polish please | summer gradient

Summer is here {and has been here for a while in the Valley of the Sun}, so I decided to try a cool-toned gradient to combat this summer heat. I used a couple of Nicole by OPI shades that created a very subtle gradient from a cool blue to a sea green. First I put down a coat of white and then sponged on the gradient with a triangle makeup sponge. Not bad for my first attempt at a gradient!

What do you think?

polish please | can't sleep... too excited

I know that I haven't blogged for a while, but I have an awesome reason to get out of my no-post-rut and share something with the blogging world...

I just won an instagram contest! Sometime last week @opi_products presented a contest where you could submit photos that represented the color inspiration for you wedding. OPI chose three winners and I was one of them! I am not a "lucky" person, and the last time that I won something was when I was seven and entered a pumpkin carving contest. 

Twenty years later and I am just as excited as I was when I was seven! The prize is the OPI 2013 Soft Shades collection and other colors that coordinate with your inspiration wedding colors! Plus I got another chance to show off my wedding nails that I L-O-V-E-D!

*Just in case anyone was wondering I won my very first brand new bike when I was seven in the pumpkin carving contest. Pretty cool, I know!*

 

polish please | textured polish

My sister picked up some polish for me for my birthday {I hadn't really seen here for about a month... boo!}, one of the wonderful polishes that she picked up was a textured polish. OPI Solitaire that is a beautiful creamy white polish from the liquid sands collection. I wasn't really sold on the whole textured polish craze... until I tried this beautiful polish on my digits. 

I L-O-V-E it! I think that this one little bottle opened me up to a world of trouble. I think that I need to go on a little polish shopping spree.

What do you think? Anyone tried out a textured polish that you love?

polish please | patriotic polish

Happy Independence Day! I hope that everyone is enjoying there holiday. I am enjoying a lazy day at home with the puppy waiting for the hubs to get home from work {he is finally getting to do doctor stuff now!}. 

For the special occasion, I went with some festive polish. Mike suggested red, sparkles and blue! 

The red is China Glaze Ruby Red Pumps, Savina Caribbean, and Essie Set in Stones is the glitter top coat. 

polish please | black & white glitter

I was looking around on the interwebs the other day for a little nail inspiration {Nailspiration? Yep, it could be a word.} and I came along these two posts {here and here} with some awesome polishes that could almost be indie. What is even better than that, is that you can pick them up at Wal-Mart for only four bucks a pop. 

I was feeling a little stressed after work the other day, and new that new polish would do the trick, and help me find my moment of zen. Boy, was I right. I am a sucker for cream based round-glitter-packed polish, as you can see from this post. They are just so pretty {for the first two days} and then the chipping and crumbling step in and they lose a little bit of their luster. 

But look how beautiful they are five minutes after they are dry! Love at first sight.

I painted Hard Candy Sugar Rush {2ish coats} over OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls to try to prevent all the chipping that comes along with glitter packed polish. It did help, but wasn't a cure. On my ring finger I painted Hard Candy Black Tie Optional over OPI French Quarter for Your Thoughts. That is just one coat with a little fishing to get that one big white hex glitter.

Something cool happened, one of my photos was used (properly) on a nail blog! Just thought that that was pretty neat.

polish please | vintage flowers & dots

I got a new phone case a while back from J. Crew, and while searching for a suitable wallpaper for my home screen, I found this photo. 

Inspiration hit, and right when I decided that I wanted create these flowers on my nails, I kept seeing tutorials on my favorite nail blogs popping up for vintage flowers. Globe & Nail, The Nailasaurus, Chalkboard Nails, have beautiful designs that they can take you through step-by-step. Now let me show you how mine turned out.

For the base color on most of my nails I used Zoya Neely, the base color on my ring fingers is OPI My Vampire is Buff. For the flowers I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Essie DJ Play That Song & Cascade Cool and Ciaté Mojito. 

Not that bad for my first try! I will definitely try this again until I get them looking as good as the ladies from these other lovely blogs have done.

Has anyone else attempted the vintage flower look?

polish please | summer clouds

I had been wanting to try this design for a while, but never had enough courage until... NOW. There are so many great tutorials out there like this one, and this video. I have no idea what I was so worried about, this cloud design is really easy. One of those designs that you can actually reproduce on your non-dominant hand and be able to show people without cringing. 

I still had some of my Zoya minis that I hadn't worn, and thought that these bright, warm colors would look just lovely together. Starting from the left I have Zoya Audrina, Pippa, Arizona, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls {accent nail base}, and Shelby.

Super easy, bright, and fun. I really loved the way that this looked. The polishes that I used did apply a little thick {a problem that I keep having with the Zoya minis} so dry time was longer than one would hope.

What colors should I try next time?

polish please | blu & yummy

I am loving the Zoya minis that I got a few weeks ago. The pastel colors are really working for me right now. With the addition of OPI Nail Envy as my base coat, this mani has lasted for pretty much forever. This is what I was rocking right up until the wedding. Zoya Blu {lighter} and Yummy {darker}.

I need to do something more with these colors later. I love both of them so much, and and so happy that I got all of the minis when I had the chance. The only drawback with these polishes is that they go on a little thick. 

Just love these colors together... what else should I do with these babies?

polish please | mimosas for mr. & mrs.

I have be absent from the blogging world for a little while, but for a great reason. On Saturday, Mike and I got hitched! Everything turned out really nice. It kinda all fell into place, with a LOT of help from family. More details later, for now I want to leave you all with what else, the wedding day polish.

I knew that I wanted to do something neutral, and classic. I saw this OPI color when I was out shopping at Ulta with my Mega Best Friend. 

The color, the day, the man... they were all perfect! Stay tuned for a whole dump of wedding photos, and little pearls of wisdom that I learned throughout the process.

polish please | black and blue

I bought my first duo chrome polish the other day! They are a really neat concept {and nothing really new to the world, just to me} The color I bought was Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Black and Blue. When I was at the store, the color change seen in the bottle really stood out to me, but once it was on my nails... not so evident. The color in the polish changes from teal green, to blue to purple {not really black, ever}. But hey, with a name like Black and Blue, at least it didn't look like a bruise. 

What do we think of this polish? Was it worth the dough? I am not going to lie, I am not too thrilled on the purchase. Next purchase will definitely be something with a little more wow factor.

polish please | tanzy arizona

The other day I received my Zoya Color Cuties in the mail, and let me tell you, I was SO PUMPED! I had a FedEx note waiting for me on my door, and was super bummed when the only time the apartment office was open was when I was at work. Boo. So I didn't pick these babies up until Wednesday. They were well worth the wait!

The minis are now sold out, but all still available in full sized bottles on the Zoya website. From top left to bottom right: Pippa, Tanzy, Shelby, Lo, Audrina, Zuza, Gilda, Happi, Arizona, Blu, Neely, and Yummy.

I have had Arizona on my wish list for obvious reasons, and immediately wanted to pair the two oranges for a tone-on-tone effect; his is what I came up with:

This was a very simple tape mani, with a very subtle difference {except for in direct light}. All you have to do is paint your base coat, base color Arizona, then quick dry top coat. Once everything is good and dry {make sure it is very dry so the tape doesn't peel up the polish} cover half of your nail with tape pain on your second color Tanzy, peel to reveal, and add top coat. 

I love the color combo and L.O.V.E. the Arizona! 

Which polish should I try next?

 

polish please | it's a trap-eze

Have any of you ever had your eye on something, and wanted it so badly, but have such a hard time making it yours? This was me until last week. I had seen this amazing polish on Chalkboard Nails {one of my favorite nail blogs} and I knew that I had to have it. So the hunt began. I checked out all my local polish haunts {Ulta, JCP, Sally's Beauty Supply, Beauty Brands} to no avail. I kept checking back once two to three times a week with promises of new deliveries, but every time there was no beautiful creamy white polish with multi color glitter. 

After weeks and weeks of searching the old fashion way, I befriended technology and took my search to the web. Amazon and Ebay had the polish, but man was it pricy! Not only the cost of the polish, but the shipping as well. That is when I finally remembered that I had pinned this polish on my pinterest board from a site that had very reasonably priced polishes. So I ended up snatching up the polish here for only five bucks! Who doesn't love fast, free shipping?

I paired the glitter packed polish with my other latest obsession, OPI Atomic Orange. The polish was a little thick and clumpy from all the glitter, but after two coats of top coat it felt and looked great. What wasn't so great was the almost immediate chipping of the polish, something that I have not experienced since switching to Essie First Base Coat. The densely packed glitter three layers thick may have been the reason for the horrible chipping. Next time I try this polish, I think that I will start with the white base color.

So, do you think that the hunt was worth the find?

polish please | fancy french

Oh Blogger, how I have missed you. It has been almost two weeks since my last post. My bad. There has been a lot of things going on in our lives lately. Wedding planning is actually starting to get serious. We have booked vendors, mailed invites, put down deposits. This wedding is becoming pretty legitimate. 

We also had some wonderful news yesterday. March 15th was the day that medical students around the county found out what internship/residency program they had been accepted into. The school had festivities, and celebrations. I was so excited the night before, that I did not fall asleep until 2:30 am {when I had to get up at 6!}. There has been so much build up to this moment. Four years {plus} of hard work, months of planning, weeks of interviews... and then waiting. Yesterday was match day for thousands of future doctors, and Mike matched at a program that he is completely excited about. I couldn't be happier for him.

Since this week was really all about him, when I sat down to paint my nails the other day, I asked Mike what I should do. He said, "French manicure." To which I replied, "What colors?" His response, "The regular ones." And so it was...

So I rocked this look for all of 14 hours {six of which I slept}. I started with one coat of Essie Sugar Daddy, which I have owned for a while, and have only used twice. I then used the adhesive sticker guides from Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails French Manicure Kit to mark off where I would paint the white tip. You could also use tape, but I was feeling pretty lazy that evening, and the stripes are really simple to use. For the tip color I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. After the white coat dried, I added another layer of Sugar Daddy, and finished with Good to Go.

The next morning I was feeling a little bored with the neutral, simple look, and wanted to jazz it up just a bit. I had just picked up some L'Oreal metallic polishes {on clearance} that I thought would work well for stamping. I used Just Jest Setting and a small striping brush to add thin lines across my nails just below the white tips. This was also a neat trick to getting all nails looking uniform. {I believe I mentioned that I was feeling lazy what I started painting my nails.}

What do you do to add some interest to s classic French manicure?

polish please | hands off my kielbasa

I know I have been slacking on the blogging front lately, but today I have some beautiful polish to share with you. I was feeling MEGA a little bit stressed the other day and the only real way to combat stress in my life is brand new nail polish. 

The new OPI Euro Centrale collection has really beautiful colors. I did have to settle on just one (although I really wanted to get all of them). Here is what Hands Off my Kielbasa looks like.

I added an Essie flakie topper to my ring finger as a accent nail. The rosy color has a pretty iridescent shimmer, so lovely. What do you all think of my latest shade?

polish please | valentines

I went a little crazy this year, and put my Valentines decorations up two days after I took down the Christmas ones. This year you know I had to do more than just red nails. So I did some nail art to wear this week to help celebrate. I have used all of these colors before in a mani that could have been worn for Valentines, but I really wanted to make this scream love, romance, and all that crap. 

Here is what I have been wearing this week...

Like other manis from the past {like this, this and this} I used tape to create both the stripes and hearts on my digits. Instead of using scotch tape like I usually do, I opted for washi tape after viewing a tutorial on The Beauty Department, and I really liked the way it worked out. The great thing about washi tape {masking tape would work just the same} is that I could use the same heart "stencil" multiple times without having to worry about it ripping. I also cut small strips of washi tape for the stripes. I wanted bigger stripes than what striping tape can offer. 

After it was all said and done, I liked it, but would do it differently. In really life, as opposed to blog life, the heart on my ring finger does not show up well unless it is in the right light. My thumb on the other hand {who talks about a thumb like this?}, my thumb heart is AWESOME! I think that I would have painted light pink and dark pink stripes with a glitter heart for better contrast. Oh well, there is always next year! 

Tomorrow Mike and I actually have the same evening off at the same time! Nothing big this year, just dinner and greeting cards, we are saving for a wedding after all. 

What are you doing this year to celebrate?

polish please | atomic orange

I don't know about everyone else, but I had a lovely day today. Super Bowl Sunday is one of the SLOWEST days that you can get working retail, and today was no exception. If the the bowl didn't keep people in, the the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and the afternoon rain sure did. I always volunteer to work every Super Bowl because, let's face it... I am NOT a football fan. I would much rather watch the puppy bowl! 

It is nice knowing that you are going to have a slow day heading into work, you can map our your day, and get SO MUCH DONE. This year was made even better when we finally had a guest walk into the store around six p.m. and say, "There is almost no one out their shopping, I guess someone said that there is some sort of big sports game on today." I kid you not, that was real! 

After my leisurely day at work, I decided to head over to Target since I needed some more nail polish remover {something that I can go through quite quickly}. Target was nearly EMPTY! I love a nice relaxing stroll through Target to wind down after work. I had planned on just getting the remover, but couldn't help but make a pit stop over in the women's clothing. I resisted, and was very proud that I didn't pick ANYTHING up, but then... the shoes. It's not my fault that I was just thinking that I don't have any "Spring-like" ballet flats, and flats happened to be buy one get one 50% off! I picked up these two beauties:

I know they are totally adorable, comfy, and completely necessary in my life!

After I picked up these cuties, I thought that I should end my evening with some new polish. So I grabbed OPI Atomic Orange, a polish that I picked up last week when Ulta was having a polish sale.

How awesome is this color?!? I think that it is even prettier in person. I am not a huge "orange person." But for some reason I really love this color. I also got a chance to try my other latest purchase, Essie First Base Coat. The top coat that I use {and love} is Essie Good to Go, and I love it. I have tried a few different top coats, and just really love the consistency, and true rapid dry quality that this top coat has. I hope that I like the base coat just as well.

I never knew that safety orange could look so good!

 

polish please | Logan

I wanted to show off one of my free Zoya polishes, this one is called Logan {also the name of my little bro}. I had been looking for an emerald green, and I just had to get this one because of the name. I am really glad that I did, because this color is gorgeous.

Emerald is Pantone's "Color of the Year" for 2013, and is in the color trend report for spring seen here:

  

via

 

polish please | little brown dress

Something super-duper excited happened today... my Zoya polishes came in the mail today! Woo-hoo!

https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/016E3CED

Here are the polished that I chose when I ordered my three free polishes from Zoya to start off this year on the right foot. The colors are Lyric, Logan, and Faye. More to come with these later.

The polish that I have been rockin' for the past few days is  Essie Little Brown Dress. I paired it with a gold glitter alternating the glitter on the tips and cuticles, and completely coated my middle finger. This was very easy to create, and the brown polish actually covered in ONE COAT! Unheard of, I know, that is what made this one of my favorite manis to date. 

 Here is the instagram photo, please forgive the worn tips, this was taken today after the men's floorset. Long day, but so excited to end it with new polishes!

polish please | leopard

I had picked up some more polish at Ulta the other day with the gift card that Mike game me. One of the colors was Zoya Dree, the other was OPI Don't Pretzel my Buttons.

Again, I couldn't wait to use both colors, so I had to use them at the same time. The colors are very reminiscent of camouflage, which I thought about doing, but when surfing the webs I found inspiration on the China Glaze website. This is when I decided to do a leopard mani. I had seen a few that I liked on other sites, and ended up following a tutorial that I found on Chalkboard Nails.

I used my two new colors, China Glaze Liquid Leather, and one of my dotting tools {I used the dotting tool with the smallest points} to create the look. After painting on the base coat and two coats of the base color I added Essie Good to Go fast dry topcoat. The topcoat allows you to work a little quicker, but the mani was a little time consuming. I also practiced on a piece of paper first to work on my shapes, spacing and amount of polish to pick up/ put down with the dotting tool.

I put the contrasting spots on with the larger side of the dotting tool, making random shapes and making sure that they were not perfect. I also made sure to have them "fall off the nail." With the small end if the dotting tool I "framed" the colored spots with black, making sure to have each spot look a little different. I added some extra just black spots in between the colored spots and added more topcoat.  

new year, free polish

I was over on one of my favorite nail blogs, and noticed a post about about free polish from Zoya. I ordered my three polishes today; what a great way to start the new year! I haven't tried Zoya polish yet, but I did just pick one up the other day on sale at Ulta. This will be the next polish that I try. Zoya is supposed to be long lasting, so I am very excited to give them a try!

STARTS MONDAY, JANUARY 7th 2013
A New Year Calls For New Color! 

Zoya Nail Polish wants you to SHINE in 2013 by rocking your unique style - on your nails! Pick any 3* Zoya Professional Lacquer shades to instantly update your nail polish wardrobe for the New Year!

Offer Valid Monday, January 7th (10AM EST) through 11:59pm EST January 13th ONLY Pick 3 bottles of Zoya Nail Polish for FREE* ** just pay shipping & processing charges of $10. 

Use Code: ZOYA2013
Want more?...
Receive FREE Shipping*** with any Zoya or Qtica purchase of $25 or more (same code)!
Here's How...

1. Add at least (3) Zoya Nail Polish shades to your shopping cart, along with any additional items you wish to purchase.
   
2. Enter Code ZOYA2013 into the coupon code field in cart and press "Apply Code".
3. Complete Check-Out, Review & Submit Order.
   

* Promotion Excludes Zoya Nail Treatments, Gilty Pleasures and Spring 2013 Lovely & PixieDust Collection colors 

** Terms and Conditions 
Shipping & Processing Fee of $10 applies. Valid online at www.zoya.com 10 AM EST, 01/07/13 through 11:59pm EST, 01/13/2013. Continental US only. Not valid in conjunction with other coupons, codes or promotions. Returns or exchanges of promotional items not permitted. Art of Beauty is not responsible for incorrect addresses, credit card entry errors or errors associated with declined credit cards . Code must be entered at the time of purchase. Please allow up to 4 weeks for shipping if volume warrants it. Limit 1 promotional order per account.

*** Free shipping available on orders of $25 or more only.  

Act fast, and try Zoya for only the cost of shipping! What colors are you going to get?

https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/016E3CED