Revlon Popular or Starry Pink

Revlon Starry Pink is an interesting color I've been hesitating on for a long time. So long, in fact, that it got renamed to Popular in 2012. It's a milky light pink with silver hex glitter and smaller silver glitter. I found the texture too thick, yet streaky and it didn't look as good as I imagined on my skintone. It was a lot whiter than I really wanted and the milkiness of the base really clashed with silver glitter for me. I feel that this could've been a success if it was white, not silver glitter. I wanted to like it, but this one was a miss for me.

Minnie Mouse nail art

I have seen the OPI Minnie Mouse collection and I am sad to say, but I was disappointed! The colors are typical red/pinkish and there's a sort of interesting effect topcoat, but it's just finely milled mylar flakies with hearts glitters, like in NOPI polishes. Needless to say, I am not impressed... but rather than be mad, I did my own Minnie-style nails!

I used the Konad plates to stamp the polka dots and the base colors were WnW Black Creme, SH Instadri Whirlwind White and my favourite neon this season - China Glaze - A Rose Among Thorns.

These came out a lot prettier than I expected! I might have to do more Disney inspired stuff later on, I'm planning maybe a Steamboat style Mickey...

That will have to wait though because I am finally moving! I'm going to have access to the rest of my stash again. This means I can put this and my "temporary" 6 month stash together and organize everything. That's going to feel soo good. This also means I will have a solid place to set up a lamp to photograph and a computer desk with a desktop computer and a good viewing angle. This should solve the issues I have with photographs looking too washed out/too saturated, etc.

Ooh, so excited!

Pokemon nails!

Good morning! I think I'm a little overdue on video game nail art, so here's an easy one: Pokemon nails!

Those hours spent hunting down critters and catching them, adventuring through the same general premise no matter the generation, over 400 Pokemon to find and catch... can you find a more popular timesink? Those hours spent evolving, breeding, entering contests and battling were awesome, especially since it's cemented itself as a handheld must-have. I have long wanted to do Pokemon nails, but was lacking the perfect yellow and i finally found it - SH Instadry Lighting is what I used as a base colour for Pikachu and Revlon Fire/SH Instadry Whirlwind White for the Pokeballs. 

Here's a nice pic my mom snapped!

I've seen Pokeballs on nails many times before, but I still wanted to try them - it's relatively easy to make and actually looks like a really cool nail design to someone who has no idea what they are. I used tape to tape off a half of the nail, will with the other color and when dry, drew a line with black and using a dotting tool to put in white dots. Pikachu was drawn with the black nail art pen and dotting tools as well.

I want to attempt more Pokemon on my nails, especially the classics! any specific ones you want to see done?

Cocktail Zebra nail art

Here's a little experiment in combining techniques such as sponge gradients, Konad stamping and a little bit of drawing!

For the base, I used WnW Black Creme, for stamping and drawing, SH Instadri Whirlwind White and Illamasqua Jo'Mina for the tips. I feel that Jo'Mina was too bright, so it stands out more than I expected. The zebra stamp, however, never fails me. It's always going to be clear and never smudge. The little martini glass was freehanded, but looks nice nonetheless. This says to me that practice doodling on my nails have improved my hand stability! I'm prone to shaky hands due to caffeine and whatever else, so tiny drawings have been harder for me to do. However, once I started practicing, it became a lot easier to stabilize my hands and keep designs from looking horrible. Here's to more practice!

Abstract Graffiti nails with Illamasqua Jo'Mina

I was itching to wear Jo'Mina again, so I decided to spice it up with a little bit of abstract nail art!

To create this, I used a white nail art polish and went a little crazy with the corners. Also, my thumb spells my first name in Russian, written as АНЯ. I'm pretty happy with the way this came out, I'd love to try more graffiti nails eventually.

Spring is finally here, there is sun outside, it's time to bust out the holographics! Ooh, I can't wait for flip flops, tank tops and shorts! It's a little late this year, but as long as it starts, I'm happy. Flowers have come and gone, but now the real fun begins. I can finally take my sketchbook outside and eat ice-cream on the street and wear sandals...

What's your favourite thing about summer?

Pinstripe roses - girly nail art

Spring is here and so is my need for pink!

Today I decided a on pretty popular type of manicure - pink with white stripes and roses. For the base, I used OPI Pink Friday and white nail art brush for the lines. The roses were ELF Bubblegum Pink and the leaves were ORLY Green Apple. I also used some glitter and tried to make a big heart... but it didn't come out as nice as I would have liked. I'm hoping practice will make perfect! I want to to try this manicure again with a bit of variation, I felt very fancy and feminine while wearing it... with a tshirt and jeans. The vertical lines do make the nails look dramatically longer, so that's also a big plus.

Sun has been a precious commodity recently, so I'm happy to have been able to snap a few pictures in sunlight... it looks so crisp and clear! 

What do you think of this type of nail art? Would you try it?

OPI Ballet 2012 - Don't Touch my Tutu Jelly sandwich

This is from the OPI NY Ballet Spring 2012 collection - a white jelly, very transparent and a little milky.

Here I'm wearing 4 coats and OPI Servin Up Sparkle between layers 1 and 2, as well as on the tips on top.

It's very clean and definitely a palate cleanser... it felt a little boring to me, but I like having a white jelly in the collection nonetheless. The milkiness dulled the holo glitter inside, making it look like plain white glitter - this is not always a bad thing. It looks like snowflakes!

The formula was a little too sheer. It builds up in 4 coats, but even with 5, it's still too sheer. I thought this would compare to Essie Marshmallow, but it never goes solid, no matter what. Otherwise, it's glossy and dries okay (not as fast as I'd like though).

What are your thoughts on pale jellies? Love them or bored of them?

Navy Stripes nail art

Horizontal stripes are my favorite thing to wear and now they're "in"! This means I get to stockpile stripey clothes like a boss. This also means I can give navy stripes a try on my nails! I used SH - Thinking of blue and the white nail art polish to do the stripes. The anchor was done with ORLY Luxe and a dotting tool. They turned out wider than I wanted, but I liked how vivid they looked.They sort of remind me of bees actually... it felt a little strange being distracted by my nails no matter what I did. Next time, I'm going to try making the stripes thinner, that should give it the look I really want. 

On my right hand I did something simpler, but I ended up liking it better! Same base polish, tapes off a white stripe and ORLY Luxe dots in the middle. 

 What are your thoughts? Have you worn horizontal stripes yet this spring? 

Porcelain nail art with Illamasqua Load

For this manicure, I really wanted to create a teacup kind of look, so I went with Illamasqua Load as the base and went crazy with dotting tools and the GOSH Matte Topcoat.

I started with the leaves first, by dragging a drop of green polish over the base color. After it dried, I made the petals, then the muddles with a peach color. After they tried, I covered them with Seche Vite, a fastdry topcoat. I really like how it evens out all imperfections...with a perfectly smooth set of nails, I appied the matte topcoat and voila! 

Perfectly smooth matte porcelain nails! 

Do you have a favorite tea/coffee mug? If so, have you tried to recreate it on your nails?

Art inspiration - Mondrian nails

Sooo I got inspired by Piet Mondrian and decided to try his clean and crisp style of painting on my own nails! I used a Art Deco brush in black, as well as Wet N Wild Black Creme (best black!) as well as SH Instadry Whirlwind White for the base. This came out better than  expected! I started with a white base, did the grid with the nail brush, then filled in the squares using a dotting tool, which gave me control over the colour spread. Needless to say, I am VERY pleased with the results! I also did a gradient using a sponge, but it came out less smooth then I thought... What are your thoughts on this? Perhaps any other ideas for art to recreate on nails?

Spring Sakura nail art (Cherry Blossoms)

Spring is not too far, so I've decided to pit some spring into my day with Sakura blossom nails! These are inspired by cherry trees, which blossom beautifully before the leaves come out!

I used Sally Hansen Instadry Whirlwind White, as well as Blue Away from the same brand.

The branches are made using an Art Deco black art polish (with a really skinny brush) and the blossoms are mostly OPI Pink Friday and some Elf Bubblegum Pink, using dotting tools. 

more pics!

I really like the way these came out! Just the way I wanted them to! I can't wait to do some more stuff with deco polishes!

Also, check out what I found in a Japanese candy store! It's Dragonball Z coffee!!

Frieza says sorry about the cellphone pic

Illamasqua Load and nail stickers

Illamasqua Load is...a very very interesting colour and name. When I first heard about it, I winced and made a face when I saw the swatches as well. Sheltered much? So a year or so later, I've been looking for...an off-white, interesting, strange creme. Nothing seemed to fit the bill like Illa Load, so...I had to buy it. Even just for the name. It's a beautiful slightly yellow slightly cream colored polish, but I found the formula a little runny compared to the way other Illamasquas apply. Even though it was runny, I really loved the way it looked like ivory, pure and clean, yet interesting and striking.

I put on some more cellphone stickers from Daiso! These look VERY chunky and I am sad; I do wish they were thinner, but it looks great from a distance!

Cutie Lace ♥ nail art

Today I decided to try some nail art with cellphone stickers I got at Daiso...they're so cheap! When you get a set of cellphone stickers for 2 dollars, what's left but to put them on your nails? Hehe

So I did polka dots with Konad, over SH Whirlwind White, pink base is ORLY Cotton Candy and the white lace stickers.

I felt like a princess for a while :D

Gradient dot mani!

Today, I attempted something amazing... I've seen a blogger do this VERY recently but unfortunately I forget who it was *edit: here it is! the original amazing gradient nail art tutorial*... If you remember who did the tutorial, let me know! I'd be happy to link to them :)

Anyway, onto the mani...ahhh it turned out so good!

I used ELF - Bubble Gum Pink and Sally Hansen Xtreme wear - Blue Me Away! for the base colours and Sally Hansen Instadri - Whirlwind white for the dotting. On my thumb is OPI - Save Me glitter.

I think it came out pretty good! It was a bit messy on my other hand but...it's worth it. I cannot believe it actually came out well! The blue nails remind me of Azumarill :3

What do you girls think? 

Video game nails Kirby, Sonic, Megaman and Mario mushrooms!

hurf durf left hand

This is what I spent my Saturday doing...absolutely nothing AND video game nails! Also my left hand is looking ridiculously wonky but the nail shape fits much better. I did this with dotting tools, and some help from brush shapes (thank YOU SH- whirlwind white for your round brush). I've been meaning to do video game nails forever, but I was lacking a yellow since I'm still away from most of my stash... Had to make do with the cremes I acquired in the last month. Also had to pick and choose characters I can do based on what color I got (sorry Pacman and Pikachu ), but I think it turned out decent! I'm hoping to do some Pokemon manis once I get my stash back...hmm...what else?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

I hope everyone is warm and fuzzy, with family and eating great food!

I've been behind on my blog, that is my baaad but I can assure you that I've gotten some more material to work with now!

I also attempted a Christmas mani with Revlon Royal and SH-Whirlwind White and some dotting tools.

A bit messy but it turned out okay for a first try!

Halloween nails - bloody nurse

Halloween is coming! Candy is bite sized and abundant!
 TIME FOR SCARY NAILS.

I attempted a bloodsplattered look with a toothbrush and topped off with dropslets of the same color. 

This turned out very nice! Bright and creeepy.

I can't wait to do more Halloweeny stuff.