Wednesday, August 25, 2010

"Mermaid" French


My nail polish collection is multiplying like rabbits, and while that is a good thing because I have so many options, it also overwhelms me. I'm never sure what color or design I want to do. I asked my boyfriend what color he thought I should do. He suggested a sea foam green or a simple french manicure. As soon as he mentioned the sea foam green, "Mint Candy Apple" from Essie popped into my head. It is slightly more blue than sea foam, but I remembered how creamy it went on and realized it would be perfect for the tip on a french. I used "Your Blue-tiful" from Piggy Polish as the base and as the final layer after doing the tips. The base coat is Nailtiques top coat is Seche Vite. I also used those little french nail tip sticker guides since my free hand french isn't perfect yet. They left some sticker residue which bothered me but after I applied the final coats of "Your Blue-tiful" and Seche Vite it wasn't so noticeable.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Fuzzy Nails (or how I spent my Friday night)

I'm finally posting again! I have been on hiatus, and I'm happy to be back.
I have been sick this week with some kind of "respiratory ailment". I say that because I am not sure what to call it. It started as a cold and quickly progressed to a high fever, ear pressure, sore throat, and sinus/chest congestion. Yum. Hopefully I will be back to 100% soon.

One of my few outings I have made these past few days has been to the craft store Michaels. I was looking for some fine grain glitter for frankening, and in my feverish state I grabbed the wrong package. When I got home I looked at the package and realized it wasn't glitter at all, but something called "crushed velvet flock". Basically I had bought brightly colored fuzzy velvet lint.


I was planning on returning it but then I got an idea. What if I used it like I would use glitter on my nails? Felt nail designs?

This is the result. This is not my best design because I was working quickly. It was supposed to be a test run and I wasn't intending to post this, but I thought the result was unique and I wanted to share!



I was already wearing Milani's "Dress Maker" (which is a Chanel "Jade" dupe). I used Sally Hansen Complete Manicure "Pink Slip" (a light sheer pinkish white) to paint the designs and then I sprinkled the fuzzy stuff on it and pressed lightly and repeated as necessary.

I tested the durability by washing my hands a few times. It looses some of it's softness, but the effect still looks the same. The only one that was effected was the polka dot index finger nail. Most of the fuzz washed off the dots.

I'm not planning on keeping this on, but I do like the felt-like effect. My favorite nail is the thumb. I would definitely do a nice fuzzy heart on one of my nails again!

What do you think? Would you wear something like this as a manicure? Has anyone seen or done nails like this? I personally haven't seen something like this done, but I can imagine it already has been!