen collection that I may try it in a jelly sandwich sometime, so it's fitting that I used it for my first one. Incidentally, NY Princess was much more cooperative this time around. The base on Love Sprinkles is a little thick, it had to be sweet talked into participating in this look. Both polishes retail at $1.99, so even without any discounts or sales, the total cost of this look is $3.98.

Jelly sandwich technique will take some practice, but I like this mani. The different types of layers make a monochromatic look that's really interesting-and it's so squishy! I have tons of glitters that may be fun in this technique next time I need something that both squishes and sparkles. Do you still wear the occasional jelly sandwich, or are you on to the next look?

Black Dahlia Lacquer Blue Half Moons

Nothing super fancy to show today, but I know it's been kind of quiet here recently, so I wanted to drop in and show you a quick nail art look featuring polish from Black Dahlia Lacquer, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite indie brands. The formula is always good, and they have a few distinct finishes characteristic of their polish that I really love, so once you've tried them, you have a pretty good idea of what you're going to get next time. Plus they come in two sizes-great for a blogger on a budget.

The base color of this mani is Texas Ice Flower, from their Holiday Collection. The glitter half moons are Twilight Orchid, which I got as a free mystery polish during their Black Friday sale. It's not currently available on the site.

Here's a closer look at those finishes I was telling you about. Texas Ice Flower has a gorgeous subtle scattered holo glitter that makes it look more "blue, but better" than a true holo polish. This is two coats with Sally Hansen 3D Gel Shine topcoat, with the half moons applied with a dotting tool, no topcoat. For a chunky glitter, Twilight Orchid dried really quickly.

Sorry for the radio silence lately. This has been a bit of an awful month for me personally, which diverted me from some of the nail art challenges, reviews, and other fun things I had planned to do. It's also taken a toll on my nail care routine, so I also don't feel like they've looked very blog ready lately. While I can't say that things are back to normal quite yet on either front, I appreciate that people are still checking out the blog and interacting on social media-it's such a mood booster. Thank you!

Black and Brights Striping Tape Nail Art

I have a nail art quickie for you today: black nails with a simple, bright accent. I usually have a ton of trouble with striping tape, but this time it was (more or less) cooperative.

For my black, I used one coat of Sally Hansen Black Out, then covered it with one coat of Sally Hansen Triple Shine in Slick Black. Slick Black is very sheer on its own, but layers well over a basic black polish, it cleans up any streaks or blotchy spots, so no need for a perfectly opaque base. It has an interesting finish-it almost looks textured, but doesn't have that textured feel that I hate. For my accent nail, I started with a white base, then used a wide striper to make big diagonal stripes of five different colors. I didn't worry about making the stripes perfect, I wanted a more casual feel. Then I covered the dry striped design with three pieces of thin striping tape that met in the corner for a diagonal starburst in the opposite direction of the polished stripes. I layered the two black shades on top and carefully removed the striping tape with tweezers. Easy! On my other hand I didn't give my striped undies quite long enough to dry, so I had a small bald patch on my yellow stripe. I just carefully filled it in with a detail brush, and the mistake was barely noticeable. Initially I planned to put a rhinestone where the stripes meet, but it would have completely covered that pop of bright red, and that area came out cleaner than I was worried it would, so I decided to let the look stand.

Every now and then I feel like black nails, but I usually add in some color or glitter to make them more "me." I think these came out pretty well, especially since striping tape usually hates me. Is striping tape your friend, or do you (like me) usually end up with a sticky tape mess, even for simple looks like this?

New Polish: Pre-NYE Lightning Bolt Nail Art

I recently scored digging through the clearance cosmetics at my local K-Mart. I swear by K-Mart as a treasure trove for marked down polish-I can't walk in without seeing what's on sale. This time, a ton of Nicole by OPI polishes had been marked down to $2.99. After careful deliberation and debate on which ones to get, I finally settled on Berry the Hatchet, a cheerful fuchsia creme, and Party Bus, a chunky holo glitter topper from the Carrie Underwood collection. While I'm deciding what to wear for New Year's Eve, here's some simple nail art featuring Berry the Hatchet.

I used a detail brush dipped in Glitter Gal Turbulence, a fine linear holo, for my lighting bolts, and they were super simple-just three lines! Lighting bolt decals are everywhere right now, but I haven't bought any yet, and they weren't hard to do at all. Both colors were a little hard to catch accurately on camera. You can see a bit of the holo shimmer of Turbulence above. The angle on the photo below is a little truer to color for Berry The Hatchet, but it's still a touch darker on the nail than it looks here.

While it's not necessarily the world's most original shade, Berry the Hatchet is bright without feeling too summery (not that I care that much about whether a shade is 'seasonal' anyway!). In other news, this is my first post using the light box I built using this tutorial from Chalkboard Nails (thanks to the Hobby Polish Bloggers FB group for helping me find it). I'm still getting the hang of it, but it's a huge improvement from waiting for adequate sunlight. What do you think? 

My Christmas Nails: Pink and Grey Sweater Nails

I finally picked my Christmas nail design, and I'm really happy with how my mini-series of Christmas/holiday themed nail art wrapped up (haha, that's a pun!). This design was inspired by this look from Nailstorming. I've always liked pink and grey together, so I chose that color scheme for a soft, pretty winter design with just enough glitter that reminded me of a cozy winter sweater.

For this design, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Hard-core Party as my baby pink base, then Julep Devon as my grey. The glitter is Zoya Lux (word on the street is that Zoya PixieDusts are going away in 2015, so if you like this one, you'll want to pick it up soon). Lux has pretty good opacity, but carefully dabbed over the baby pink of Hard-core Party gave it a lighter, more subtle sparkling pink snow effect. One warning about Hard-core Party: the color is lovely, but like many pale pastels, it's very streaky. Here I used a coat of matte topcoat in between layers to limit the number of coats of polish needed for decent coverage.

I've seen several different methods of doing the fair isle snowflake, so I sort of cobbled them together for mine. First, I carefully striped Devon once horizontally and once vertically over the pink base, meeting in the center of the nail. Then I made another set of diagonal stripes from top right to bottom left and vice versa. Next I pulled out my detail brush and made a triangular tip between the lines at the top of each wedge. Finally, I used a small brush to fill in outside the tips and dotted a daub of Lux in the center.

I loved this design, and as I get more practiced on my detail work, I'd love to recreate or do a similar design again. One holiday design I drooled over but didn't do myself this year was a full fair isle mani, so that may be on the docket for next season. If you're interested in a pictorial on the snowflake, let me know as well-it will be great practice. I hope you've had a great holiday season, whether you celebrate yourself or not. Now to start plotting my New Year's Eve mani!

How To: Easy Polka Dot Gradient Nail Art

It's no secret that I looove gradients, but I haven't quite found my stride yet with technique. Today's nail look was possibly the easiest. Gradient. EVER. It's such a simple technique that I almost didn't blog it, but I absolutely love the outcome, so here it is, complete with instructions on how to turn any polish into a perfect polka dot gradient.

I started with my base polish. This time it was Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Peach of Cake. Pretty, huh? I think I needed something bright and cheerful. This and a Sally Hansen french tip white polish are the only polishes I used. FYI, the photo above is a much better representation of the actual color than the tutorial pics below (yay natural lighting!).


Once I had a nice clean base, I made my next color- still Peach of Cake, but one shade lighter by adding a drop of white. I mixed that and dotted on two lines of dots at the base of the nail.

Then I did it again.

 And one more time.

And I was done! I gave it a few minutes to dry, then topped liberally with Julep Oxygen Performance Topcoat (I used Oxygen Basecoat here, too). One more look at the finished result:

Oooh! Ahhh!

I kid you not, this is so gorgeous. This polish is one that I have a weird love/hate relationship with depending on the lighting and my mood, but I haven't had anything but mad adoration for this mani. You could easily use this technique to create progressively lighter dots with almost any polish, or with a darker color instead of white to create a reversed effect on a light polish. Don't use black to darken the shade-I learned the hard way that it just creates an ugly, muddy version of your polish. Instead, choose a darker version of the same color and mix it in one drop at a time (for example, if your base color was baby pink, add a magenta polish to it for your dots). I did two layers of dots in each shade, but you could adjust that to your nail length and the preferred size and distance between your dots. I used a small/medium dotting tool, but a toothpick or bobby pin would work fine as well.

I already have ideas on other colors that would go well with this easy nail art look, perfect for all skill levels. You gotta try this!

Quickie Recreation: Side Ruffian

So Spektor's Nails did a side ruffian, and about 3.5 seconds after seeing it, I had started plotting on how to get it for myself. Here's what I came up with:

My photo is much rougher (thanks, Indiana!), but the color combination is actually quite close. My nails are pretty much the discount version of the original post. I used Sinful Colors Rise and Shine in place of OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Pumping Iron in place of OPI Unfrost My Heart. She used Insta-Dri topcoat, I used HK Girl, I'd say they're equally shiny. She mentioned using french nail stickers to get the shape; I tried hole reenforcers, but that approach wasn't a good fit for this design with my nail shape, so I just freehanded with a striper. I also threw in a little glitter with a streak of Julep Joelle. It was fine without it, but I was in the mood for a little sparkle.

Usually when I try to recreate a mani I really like I end up frustrated, but this time I was very happy with the result. Honestly, I'm kind of annoyed that my pictures didn't come out very well, because this mani is so gorgeous. I love the color combination-isn't it great when you see a color combination or design that makes you want to polish right now? Definitely pop over to the original post to see photos that do it justice, and to enter the fantastic OPI polish giveaway running at Spektor's Nails through November 30th!

Monster Blood Nails

Vamptober has been so much fun, but for the last look of the month, I decided to do a bright, fun play on the Halloween dripping blood nail art: monster blood! You'll have to excuse my poor photos; I haven't gotten home in the daytime all week, so I had to choose between decent lighting for my pics or posting my Halloween themed post after Halloween.

For this look, I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Happy Ending, a glowy bright green. It is so pretty, a lit from within green with a subtle gold shimmer that makes it extra special. Then I did a simple paint drip design with NYC Ruby Queen. The jelly texture was thick enough to cover, but still kept that bloody goo feel. The chunky glitter sparkles and matches the playfulness of the bright monster green.

As a side note, I wore Zoya Jesy with a cute black cat decal for most of the week, but as I was taking it off I realized I never photographed it- fail! For the record, Jesy is a gold tinged orange glitter jelly. I didn't think it was really me when I first got it, but it was great for a Halloween mani. The more I wore it the more I liked it, and I got tons of compliments. Halloween is the best time for nails! What will your nails be costumed in tonight?

Grandma Cleo's Leopard Print

My great grandmother, Cleo, passed away last week. Grandma Cleo was one of those women you would call a 'character.' I didn't meet her until I was an older teenager, and she was a personality that could fill the room. Even as she crept toward her 90's (and eventually crashed through them), she maintained a life on her own terms. For her funeral today, I have decided to honor her in a way she would surely appreciate: a nail art tribute to my favorite memory of her.

One of the first times I ever heard anyone talk about Grandma Cleo was the scandalous gossip that she wore head to toe leopard print to the funeral of my other much loved great grandmother, Minnie. At the time, this was an outrage, but as I got to know Grandma Cleo over the subsequent years, it became clear that no disrespect was intended, that was just kind of how she rolled. Eventually, it became a symbol in my mind of her big personality and 'do what feels right' attitude. I combined my existing mani with a leopard accent in the same colors: Revlon Copper Penny as the base, Colors By Llarowe Human Nature for the inside of the spots, and outlined the spots, appropriately, with Julep Cleopatra. I let the latex finish on Cleopatra stay this time by topcoating before outlining the spots. The combination of the classy plastic wrap mani and the playful leopard print is a perfect representation of the woman it symbolizes.

Thanks for letting me share my tribute to Grandma Cleo with you. I know she would absolutely love it.

Vamptober: Saran Wrap Black and Gold

For today's Vamptober look, I tried out a plastic wrap mani in the style of this tutorial from Polish Me Please, where you essentially use a balled up piece of plastic wrap as a sponge. I started with a base of Julep Cleopatra. Cleopatra is a "black latex" polish (no latex in the actual formula), which means it has an edgy matte black finish. It's a good formula that looks much cleaner if you apply two or three thin coats as opposed to one thick coat. Currently it's sold out on the Julep website, but it's a pretty simple finish that could be replicated with a good quality black creme polish and matte topcoat. For this look, though, I ruined the latex finish anyway by covering it with super shiny Oxygen Performance Topcoat. I just can't resist shining up my matte polishes! Before I did that, though, I "sponged" on Revlon Copper Penny (an opaque copper gold metallic shimmer) and Colors By Llarowe Human Nature (a holo infused dark mushroom taupe).

Copper Penny is very opaque for a shimmer, which makes it great for this type of look. At first glance it swallows up Human Nature, but the addition of the second polish gives it a subtle depth and scattered sparkle that kicks up the vamp factor without allowing Copper Penny to chunk apart the black base. To put the look over the top, I layered Copper Penny over the backs of my nails for a black and gold Louboutin mani. I finished off with matte silver studs on my accent nails.


This look is vampy because of the rich contrast between the black base, the texture created by the two colors, and the lush details of the silver studs and Louboutined tips. This is a look that would look equally appropriate at a formal gala or a costume party. The copper tips don't have great staying power, so that's more of a one-night-only feature, but the rest of the mani can be worn anywhere. It's a perfect Vamptober look!


Remember to show me how you're celebrating #Vamptober on Facebook and Twitter! Be sure to tag me so I can see your looks.

It's Vamptober!

October is an absolutely amazing month to be a polish addict. It's fall, so all of the gorgeous, rich cremes are coming out in the new collections, and if you're lucky enough to be in a country that observes it, October means Halloween! I love all of the outrageous nail art that Halloween brings out. For Halloween, anything goes.

This October, I've decided to try on a nail trend that hasn't always been my cup of tea: "vamp." Vampy to me is luxe, dark, richly colored polishes and elegant finishes with a slightly edgy feel.While vampy colors are often quite beautiful, they're rarely first on my list when it comes time to pick a color. Since I love all the polishes, though, this month I'm going to be spotlighting my vampy polishes and giving them some wear time before I rediscover metallics and ice blue for winter. I don't plan to blog every mani, so be sure to follow on Facebook and Twitter for my Vamptober NOTD selections.

To kick things off, I pulled out one of my first Julep polishes. Padma is a vamp because of the patent leather shine and deep, rich color. It's listed as a "royal plum creme," but the first time I put it on, I was surprised at how dark it was-almost black. In the light, the purple comes out more and it has an inky indigo purple sheen. It's the color I imagine Ursula the Sea Witch wears for a night on the town. It applies beautifully, and one careful coat will do. I topped off my accent nails with Julep Kirby from my September Maven box. Kirby is a silver glitter topper in a clear base with several sizes of small hex glitters and bigger jagged pieces. There's no fishing for glitter on this one! If anything, I had to be careful not to overapply because I didn't want to completely bury my base color. I topped it with HK Girl, even though Padma is shiny enough to go without a topcoat if you want to.



What does "vampy" mean to you? What are your other favorite October-ready nail trends?

I Broke a Nail! 3 Looks for Short Nails

To the outside world, "I broke a nail" ranges from a casual statement of minor annoyance to the laughable cry of a spoiled prima donna. To those of us who love nail art or get our midday pick-me-up from a glance at perfectly polished nails in the season's "it" color, it can feel like an absolute tragedy. When last we spoke, my nails were just about exactly at my target length-long enough for complicated nail art but not too long to get in the way. Then, I had a break. Not as bad as the one I had immediately before starting this blog, but definitely a huge setback, and way too short to continue on with that length on my other nails. They all had to go.

And still to this day I have the same problem I had then: all articles and images for what to do with nubs either says everything looks good on them (not true!) and/or are classifying "short" as several millimeters longer than what I've got. When my nails are chopped off, I don't quite feel like myself. So, in response, here's the blog post I wanted to read and couldn't find every time I've had a break: a recovery plan for when your nails must be chopped.

Step 1: Long nails sometimes get a bit unruly as far as lengths and shapes, so cutting them down is a good opportunity to get them back to a uniform appearance. Since my break left me with a little length, I cut them all to about three millimeters from the fingertip, then filed them down with a glass file to a uniform shape modeled off of actual-short-nailed nail art genius The Nailasaurus. I'd say mine are a touch rounder at the edges than hers, which mirrors my typical squoval leanings. I did leave my thumbnails a bit longer than the others as well, mostly because they look stumpier and tend to grow a little more slowly for me than my other nails.

Step 2 is to baby your nails and cuticles. I've been using Sally Hansen VitaSurge Gel (jury's still out on whether it will help), ridge filling base coat, and tons of cuticle cream and skin serum. Since I'm never really happy with my nails when they're super short, I tend to change polish more often, which is hard on them. The healthier they are, the faster they grow and the better they look getting there, so if you can curb that urge, avoid frequent polish changes.

Step 3 is the hard part. When you're used to doing nail art on longer nails, everything you do on short nails as far as nail art looks wrong. I've discovered, through extensive trial and error, a few simple designs that help ease the transition back to long nails. I used Glisten and Glow HK Girl topcoat with Julep Oxygen Basecoat on all three designs.

Strategy 1: Vertical Stripes
Just like that shirt everyone has that's so ugly, but it makes you look super thin, vertical stripes thin out and lengthen nub nails. Here I used striping tape and straight vinyl decals (a technique I'm still getting the hang of) to block out my lines, then filled with earthy fall colors using a striping brush. As the base color I used OPI for Sephora Frankly I Don't Give A-Dam, a concrete grey, and added stripes of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Peach of Cake (bright peachy orange), Insta Dri Jade Jump (pale jade green), and NYC Color Royal Chic (deep brown).




Strategy 2: Gradient French Tips
Last time I had a major break, I used nude and white for a traditional french tip look. This time, I went with something a little more dramatic, inspired by Lorde's dreadful frostbitten nail art. While it's not my speed for an everyday look, the black and nude gradient overall look was visually interesting. I carefully layered Pahlish Raggedy Man Goodnight over my basecoat with a ripped off piece of makeup sponge to keep it as cloudlike as possible, going over the very tips with the polish brush, then sponged a thin layer of the very sheer Glitter Gal Turbulence to holo-fy the bare part of the nail without edging out the french tip effect.



Strategy 3: Glitter Fixes Everything!
Finally, when all else fails, "throw some glitter at it" seems to be an effective solution to almost any nail art conundrum. A glittery chevron tip adds bling and visually drives the tip of the nail forward, creating the illusion of longer nails. Glitter also doesn't have to have a perfect line to look neat. Here I used Julep Cameron over Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle in Lovely Lavender. Cameron is a Julep Stardust polish, which is a fabulous opaque matte glitter finish. For some contrast you could topcoat just the base color instead of topcoating both like I did here. I used vinyl decals as a buffer to create clean lines for my pointed tips and full nail chevron accents. .



So that's how I've been coping with the loss of my length. I'm still having some issues getting them back into blogging shape (hence the paucity of posts lately), but with a little love, they're recovering. What tricks do you use to mask a break-or do you embrace your shorties?

Weekend Nails: Sheers

It's been a while since I've done a weekend nails post, and this one doesn't seem too exciting at first glance. I have some big nail art projects planned for the next few weeks, but I've been a bit under the weather and didn't feel up to anything dramatic this weekend. Instead, I surprised myself by choosing some of the sheer polishes in my collection.

I much prefer opaques over bare nails or sheers about 360 days a year. I like full coverage and am annoyed by any peek of VNL. When I saw Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Cold As Ice, I was enthralled by the shimmery pink and orange shift. I'm not sure how I looked at this polish and expected it not to be sheer, but there ya go. I got it home, tried it on, and didn't pick it up again until this weekend. I started out with American Classics Bridge The Ridge basecoat. This gave a matte glaze and helped even out the color of my polish stained tips. Then I added two coats of Cold As Ice and topcoated.

This mani was pretty and simple, but I couldn't leave well enough alone, because everything looks better with glitter. I pulled out another pretty sheer that was languishing in my collection, Sally Hansen Nail Growth Miracle in Misty Rose. Misty Rose is a very, very sheer pink with tiny pink, silver, and green glitter that gives an all over sparkle. The combination brought out some of the purple sheen in both, making for a surprisingly complex mani that warmed even my sheer-hating heart. Then I finished with Sally Hansen Super Shine top coat; not a quick drying formula, but I didn't have any issues with it.

Plain nails have a place-it's a good idea to let the nails breathe occasionally-but a matte basecoat and the right sheer polish is like wearing natural makeup. It doesn't scream 'look at me,' but it shows off the hard work of maintaining beautiful, healthy nails while hiding some of the unfortunate side effects of my beloved opaque shades. How do you wear your sheers?

Lacquer Legion: Trekker Galaxy

When the Lacquer Legion declared Fandom as July's prompt, I may have squealed out loud. As you may have read on the Story of This Blog, my first serious nail art undertaking was Star Trek fan art. At the time I wasn't taking photos of my nails, but it was fairly simple-red nails with one yellow and one blue accent nail featuring the Starfleet insignia. For this month's Lacquer Legion mani, I decided to recreate that vibe using one of my very favorite techniques: galaxy nails.

Galaxy nails never get old for me, and are another technique that I tried very early in my nail art adventures. They come in endless variations, always look spectacular, and are ridiculously easy. I'm also fascinated by space (I'm obsessed with the "The Planets" manis that Nichole at Pretty Girl Science has been posting-but I'm obsessed with PGS anyway), so I end up staring at them all day. For this set, I went outside of my norm and used a deep purple, Julep Padma, instead of black as my base. Then I went crazy with colors, infusing a little turquoise this time with my usual array of white, pinks, yellow, and barrage of multi-sized glitter "stars." I used bits of sponge held precariously with tweezers, but a friend recently sent me a tutorial that used an eyeshadow sponge and looked even easier, so I think I may pick up some cheap ones to try that next time. Then I used a striper to shape out my Starfleet insignia in Sally Hansen Color Foil Sterling Silver and outlined in black (which, incidentally, is why the purple background instead of my usual black-to ensure my outline would stand out). Unfortunately, the gloomy Indiana weather made it really difficult to get a decent shot of the colors in this mani, so I was stuck with one that had a big, ugly shadow across the bottom as my best photo of the color scheme. Figures.

While I was tempted to do something more dramatic, like my Wonder Woman themed ComicCon nails, for this awesome prompt, a recreation that pays homage to my nerdy nail art roots just felt right. Plus...galaxy nails!