FaerieCon Nails!

What kind of nail polish do fairies wear? After a quick google search, I concluded fairy nails either involved some sort of fairy, leaf, or tree stencil, or glitter. I decided to try a shimmer glitter fade from the tip of the nail down. Which made me want to do a color gradient as well. I tried many different things to try to get a gradient, but failed at all of them. I should have taken pictures of these failures, but they were too cataclysmic! I settled on Island Girl color changing blue and Rimmel top coat for shine. The glitter is a fine powder that I sprinkled on and carefully covered with top coat. I think they turned out fantastically!

Pedicures!

There had to be pedicures to prepare for FaerieCon! I picked a bright blue color China Glaze color. Then, the stylist picked out a glitter overcoat that I had been eyeballing, so I couldn’t say no. It was a very long pedicure, but very fun! Plus, the massage chair felt really good on my sore shoulder (I have a shoulder that has been radiating pain for about 3 weeks now). It was a neat little shop, with a lot of male-female couples getting pedicures, which usually isn’t too popular, including a hispanic construction worker (he even still had his reflective vest on!), an older Italian couple, and a young couple who looked very sad for some unfathomable reason (who can be sad if they are getting pedicures?!)Here are my toes:

And my and Rachel’s toes:

 

Crackletoa

For this weeks’ nails, I started out with one of my older base coats; Sally Hansen’s Double Duty Base Coat and Top Coat. You may note that the bottle is just under half full. At this level, the polish was nearly impossible to get on the brush. I spent so much time trying to get the polish on the brush, and finding it smelly and thick, that I decided it was time for this stuff to be retired. Pity, considering how much is left. I wonder how many body of polishes actually get finished? What is considered “used up” in a bottle of nail polish?

I used one of my favorites for the under color; New York Color long wearing nail enamel Luxury Lime Creme 110A.  This stuff is fantastic!

Then I layered Sally Hansen’s Crackle Overcoat in 02 Vintage Violet. I have not liked this crackle much- it is very hard to consistently apply, making some nails with tiny fracture cracks and some nails with gigantic center fault lines, neither of which match very well. Somehow today, it seemed to go on ok, though. and all the nails matched. I am really pleased with the results. They inspired me to wear my mustard yellow pants with my purple hoodie and purple and matching green earrings. What a fun day!

Valentine’s Nails

For Valentine’s nails, I started with OPI Natural Nails Base Coat, then layered New York Color 125A Charming Rose Creme under Sally Hansen’s Nail Art Pen in White, then topped it off with Sephora by OPI’s matte top coat and Nicole by OPI drying drops.

It’s only once a year that I do pink nails, and that is around Valentine’s Day. I never particularly liked the holiday, in fact, I think it sort of needs to be abolished as it seems to bring joy to absolutely no one except maybe popular elementary school kids. It doesn’t seem to matter whether people are coupled up or not, single people lament over being single on Valentine’s Day, and coupled people either stress about being criticized or lament over how disappointing their partner is. This, in contrast to fun holidays like Halloween, seems only fitting for the women’s magazine-reading lot. Anyway, I digress.  Back to nails. I never used to paint my nails pink because that was the basic nail color. It seemed all nail polish was some variation of pink, and all I wanted was the bright colors. It’s now a lot easier to find the colors I like, probably because people of my generation are now the ones making nail polish decisions.

I used the pearly tones of New York Color, which is a fabulously smooth polish, by the way. In the quest to find a less thick french tip, I got the nail art pen from Sally Hansen. It’s a little rough, and difficult to apply. I am also not convinced these pens last as long as regular polish. They tend to act in the same way as painting your nails with a sharpie, but, I wanted white, and this is the only white I could find.

Lastly, I added a matte topcoat over the french tips. I wanted the nails to look more bright and young and fresh, and less dark and pearly. The result came out sort of like a silk Christmas bulb. It doesn’t look particularly Valentine-like, but really, who’s judging? I am now inspired to do some 50’s-themed nails, with my bright bubble-gum pink Island girl nails and black tips. But,  that will have to wait for next year.

contrast-tastic!

This is another accent nail setup. I just love orange and grey together and decided it was time to do that in nails!I used Sinful Colors Courtney Orange (one of my favorites!) and Sally Hansens’ Hard as Nails 860 Steely Gaze. And of course, I used my usual OPI Natural Nails Base Coat and Nicole by OPI drying drops topcoat.

Here are the nails before I added the matte topcoat.

It was strange adding the drying drops for the matte topcoat. At first, everything seemed normal, then, the matte seemed to slowly work its way back to shiny. I was sad, but curious, as the only other topcoat I have that is a quick dry topcoat is incredibly shiny. Here are the nails after I dded matte, and the top cot, but before they dried completely:

But then, after the drying drops dried, they matte came through again. I am assuming the drying drops are made of some sort of oil base, but I really don’t have a clue. The chemistry of nail polish is very curious to me, especially the polish that can impact other polishes, like drying drops.

But, after a while, they did matte up to the look below. I was surprised to atch the transformation.