Manicure Monday: Freehand Grey

Welcome back to Manicure Monday! As you noticed, I took the holiday weekend off from swatching, so we have some nail art to check out this week. My base color is Wet ‘n Wild’s Gray’s Anatomy, and my freehand painting was done with a striping brush and OPI’s We’ll Always Have Paris. All nails are topped with one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

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I’ll just get this out of the way: I don’t know how I feel about the freehand. I’m a little embarrassed that I still suck at hand-painting, but in a way, it’s sort of charming. I wanted something simple but uniform, but it’s a bit irregular. It doesn’t look as irregular in real life as it does in photos, so I feel a little weird about that. I never do this stuff, so it’s really no wonder it’s not perfect. Maybe it’s okay that it’s not perfect. It looks arty-crafty and like it was done by a real person.

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We’ll Always Have Paris lends a lot to the DIY mani look. These burgundy/wine polishes are always a little translucent, and I guess that’s why there’s a lot of unevenness. I just wanted a dark color, something that was as severe as black, that would complement the color shift in the base polish. I think this one worked pretty well.

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The shift in Gray’s Anatomy is the focus of this polish, as it should be. You can totally see past the wonky freehand painting and really enjoy the colors. The writing on the label wore off a long time ago, but I almost forgot this is a Wet ‘n Wild Polish. I paid two dollars for it at the most. Not bad for two dollars!

I bought these polishes myself.

2014 Birthday Nails!

It’s my birthday! I’m not going to do a proper write-up of all the polishes today, I’m just going to show this off because I am way too proud of it.

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Here are the polishes I used:
Thumb: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Dawn Breaks
Index: Indigo Banana‘s Moonlight (Clair de Lune)
Cupcakes: P2’s French Kiss, American Apparel’s Neon Pink, Essie’s Fiji, Ciate’s Candy Floss
Pinky: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s If You’re a Seascape

I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who’s participating in the giveaway! If you haven’t entered yet, you have, of this writing, eight hours left to enter to win two Ciate polishes. The winner will be announced tomorrow! I’m so excited, this is my first giveaway and it is going gloriously well. I can’t wait to do this again.

Manicure Monday On the Road: Birthday Cupcakes

It’s my birthday week, so I’m visiting my boyfriend in Atlanta for the week. Unfortunately, this means I have one photo of my manicure, taken with an iPad. Unfortunately, it means I had to type this blog entry on an iPad as well.

They look kinda melted.

They look kinda melted.

I used a lot of colors in this manicure, as you can see. Here’s a list:

Green: Sally Hansen’s Mint Sprint
Blue: OPI’s Eurso Euro
Pink: P2’s French Kiss
White: Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get
Accent nails: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!

Several days before I left, I packed everything I would need for this manicure. I put all five polishes into a bag with my dotting tool, pointed cotton swabs and acetone, striping tape, tweezers, and whatever else I would need to successfully complete this mani. When I started, I ended up peeling off my old mani, which took off a bit of my natural nail, but it also meant I didn’t disturb my boyfriend’s six housemates with bad acetone smell. Also, since it was a mani with rhinestones, it also meant I didn’t have to go through the kitchen hunting for foil or anything like that. So I’d already started on a bad foot. Then when it was time to start the dotting, the dotting tool wasn’t in my bag. I went through it twice, I looked in other bags several times, and it was nowhere to be found. I ended up making all my dots with the end of an unwound paper clip. It definitely shows. While this isn’t some of my best handpainting, it’s not my worst, either. Actually, it may be my best. I’m awful at handpainting.

So, the polishes. Eurso Euro had a really weird smell, somewhat different from the usual OPI smell. Now that I think about it, I have a dark blue P2 crackle with the same weird smell. Do these dark blue pigments just smell differently, or what? It had really nice coverage, and was easy to work with, but that smell. I can’t get past it. The mint green Sally Hansen is an Insta-Dri, so of course it was opaque in one coat and ready to go right away. I didn’t use the P2 for much, other than the cherry on the top of the cupcake, but it’s probably just as nice to work with.

I think the glitter crelly, Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!, kind of stole the show here. Yes, that’s butterfly glitter you see there, as well as stars in a couple different colors, squares, and hexes. It’s a limited edition polish from Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer, and you only get it by ordering the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer-inspired collection. Holos aren’t really my style, so they felt bad for me and gave it to me anyway. It’s an excellent polish, and I kind of dislike how exclusive it is, because it’s the best one in the collection, in my opinion. If you want in on this or any of their other polishes (you do), here’s the link to the BEGL store.

I really hate typing on an iPad, so I guess I’ll end it here. See you guys when I get back from vacation!