Day 5 - Blue

Hi there,

Time for day 5 of the challenge, which is BLUE nails!  I'm really enjoying this challenge.  Today's mani is definitely my favorite so far! This is an unusual color combination, but it has been on my mind since the moment I bought these polishes.  I'm curious if you like them together, or no?

I used Orly Sweet Peacock, and Jesse's Girl Baby Cakes.  Both of these colors are stunners!

Orly Sweet Peacock - a new polish which I'm sure you've seen before if you read any other nail blogs.  It is a gorgeous shimmery blue foil.  It applies very smoothly, opaque in one coat, but I used two to give it that extra depth.  I have nothing bad to say about this polish! (We'll see later tonight if it stains when removed...)

Jesse's Girl Baby Cakes - first off, can I say, I LOVE the bottles on these polishes!  They are just so cute and almost seem vintage to me.  I am definitely going to be buying more of this brand: cheap, high quality polish, with display-worthy bottles!  This bright neon pink applied very smoothly and dried in under a minute, with a matte finish that is typical of neons.  It is just so bright. I love it.

The nail art is a kind of dry marble technique.  First I painted three (sloppy) stripes, of blue on the outside and pink on the inside. Once that dried, I quickly painted over the blue again and then the pink (order is important, because the neon dries super fast), and then used a toothpick to drag the wet polish into the design you will see below.  I really like the effect - it kind of looks like I had neon pink nails but the blue nail polish is closing in on it from the sides to cover it.

Without further ado, the pictures:

Orly Sweet Peacock.  Sunlight, with purple background to help my camera which was freaking out and being very inaccurate with a white background.  This is pretty color accurate:

Same deal, with Jesse's Girl Baby Cakes:

 And the mani! Taken in sunlight:

What do you think? Do you like the pattern? And how do you think the colors go together?

Oh, and, do you think I should make the pictures a little bit smaller? I started with them big, and I do like them, but recently I'm thinking maybe I should make them a bit smaller?

Ta ta for now,
Maria

Day 2 - Orange

Hello again,

Today I'm going to show you guys my 2nd manicure in the 31 day challenge, and also a bonus manicure I did a few weeks and really liked.

First up, my orange nails for Day 2.

I don't know if it is considered cheating or not, but I didn't feel like doing just solid color orange nails.  Even though it is September, I'm not ready for summer to be over!   So I painted some fun orange nails with a scrumptious creamsicle accent finger!

The color I used was Jesse's Girl Beauty Guru.  I bought this at Rite-Aid a few days ago.  And you know what? I really, really like it! I wasn't expecting to love an orange like this, but I really do.  It is a beautiful muted orange that I could almost call a dusty orange.  It was not opaque enough to cover in one coat, but two coats evened everything out nicely.  A third coat would have probably made it look even better, but I didn't use one since I am just going to be taking this off shortly in order to do Day 3 of the challenge.  It dries moderately shiny, but I think it looks much better with a coat of Seche Vite.

And don't you just love the thin rectangular bottle?! I do! And it still has a decent 10ml. (photo from Jesse's Girl website)

For the accent nail, I used a bunch of colors.  The background is one coat Milani Silver Dazzle, and then a light stippled coat of Revlon Aloof (a very light silver).  The popsicle stick is Essie Case Study with highlights of Milani Gold Lamè. The cream is just a white striper polish.  The only tool I used was a very, very small tipped paintbrush.

Taken in direct sunlight:

Note the hot ring from my hot boyfriend ;)

And one taken inside:
(cringe- I swear I'm getting my better camera soon! It is at my parents' house right now :-/)

It's a keeper. This color is definitely going to be used this fall.

And now I want a creamsicle.

Find things to smile about,
Maria