"Ulta Limited Edition Nail Lacquer"
I'll let you in on a little secret: I've never ordered anything from ULTA - until now, that is! I'll give you a moment of exaggerated gasps...In any case, the other week I placed an order from our amazing makeup super-store and was not disappointed! My order arrived quickly and with everything in tow. Among my order was the ULTA limited edition nail lacquer. It's the holiday season and that means seasonal makeup and beauty products are lining the shelves and our web browsers. As you might already know, I'm obsessed with nail polish. I've been doing my nails since the sixth grade and I have never once looked back. I was browsing ULTA online one night and came across an amazing deal: 5 items for $5! The limited edition nail polish immediately caught my eye as I was captivated by the holiday-inspired colors.
I hurriedly added four bottles of nail polish (plus blue mascara, french manicure strips, and eyeliner) to my cart, satisfied with my latest snag. There are more than four colors in the collection but I chose these four because I didn't have colors like them (and now I'm glad I do!) ULTA nail lacquer usually sells for about $6 a bottle but because of the deal I paid $4 for all four instead of $24! Thank you ULTA!!
These nail polishes are very pigmented. At most, I applied two coats of polish, though, some of them didn't need two coats. They are also rather quick drying, which is a huge plus for me because I'm always busy and, even though I like to get my hands dirty, I can't say I'd be too thrilled by messing up a freshly manicured hand! So you can see how gorgeous these colors are, here are some swatches:
'Let it Snow' is a glittery white nail polish. It's my favorite glitter nail polish ever because it's so concentrated that it only takes two coats to become opaque and and oh-so enchanting!
'Peppermint' is an icy light blue that is the opposite of sheer! I'm in love with this color because it maintains a cool tone while still being vivid. I can just imagine myself curling up to a steamy peppermint mocha when I see this color!
'Naughty or Nice' is an electrifying purple. The color is sassy but sweet and it's awesome for showing off at a Christmas party!
'Silver Bell' is a perfect silver, kind-of gunmetal shade! It's absolutely brilliant and eye-catching. This color is the perfect epitome of the graceful silver ornament our Christmas trees have come to know.
If I had to pick a favorite, I'd say Silver Bell rocks the vote, but Peppermint is definitely up there! Like I said, I'm extremely impressed with ULTA brand nail polish and I would like to delve deeper into their awesome products!
Which color is your favorite?
"Fruit Punch" Nails
Need a design that's really easy but a little more than your plain Jane? I call this design my "Fruit Punch" nails because the vibrant magenta I used kind of reminds me of Fruit Punch. Don't these nails make you feel like you have a nice, cold glass of Fruit Punch right in front of you?
The color I used on all but one of my nails is from L.A. Colors and is called Electra. I like this color because it's extremely bright and fun! On my Ring finger I used a regular white nail polish from New York Color to paint the entire nail white. After it dried, I used nail art brush to paint small wedges for flower petals. First I did this with Sally Hansen's Electra-cute! and once it was half dry I used Wet n' Wild's Oops as an inner color. I only had enough space to make four wedge shapes instead of five since I, accidentally, painted them on too big.
Once the petals dried, I took a small dotting tool and dipped it in black nail polish to create three tiny black dots for the seeds of the flower. Afterward, I took Revlon's Posh, a dark green polish, and used the same dotting tool to make oblong shapes for leaves.
I used a top coat to seal in my design and I was done! This whole design took less than an hour to complete, so it's definitely not too time consuming! You can recreate this look with other colors! I recommend switching Electra and Electra-cute for a bouncy, orange mani!
Halloween Nails
My favorite holiday is right around the corner! Of course it wouldn't be Halloween if I didn't paint my nails to match the occasion! There's a different design on every nail which makes the overall look interesting because there's so much going on on your hand but it all comes together enchantingly.
Thumb:
On this nail is a super simple jack-o-lantern. I used Electra-cute from the Sally Hansen Gel line. After two coats of this bright orange polish dried I took a really fine dotting tool that I bought from Claire's and dipped it into black nail polish from Sinful Colors. I carefully painted two triangles for eyes and one smaller one for a nose. The fine dotting tool was great for this because I still had a lot of control over what I painted so it was efficient in getting the job done. I used the same dotting tool paint on a large smile under the nose. Then I used the same black nail polish and dotting tool to make lines across the mouth. I guess my jack-o-lantern is somewhat scarecrow-esque because of that! That's okay - being 1/4 scarecrow is awesome anyway! To finish off this nail I took Revlon's Posh and with my dotting tool I made a tuft of green at the top.
Index Finger:
This nail is a colorful sugar skull, which will match my sugar skull makeup look for Halloween! Sugar skulls have been getting a lot of attention in recent years. If you didn't already know, they are used in the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration but they have been arising as part of Halloween now too.
For this nail I just took a regular white nail polish from New York Color, which I really would like to get rid of in favor of a different brand because this brand leaves a streaky finish with the white nail polish. After the white nail polish dried, I took a larger dotting tool and, using the same black nail polish from before, I made large black dots for the eyes and used my tiny dotting tool to make a triangular nose. Unfortunately, this sugar skull is not part scarecrow but we love him just the way he is <3. I then took various colors such as yellow, green, pink, and aqua to create tiny dots all over my sugar skull since they are so brightly colored!
Middle Finger:
This one is all about Frankenstein - our walking science experiment with stitches. For this I used Innocent from Sinful Colors - a shocking green. Once it dried I took the black nail polish and a thin brush and started painting on Frankie's hair. It's completely fine to get a little messy with it since his hair is a tad bit unruly. I made two white dots with small black dots inside them for eyes and painted on the mouth the same way I did for the jack-o-lantern nail.
Ring Finger:
This one is a magical gradient nail. First things first: I painted the entire nail with white nail polish. This will help your gradient show up way better! This is pretty much rule #2 of painting gradient nails. (Rule #1 is to have colors to use in your gradient!) I used a purple nail polish from Fingr's which came in a kit, a really pretty magenta from L.A. Colors, and Electra-cute. I applied these three colors to a makeup sponge and dabbed and rolled it across my nail. This is our gorgeous Halloween sky.
Once our gradient sky dried I took black nail polish and with a striper brush made lines for cross tombstones and painted on two bats that look like birds.
Pinky:
This is the easiest Halloween design ever - I painted a solid purple background using the same purple nail polish from Fingr's. Once it dried I took a large dotting tool and dipped it into white nail polish to create eyes. I Also used black nail polish to create pupils. Done! You now have a spooky monster residing on your pinky!
This array of nail art is wonderful for Halloween and your friends will hardly believe that you did this all by yourself! This is no trick - this Halloween nailart is actually very easy and replicable. You can also do your entire hand with just one of these designs! Happy Halloween, y'all!
"Pretty in Pink" Nails
I was really feeling PINK this week, especially because I felt the color would look great with my all new BLUE HAIR!! But in all seriousness I decided to think pink this week for a couple of reasons:
First off, my weekend was extremely busy and I really didn't have the time to create any elaborate nail art *sad face* so doing this was extremely simple yet it looks somewhat elegant and girly.
Second, yesterday I got to meet Author and New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow at a special Breakfast and autograph signing that took place at my college! My plan was to wear a light pink blazer that I had bought that weekend and I thought these nails would look great with it!
Lastly, my college is doing something pretty awesome right now - they're fighting for a cure using the #CollegeForTheCure on Instagram. Students take a picture of something pink and post it to Instagram with the #CollegeForTheCure. For every picture posted $1 is donated towards finding a cure for Breast Cancer. I decided that pink nails would be a great way to help the cause!
The gold glitter nail polish I used is from Pure Ice and is called Studette. This can definitely work as a stand-alone nail polish and it's one of my favorite glitter polishes to wear. If you don't apply a coat of a solid color before applying this nail polish then you will definitely have to apply at least 4 coats of nail polish in order to get the opaqueness you're looking for.
The pink nail polish I used is New York Color's Preppy Pink which is definitely one of the coolest pinks I've ever used. It's very pigmented and dries quickly and it costs no more than $1!
In the picture all the way on the left you see an...interesting design on my thumb nail. Originally, I had intended to just have baby pink polka dots on that nail - which is exactly what I did! However, my plan to add polka dots was pretty impulsive and so I painted them on my nail about one hour before going to my boxing class. Obviously we certainly aren't standing still during boxing! I got my wraps on, got my gloves on and got down to business! Unfortunately for me, by the time I took my gloves off, the pink polka dots had become deformed and smeared.
I kind of anticipated this, however, since there are NO mistakes in art (thank you to my first grade art teacher for teaching me that) I decided that I'd have to roll with what I have and just find a way to work with the smears. I took white nail polish from New York Color and grabbed my really thin dotting tool and got to work! All I did was smear tiny droplets of the white nail polish over the pink nail polish smears and voila - the design on my thumb nail was born!
This is a design that you will get a ton of compliments on because it's classy but the glitter adds just enough oomph to the look!
"Intricate Plan" Nails
First thing's first, thanks to my suite mate for letting me borrow her empty Starbucks cup for these pictures! Second, I'm back with more nail art! The last few weeks I've been preparing for midterms, writing papers, doing homework, and keeping up with marketing stuff for a club I'm part of on campus. I'm just a busy, busy person! At the same time I hate when my nail polish starts majorly chipping so I just had to redo my nails! This design, which I am naming 'Intricate Plan' suits my need for quick and easy nail art.
First, let me tell you a bit about the nail polish: I just bought a new bottle of Essie nail polish called Master Plan because a week ago when I was at Target I really wanted some kind of grayish colored nail polish because it's fall and I felt I would have enjoyed the warmness of the color! This color kind of reminds me of a color that I bought from Sinful Colors a really long time ago called Nirvana - a very well liked color in case you're in the market for a nice toned down nail polish but don't want to spend $9 for one bottle!
In any case, it was love at first sight for me and Master Plan. The nail polish itself is a little on the thicker, more opaque side, which I like because you don't need too many coats to get it to the desired finish. I applied two coats, though the second coat, I realized, wasn't really necessary but I usually do that with all my nail polishes. This is such a beautifully static color and the dry time was no more than about 10 minutes until it was touchable for me.
As for the design I did, I wanted to do something sort of tribal because the color was so earthy and nearly natural. I took my really thin dotting tool and dipped it in my black nail polish of choice in order to paint on the tribal design you see. Now, you're probably wondering why I chose a dotting tool rather than some sort of striping brush... In my opinion the brush was too thick for the design I wanted and I would have ended up with big black blobs of polish all over my nail with no distinct pattern.
I started off by making three small dots on top of my nail and made a straight line underneath it. The dotting tool made it really easy for me to paint three tiny triangles on my nail (which is probably my favorite part of this design!) After this I made two parallel lines and connected them with vertical lines. More dots were placed under that followed by another line and more vertical lines. See how easy that was? No wonder a workaholic like me pulled it off!
Tribal nail art is always intricate and what's great is that although it looks complex, it is really a mixture of smaller, simpler elements. I must say that a tribal design looks great against Master Plan and works with the color in a way that it doesn't just push it off as a background but instead works with it so that they shine equally.
What nail color from Essie are you dying to try?
"PURPLE HARMONY" NAILS
I have this awesome light purple nail polish that I LOVE so much and really wanted to feature it again in another post so I created these 'purple harmony' nails! This design is peaceful and almost reminds me of nature because of the leaf vines I painted on my middle finger.
The first thing I did was to apply a base coat and apply two coats of Full Steam Ahead from Essie (my favorite purple nail polish from them!) I didn't do any design on my thumb or pinky since I wanted to leave the plain in order to show off the true beauty of this super sweet and innocent color!
Index Finger:
On my index finger I took the gold nail polish from Sinful Colors (the one I raved about as my new staple) and I also took a tiny nail art brush and began painting these arrowhead-like shaped on the edges. Afterwards, I took a really small dotting tool and made dots inside all the open space. You can't see it too well because I should have done the design with white nail polish first and then went over it with the gold but I didn't want to paint white over that and then gold on top of that again in the case that I actually messed it up. Sometimes, it's better to leave well enough alone.
Middle Finger:
This is the nail that reminds me of nature. I took a thin nail art brush, dipped it in black nail polish and with one motion, painted two stems/vines that got thinner towards the tip. I then took the same dotting tool from before and used it to create tiny leaves on the vines. Super simple but super elegant and pretty!
Ring Finger:
Finally, I painted this nail light blue - a color from Sinful Colors named Cinderella which is SUPER accurate! I took the nail art brush again and dipped it in the gold nail polish and painted an arrowhead (basically a triangle) by the tip of my nails. Once that dried I took the same brush and dipped it in white nail polish and made a smaller triangle inside the gold one.
Expert tip: Clean your nail art brushes using nail polish remover - not water. Using water is a lost cause because it will barely clean the brush.
There you have it folks! This post was short and sweet (just like my nails at the moment!) and I hope you'll get inspired to get creative and add your own flair to these nails!
Had a bad day and feeling blue? Add some green! These bright nails will perk up your mood instantly! I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "green? Like puke?" but don't worry, this green is super bright and adorable! These nails are extremely easy to recreate - if you've got barely an hour to do your nails then you've got plenty of time!
The first thing I did for this design was apply a base coat. You can use your favorite for this or you can use clear nail polish to act as a barrier between your nail and the polish. Once that dried I took my Sally Hansen's Blue Me Away! and painted on two even coats. What I really like about Sally Hansen nail polishes is that they are very pigmented and very true to color so you don't need to do extra work to ensure that the color pops the way you want it to!
Once the Sally Hansen nail polish dried I took a paint brush with a very thin tip (yes, I said paintbrush!) and dipped it into my Sinful Colors' Innocent - the super cute bright green color you see in the pictures! I used the paint brush to just paint straight lines (or semi-straight lines) along my nail. The design I was going for was to be triangular sections of color. On my index finger I started at the top of my nail and painted a somewhat diagonally straight line right down. I filled in the green areas with my green nail polish as shown.
After I was done, I still felt like my nails needed a little extra something - just a little extra so I opted to apply tiny rhinestones to the tip of my blue triangles. I guess you could call it the point of intersection of my green lines. For this I used nail art glue from Kiss (pictured in the bottom right). This is the best nail art glue I have ever used! This glue actually came in a kit with the tubes of rhinestones in the picture. I have a third rhinestone test tube (I call them test tubes because they remind me of such) which is filled with black rhinestones - the same ones I used in my PROM NAILS which you can check out right here.
As always, you can recreate this design using any colors you'd like! Pink and orange might be a cool combination. Yellow and blue will be twice as fun! If you were sad but did this design your mood will instantly change because of the compliments you'll get on your mani =)
Do you think bumble bees are adorable from a (safe) distance? Do you want a super fun and super cartoon-y design for your nails? Do you want me to stop acting like this is an infomercial? Alright, alright, I'll get right to it - here we have my bumble bee nail art! This is a super adorable design that you can wear to impress your friends with your precision techniques (you have to get every nook and cranny of those clouds!) At the same time, this design incorporates some very basic techniques. I'm first going to start off with the fact that I used my BLUE-tiful Sally Hansen nail polish in Blue Me Away! as my background color. My steps for creating this design will probably seem a little bit odd because I usually start by describing the thumb nail, however, I didn't do that this time, but bear with me - it will all make sense! Here's what I did:
1. Ring Finger
For the ring finger I used a dotting tool to help me draw thick clouds on my nail. I used my New York Color white nail polish to do this. Let your clouds dry completely. At this point your nail probably looks weird with two splotches of white nail polish that actually looks like white out (even worse!) so to fix that and give your clouds some definition and actually make them look like, you know, clouds I took black nail polish on a toothpick and outlined the shapes. I used a toothpick because I felt I had way more control with it and it ensured that I wouldn't make the outlines too heavy.
2. Middle Finger
This is the whole point of this design so don't mess up! If you do, it's all cool - "there are no mistakes in art," as said by my first grade art teacher =) So first things first, I took white nail polish and made an ovular shape in the middle of the nail. On top of that oval, I used the same white nail polish to make what looks like a stretched out half-circle. This is supposed to be the bee's wing. Make sure you create a pointy looking shape at the end for the bee's stinger! This white nail polish will help your yellow nail polish show up better against the blue background. Near the stinger, I used a dotting tool to create two small dots which will be continued on my next three nails as the beeline. Once all the white nail polish has dried you can go over it with yellow nail polish for the body of the bee. You can leave the wing white. Once the yellow dries, draw in black stripes, color in your stinger, and mark the wing. Don't forget to outline your bee for a cartoon-y and neat look! I took a bright green and went over the white dots for the beeline.
3. Index Finger
This finger continues the beeline with just a somewhat straight line of dots. I also painted a cloud just above the beeline using the same technique I used on the Ring Finger.
4. Thumb nail
This thumb is all beeline! I arranged the dots in a fun loop to add a little bit more flair to it!
5. Pinky
Last but not least, on my pinky I painted small hearts because I thought they'd look nice with that splash of pink!
So there you have it - fun and easy bumble bee nails! Maybe you've noticed that a good amount of my designs are animal based... Well can you blame me? Who doesn't like animals? =)
All you really need for this design is a base coat or really light nail polish, black nail polish, white nail polish, yellow nail polish, and any other nail polish colors you'd like! I painted a different colored owl on each of my nails, however, if you prefer to have all your owls be uniform, that's up to you - it'll still look great!
First things first, I used Sinful Colors' Social Ladder to paint a thin coat all over each of my nails. In the picture, you see an area of what looks like a plain nail bed near my cuticles, however, this is actually a thin layer of Social Ladder, which is a very sheer, very light pink color. I also used this color in my PROM NAILS design.
Once that coat dries, take your favorite nail polish color and - this is the tricky part - go near the cuticle and paint almost a semi circle shape. This is the top of the head of the owl. In drawings, you'll see that some owls are given that distinguished look of having that peculiarly shaped head so that's what we're going for here! It might be kind of tricky to manage, however, one thing I found useful to do is to start in the middle and make a single stroke all the way down the nail. Once you do that, slowly connect the edge of that stripe towards the cuticle using a curved motion. Do this on the other side as well. When it dries, you'll take black nail polish on a striper brush - or even on a toothpick - to outline this shape. You only need to outline the top of the head. This makes the owl more defined and look neater. I actually highly recommend you use a toothpick for this rather than a striper brush because I found that I had more control with a toothpick.
Next, take white nail polish and paint an ovular shape - this is the owl's belly. Grab your dotting tool and with the same white nail polish, make two dots for eyes. Once the eyes dry, take yellow nail polish and use the dotting tool to dot over the white eyes. The white helps the yellow stand out way more against any background color, including black!
Once the belly is dry, take any color you'd like along with a smaller dotting tool and make little polka dots on the owl's belly. This adds a fun and creatively colorful flair! Don't forget to go in with a striper brush with yellow nail polish and draw a small vertical line for the owl's beak - I almost forgot to mention that! Once the yellow eyes are dry, take a smaller dotting tool and use black nail polish to create pupils. Voila! You can take a handful of wise old owls with you wherever you go!
I hope you enjoyed this nail art and are inspired to create your own! Mix it up a little! Try a bunch of different colors or if owls aren't your thing, paint your favorite animal on your nails instead! I've done panda bears and penguins in the past, which are also really easy to create!
"GOLD PIECE" NAILS
As you all know, I am completely loving my new gold nail polish from Sinful Colors! I created this cool angular design using just a striper brush, black nail polish, and black glitter polish. This is an extremely simple design that you can do with any colors you want! I don't have one set pattern, as you can see, each nail uses a different style of borders and lines. The striper brush is thin so it allows for precise lines.
The black nail polish I used was Sinful Colors' Black on Black, the gold nail polish is Sinful Colors' Gold Medal, which you can read all about on my Review page, and the black glitter polish I used is from KleanColor and is called Black Out. As you can probably tell from my other nail art posts, I love the Sinful Colors brand so much because I feel like the nail polishes from that brand go on smooth and have a nice luster to them. They are very pigmented and true to the colors you see on the bottles, an they're only $1.99!
Truth be told, I wished I had used a color other than the glitter nail polish. I was thinking that everything would look more defined if I had used my Sally Hansen's Electra-cute or Blue Me Away! since all the border lines are black. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with this outcome.
My accent nail is just plain gold nail polish - did I say plain? How could gold nail polish ever be "plain?" This is a great quick and easy design that anyone can do for a party, wedding, and social events! How else do you like to use gold nail polish? Let me know in the comments! =)
Wow, I am just now getting around to posting this! Anyway, I did these converse nails maybe a week ago! I am definitely a converse kind of girl and these nails are just super colorful and super easy to do! Even though I used a different color on each nail, the technique is the same: Apply two coats of whatever color or colors of nail polish you'd like the canvas of the "sneaker" to be - or use as many coats of nail polish as it takes to get the opaqueness you're looking for! On my middle finger I used my Sally Hansen Gel nail polish in Electra-cute.
Once that dries, take a stripper brush dipped in white nail polish and create a line about one third of the way from the tip of your nail. Fill in from there down with the white nail polish. This is the toe of the sneaker. I just used a plain, simple white nail polish from New York Color. Take a dotting tool or whatever you use to make dots on your nails and make two dots on each side of the canvas. These will shape up to be your shoelace holes but we aren't done with them yet!
Take a very thin brush and dip it into the white nail polish. Make zig-zag lines to connect the dots you made as though they were real shoelaces. Once everything has dried, make small black dots over, but not covering, the white dots you made. Now they really look like shoe lace holes! Take the black nail polish and finish off the toe of your sneakers by making a simple, curved black line.
There you have it - super simple and cute converse nails! I always get tons of wows when I do this design! I realized after taking the picture that I didn't even do the classic, and my favorite, black converse! If I had remembered I probably would've swapped out the pink for the black! You can change it up anyhow you'd like. Use some colors from the rainbow or maybe paint all your nails one canvas color!
HEADBAND INSPIRED NAILS
A few days ago I was wondering how I should do my nails this time and instantly drew inspiration from my navy blue floral print Forever21 headband sitting by my hair brush. I thought it was a fun floral pattern that I could use as nail art so I just decided to go for it! The headband is a dark navy blue background with blue and pink flowers connected by various stems. There are even a few tiny yellow sunflower-type flowers in a few spots. Here's what I did to my nails:
Super cute, if I do say so myself! =) I seriously couldn't stop looking at my nails once I had finished them! A few weeks ago I had actually thrown out the one bottle of navy blue nail polish I had ever owned so I had none to do this design (just when I needed it the most!) However, I had my bottle of Sally Hansen's Blue Me Away! so I mixed a pool of that with about half a teaspoon of black nail polish. I didn't actually measure how much black nail polish I used but I'm just trying to give you an idea of how I ended up with this shade of blue. I didn't want it to be super dark so I just stopped there and applied it to my nails. TBH, at first when I applied it, the color didn't seem to match the headband but I settled for it anyway.
After my nails dried I took a nail art brush, dipped it in white nail polish, and started painting on all the flowers and their leaves and stems. Believe me, it DID NOT look anything like the headband at this point but just keep going! Like the other designs, the white nail polish helps to bring out the colors of the flowers.
After the white nail polish dried completely I went over it with pinks, blues, and greens. The pink I used was Sally Hansen's Fuscia Power, The blue I used was from Kiss and is called Soft Blue while the green stems and leaves are a combination of Mint Apple and Innocent from Sinful Colors. I didn't mix the two together but rather I painted with Mint Apple first then used Innocent to highlight a few sides. If you look closely you might be able to see subtle splashes of yellow and white on the flowers. All I did was dip the brush in the white and yellow nail polishes separately and after wiping off the excess, very lightly stippled in the colors on some parts. The headband also had these colors and the Yellow I used is called Yellow from Kiss.
For my accent nail I just used the black nail polish as a black background and made green dots on one side of the nail, nothing too fancy! I finished off everything with a top coat.
Well, there you go! My headband inspired nails for the week! These are super cool and look very detailed but they are SO easy to create! Really cool for a summer or spring day!
These nails look good enough to eat, if I do say so myself! These Candyland nails are bright and fun and really easy to do, despite each nail having a different design! I really wanted to try out a candy themed design because, well, I was just feelin' it! =) In case you're feelin' it too I'm breaking down the design for your right here!
Thumb:
On my thumb I wanted to do a jelly bean design so I used a white nail polish (nothing special) from New York Color as my background color. Once it dried I took orange, blue, red, and green nail polish colors and using a dotting tool created the curved shape of the jelly beans. The blue is from Sally Hansen and is called Blue Me Away! The red is from New York Color and is called Columbus Circle Crimson. This shade is from the quick dry line of New York Color and it is a beautiful shiny red that I love so much! The fun bright green is Sinful Color's Innocent, yet another polish I'm in love with! The electric color pops against any background! The orange I used is from Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel line and is called Electra-cute, a super CUTE name! After these colors dried I took the same white nail polish and made a small swipe on one side of each bean to give it the appearance of a glossy shine!
Index Finger:
On this finger I went with a peppermint candy design. Using the same white color from NYC I painted a background then once dry I took the same red nail polish I used for a jelly bean and created pinwheel looking striped starting from the center of the nail. When the nail was dry I used this nail art glue from Kiss to place a simple rhinestone in the middle. This glue is seriously budge-proof! I slept with all these rhinestones and glue-ons on my nails and they didn't move an inch! Seriously amazing stuff!!!!
Middle Finger:
You can kind of see that on this nail I did a pink to purple ombre as a background. When doing any ombre nail you yield the best result when you paint a white background, which is what I did. I took a makeup sponge and sponged on these colors from top to bottom: Wet n Wild's Tickled Pink, New York Color's Preppy Pink, and Essie's Full Steam Ahead (In <3 with this color so much it's not even funny!!) Once dry I used a very shear light purple glitter polish to coat the nail before I applied dots of nail art glue to stick in place the lollipop and pink stone. Voila!
Ring Finger:
This finger ended up as one of the cutest in my opinion! For this I used NYC's Preppy Pink as the background color and once dry I used the white nail polish to paint stripes. If I want to add somewhat lighter colors to a background of a darker shade this is an easy way to do so. The white will help bring out the lighter color more. When the white dried I used the color Yellow from Kiss Brush On Nail Art Paint. Then I glued on a super cute cupcake and a green star! <3 <3 <3 SUPER CUTE! =)
Pinky:
This nail is super easy and would even look good as the only design on all five nails! I just used my Sinful Colors Blackout as a background color. I made small lines using the white nail polish to bring out the rest of the colors I used. To fill in my sprinkles I picked blue, green, yellow, and orange. A super cute sprinkle pattern!
These are some super fun nails I definitely recommend giving a shot. Vary the designs! Try out skittles or m&m designs! I think chocolate nails would be super cool, too, and yummy looking! =)
Here's a super simple design that you can do if you a) run out of other nail art ideas b) don't have too much time on your hands to draw dinosaurs on your nails c) want a cool pattern on your nails or d) all of the above.
These nails are kinda inspired by the cool ring I'm wearing in the picture above, which I got from an awesome accessories store called Six at my local mall. Just like the bow on the ring, my nails have a black background with white polka dots except for my accent nail (my ring finger) which has a confetti glitter polish on it.
Here's a quick tip when dealing with glitter nail polish because the thing about it is that it's so cool on its own but can be a pain sometimes...If you want to wear glitter nail polish you should pick a background color that matches closely with the tone of the glitter. Apply one coat of the solid nail polish color and wait for it to dry. Then add a coat of the glitter nail polish or until you are satisfied with how your nails look. That's it! When I was younger I used to apply a minimum of four coats of glitter nail polish because it was never as opaque as I wanted it to be. Also, in my experience with glitter nail polish it can sometimes take a while to completely dry to the point where if you pick things up and touch things the object won't put a dent in your freshly painted nails. This can be really annoying! Ever since I realized that I could just put on a coat of solid colored nail polish and one coat of glitter and it looks just as good as if I were to apply five coats of just glitter, I've been doing exactly that!
On my accent nail I applied black nail polish as a background color and once it dried I applied the glitter nail polish on top. The glitter nail polish I used on the accent nail is from Delia's and is called Galaxy Glitter. If you have purple glitter nail polish then you should use a shade of solid purple nail polish before applying a coat of the glitter. Basically, use a color that will help bring out the glitter more! Also, the black nail polish I used is from Sinful Colors and is called Blackout. For the white polka dots I used any white nail polish from New York Color.
You can use a dotting tool to create even-sized dots on your nails. Dotting tools come in a few different sizes corresponding to different sized dots. Before I got a dotting tool when I wanted to do polka dots on my nails I would just take the head of a bobby pin (which is kind of round) dip it into the nail polish of my choice and dot the nail polish on my nails as if it were a dotting tool. It works just the same! And if you don't have bobby pins you can try using the bottom end of an angled eyeliner brush or or any small skinny makeup brush but keep in mind that the dots will come out larger if you choose this over a bobby pin. That's just a quick fix for you if you don't have a dotting tool but want to make polka dot designs.
In my opinion this kind of design can never go out of style or will never be just a transient trend - it's fun and eye-catching and can probably go with anything! Whether you don't have time to paint a Van Gogh on your nails or if you're drawing a blank on designs you can give this design a go! Try other color combinations like blue and orange, for example!
RHINESTONE PROM NAILS
Hair appointments, trying on dresses to find the perfect one, making sure your dress is so unique that no one else you know will be wearing it, flipping through makeup tutorials on YouTube to find a look that suits you - does that ring a bell? If it's prom season for you and you totally forgot to make an appointment for your nails (or if you're like me and decided to do your nails yourself) then here's an elegant but simple design that you can do yourself the day before prom, on your own time, in the comfort of your home!
I did these for my high school prom and got lots of compliments on them! People were surprised that I did them myself! My prom dress was beige with black lace so these nails matched perfectly without overkill. The color nail polish I used is from sinful colors and it's called Social Ladder. I bought these rhinestones in a pack from Walgreens in the nail care section. I've always loved putting cool rhinestones and things of the nature on my nails but before I discovered nail glue I always tried binding the rhinestones to my nail with clear nail polish and then sealing it with more clear nail polish. With this my nails looked fantastic...for about a day then one by one the details I put on fell off because clear nail polish just doesn't cut it for this kind of thing. Luckily I had bought a kit from Kiss New York that included nail polish glue special for this. The Sally Hansen Nail Rhinestone kit I used for these nails didn't include the glue but the rhinestones came in gold, black, and clear.
Social Ladder is a pretty sheer polish. It took me three coats to get it to the opaqueness shown in the picture. If you are pursuing this design for your own prom or for another special event I highly suggest you put on Social Ladder (or whatever color you are using) the day BEFORE your event because with hair, makeup, and last minute arrangements you don't even want waiting for your nails to dry to be on your mind!
Get creative with your colors and arrangement of your rhinestones! Once these dry just put on a bit of top coat and you'll have a mani that lasts weeks!
PANDA NAILS
What's black, white, and green all over? My panda nails, of course! In this picture you'll see that the background is green but my very first time doing this design (which was probably when I was a sophomore in high school) I did a sky blue background which felt so calm and cool. This bright green color feels electric!
The brand of nail polish I used for this design was mostly sinful colors. The best way I can describe sinful colors is like the cheaper version of china glaze. You can buy sinful colors nail polish at any store that sells drugstore makeup (I got mine from Walgreens) and it retails for $1.99 and has some really pretty colors! The green shade I used is called Innocent, the black is Blackout, and as for the white nail polish I just used one from New York Color ($0.99) because I almost never wear white nail polish on my entire nail and lately I haven't been using white nail polish at all so I didn't want to waste a lot buying from a higher quality brand like Essie or O.P.I. Plus, I feel like white is such a basic color that every single brand of nail polish has in its collection so you can find it literally
anywhere.
Quick story about me and white nail polish: once in middle school I wore white nail polish since among girls it was becoming a trend and on the yellow school bus one of the guys asked me why I was wearing white-out on my nails -____________- are you for real? I pretty much got asked why I was wearing white-out for the rest of the week until I removed the nail polish for another design.
Btw, I forgot what color the orange nail polish was but I believe the brand I used was Wet n Wild.
These are definitely fun nails to try out and they are very easy to do!
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