new nail looks

the first one i'm going to show you is my favorite favorite color right now and i dare say quite possibly my favorite color of all time. it's just so WEARABLE! it's a pinky brown from OPI called Don't Melbourne the Toast from the Australia collection. there's a hint of sparkley shimmy but not really. it's weird because it's almost a blend-in-able nude kind of pink, but it so pretty everyone always comments on it. i highly recommend it.

this next look i tried last week, i've been busy sorry, was on a whim and something i've been wanting to try but never had the time or patience or whatev. i la la love Dita Von Teese and love her glam old time style. her nail look is really cool, she does the longer oval nails with a half moon silver manicure with red nail beds. it is very cool looking...in theory. so...let me tell you, i'm not a really a glamour girl. it's just not me. i love experimenting with make-up, hair, and nails. but clothes and going out on the town and yadda yadda yadda is just not me. i wear jeans everyday and i own one skirt. so all of the above has to be tailored to my life of leisure and low key-ness haha. and let me tell you, the Dita nail look did not suit me at all. but it was fun and that is all that this was about i guess. so here it is. i wore it for a grand total of an hour. which felt long. i used Essie Blanc for the white half moons (not having any silver that looked quite right) and Revlon Tart for the beds. *sigh*

notd's

the fingernail look i went for today (technically this evening) was OPI you don't know jacques from the france collection. when i first saw this shade in the bottle and even on the plastic nail example at trade secret i was like, eww who would ever wear that?! but then, as i am an avid beauty blog reader, i saw many swatches of the color on multiple ladies' fingers and fell head over heels in lemming lust. i got it at a taylor maid beauty supply for about $3 cheaper than at the mall so how could i resist? it is a lovely creamy dark grey/taupe with kind of a mud appearance. i love it! two coats over double duty base, out the door top and drip dry.

my toes are painted with the N.Y.C. color camoflauge from Target although i think you can buy this brand anywhere, like walmart or whatev. i am reluctant to show you my toes at all, even though i think i actually have cute feet compared to most of the modern world but putting them on the internet in close up detail is a different thing altogether. so here is all you get (i'm sure you're devastated), two coats in a beautiful rich green called camoflauge, beauty secrets ridge filler from sally beauty, out the door top coat, opi drip dry oil.

obsessssed w/ nails

ok so this first one is called Typhoon by nucolor, which sadly NuSkin doesn't make anymore. my sister works for them and we have a HUGE stash of NC2 colors but hopefully i don't get too attached to any of them cuz i'm never going to be able to find them again :( anyway, this nail formula is super easy to apply, very thin but opaque. Typhoon is a frosty color that looks darker than this picture, but the flash was on. i put some konad on the thumb and index, but it's hard to see it on the thumb. i used Out the Door quick dry top coat over two coats of color.the next look i did this past week was called Grape Crush by nucolor, again discontinued. this was seriously the loudest color i have worn on my fingernails in FOREVER! and wearing it to work made me self conscious even though i can pretty much wear whatever i want and we're laid back, it was still weird haha. the photo makes it look more violet but the color is seriously purple, like grape Slurpee purple. this was SUPER easy to apply, super creamy thin formula. i used Double Duty base coat by Sally Hansen, Out the Door top coat and opi Drip Dry nail drops over three coats of this (even tho two coats would've worked).i actually did another look in between these nails with opi design series, which was a holo shimmer taupe brown which is seriously gorgeous, but ended up ruining them yesterday before i got to take any pics. i was at my sister's watching Oprah and promised to do her nails so w/o thinking i jump into it with the cotton and remover and whoops there goes my manicure. i ended up using the two colors i used for her fingers and tootsies on my fingers. idk if you'll ever see a pic of my toes, they might be too hideous, we'll see :)

the pink is from charlotte russe, bought at the same time as the peachy orange color featured when i first blogged about nails. i was super disappointed in the formula, way chunkier and thick than the orange and it was hard to work with so it started drying way streaky. it ended up looking ok (on me, my sister's are worse haha) after three coats and a top coat (cuz these dry semi-matte weird) but idk if i'll use this polish again anytime soon. although i have gotten a lot of compliments, it maybe because this is a super noticeable bright color haha. the blue/green color is the new cult favorite by china glaze called Dear Audrey, made for Audrey Hepburn. supposed to be an impression of Tiffany blue, w/o actually being Tiffany blue because it is copyrighted. i wore a shirt that matched the blue exactly today so it was pretty dope. i used two coats of the Dear Audrey. base coat was diamond shine by sally hansen and top coat was insta-dry by sally hansen.
i'm still getting the hang of the photography part of this so bear with me :)

konad nail stamps

so i went to the women's expo at UVU today w/ my stepmom and step-niece because my sister's company NuSkin was the main sponsor of the event this year and we all went last year together. It's become kind of a nice tradition. Anyway, i usually don't get suckered into buying anything but this year i came across a Konad nail art stamp booth and was blown away by the apparant ease of applying the nail art. i follow CeeCee on OnSugar and she has done a ton of nail art with these and i wanted desperately to find them and try them out.

they are super fun little designs that are pretty easy (after you get the hang of it) which are achieved by placing the thicker than normal Konad polish on a little etching of the design on a mirror plate, scraping off the excess polish with a blade like apparatus, placing the stamper over the design, then rolling the stamp over your (polished w/ a top coat or color) nail. there is obviously a learning curve with anything like this but after you get used to it, it's pretty sweet. here's my first attempt:
china glaze black diamond base coat w/ konad white polish

obviously i cleaned it up around my cuticles. i also placed a blue rhinestone on my thumb nail. pretty cute, no?

beginning of the end

today my sister found a long white, not gray, but WHITE hair hanging out of my ponytail. woe is me.

peachy orange spring nails

i've been reading tons of "beauty" blogs out there and have really gotten into the nail thing lately, so i decided to post some nail pics. me and my sister found some SUPER cute nail colors at none other than charlotte russe, which is crazy cuz i didn't even know they made nail color. well, apparently they do.

this color didn't have a name and excuse the bad lighting and photography, i'm just a beginner at this haha. the color dries really fast and into a sort of matte bright finish which you can make shiny with a top coat; i use "out the door" from sally beauty supply.