Wet N' Wild - Pink and Orange

In general, I tend to like the salon brand polishes better than drug store brands. However, whenever I walk into a CVS or a Walgreens I almost always walk out with at least one bottle of  polish, whether it be Wet N' Wild, Sinful Colors, or Sally Hansen. There is just something about those prices that I can't resist! A perfect example are these two Wet N' Wild polishes that I picked up recently. If I remember correctly, these were $0.97 each. Less than a dollar?? Yes, please. 

These two great spring colors are Tickled Pink and Sunny Side Up. Very appropriate names, I think! They are both great on their own but I love the combo of the pink and orange together. Hope you enjoyed!

An April Wedding: What I Wore - Nails

My first wedding of the 2012 season got things off to a fantastic start! Both the ceremony and the reception were perfect and classic. The bridesmaids all looked amazing donned in full length ivory a-line gowns and carrying bouquets of red roses while the bride looked beautiful in a strapless, ruched, mermaid style dress with a unique scalloped neckline and long cathedral veil. The whole crew was gorgeous! The reception was at a local country club and the venue was perfect for the warm and sunny spring day. I think that everyone had a great time and that the event was truly a success! 

Now, after a wonderful evening of friends, dancing, photos, flowers and champagne, I am excited to share with you the details of what I wore on the joyous day! First up, the nails. I wanted something fun that would go with my outfit and live up to the excitement of the day so I went with a combination of glitter - gold, to go with my accessories - and a deep magenta that almost perfectly coordinated with my dress.

The glitter base is actually a polish of my own concoction. I have yet to find a "store-bought" gold glitter that I have fallen in love with. They always end up being too thin, or the gold is not bright enough, or the glitter doesn't sparkle enough. Whatever the reason, every gold glitter I have ever purchased has been benched, so I took a stab at making my own. I simply found a beautiful, small grain, gold craft glitter and added it to a clear polish - in this case, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Clearly Quick. You can add as much or as little glitter as you like, depending on how dense you want the glitter to be. The polish tends to separate, but with a quick shake before use it quickly recombines and becomes my perfect gold glitter polish!

The magenta polish I used on top is Sinful Colors - Dream On. The polish is a really gorgeous deep magenta, that looks much brighter in the sunshine and dries matte so make sure you have a top-coat on hand! I could not stop looking at my fingers when I was wearing this combination and they looked perfect wrapped around a tall glass of bubbly champagne. I also got a ton of compliments, my friends all seemed to love it!

To the blushing bride and handsome groom, thank you so much for sharing your celebration with us and I wish you a lifetime of love and happiness! As for the rest of you, stay tuned for more on what I wore to this April wedding!

A Busy Week and an Interview Mani

As I mentioned in my last post, this last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. In addition to having several interviews earlier this week, one of my girlfriends/roommate/sorority sister from college is getting married today! So of course this meant lots of shopping looking for the perfect dress and shoes to wear to the shindig, and a reunion/Bachelorette party thursday night! It was so great getting to see so many of my sisters, some of which I haven't seen in quite a long while. I am super excited about the wedding tomorrow and will definitely do an update about my nails and outfit!

On a less fun note, I have been looking for a new job and had a couple of interviews downtown earlier in the week. I overestimated the time I would need, so I stopped at a local Starbucks to pick up a delicious Tazo Refresh tea and decided to snap a few pictures of my interview manicure. *Sorry for the picture quality... my camera phone can only do so much!*

I realize that this would not be an appropriate choice for all interviews in all industries, but for the roles that I am interested in, it is ok to show a little personality. I try to do this with little punches of color, maybe a purple shoe or a bright printed top, and sometimes I add a little interest to my manicure. I talk alot with my hands, so it is imperative for the nails to be well-groomed and if they are a little bit unusual it can sometimes be a great conversation starter that gives me the opportunity to talk about one of my passions.

For this manicure, I chose two colors that I consider fairly demure and interview worthy. Similar shades of pink in different tonalities. The base here is China Glaze - Fuchsia Fanatic, another member of the Spring 2012 collection and as the name implies a beautiful fuschia pink. On top is China Glaze - Seduce Me, a more subdued raspberry pink. I think that either of these polishes worn on their own, while beautiful, create typical pink, some-what boring manicures. But when layered in a reverse french, offer a unique twist on "appropriate".

What would you don on your digits for an interview??

Another Reverse French Manicure

So... I am little bit obsessed with this lately. Pretty much every plain old manicure I do, I repaint the 2nd or 3rd day with a reverse french. It is an awesome way for me to deal with my OCD regarding chipped tips and draw a little extra attention to those digits. I especially love incorporating a bright neon color that might be a little too much for the average working lady. This combo is probably still a little out there since the blue is not exactly office friendly, but for a girl like me, with over the top taste in polish, it is AWESOME. :)

I started with a full manicure of China Glaze - Shocking Pink. This is a bright neon pink that I showcased in my last post. I wore the all-pink mani for a day or two, so it was completely dry and had a coat of topcoat on it before I started with the blue.

The top color in this combo mani is another China Glaze color (I knew you would start to see the pattern here lol), Frostbite. I layered this on top, leaving a small half moon of the pink visible near the cuticle.

Frostbite, is an awesome blue on its own. It seriously glows. When I first picked it up I wore it for a week straight then painted my toes with it and wore it for a solid month on my piggly wigglies. Even if you don't like wearing blues, chances are you will love this color. I can not stop looking at my nails when I wear it.

The two of these together is awesome, I have gotten 17,000 compliments on it and keep flashing my nails around like it is nobody's business. This is a bright, fun, eye-catching combo that I love and will definitely wear again. I definitely encourage you to play around with layering your polishes as it is a fun, fresh way to wear some of your old regular favorites.

Happy painting and a blessed Easter!

Pinspiration Thursday - Turquoise and Coral

I don't know about all of you, but I am obsessed with Pinterest. Those of you who have never heard of it need to visit the site immediately. It is amazing! I spend more time browsing pins nowadays than I do on Facebook (THAT is a big deal). There is always more to see and it is such a great way to get ideas for everything from fashion to crafting and party throwing. A friend of mine pinned this great Polyvore creation a while back and I just love the colors! 

So, in a burst of what I am now referring to as "Pinspiration", I set to work creating a mani inspired by this outfit. The colors are not quite identical, but I really like the way that it turned out.

A really popular trend in polish lately has been the half moon manicure. Where you essentially use hole-punch reinforcers to recreate the natural coloring of a nail bed with your polish, let Lauren Conrad teach you how here. I simply do not have the patience to recreate this look. In order to apply the sticker to your nail, and have it not damage the polish when you remove it, you have to wait for your first color to dry completely - we all know how long this takes without a topcoat.. FOREVER. So, using the Half-moon manicure as part of my inspiration, I went for a bit of a different layering effect that can be achieved without the use of stickers.

For this look I used Essie's Haute as Hello, a bright orangy coral that is actually a bit neon (it turned out to be very difficult to capture the true color, it is much brighter than it appears here), as the base color. I painted two coats paying particular attention to making sure there was no brush drag near the bottom of the nail, as this is the area that is actually going to show, and trying to get good coverage without laying it on too thick. The thicker your polish, the more easily it will chip and with layering it is very easy to end up with VERY thick  nails.

I then layered on 2 coats of China Glaze's For Audrey, starting slightly above the beginning of Haute as Hello. This can be a bit tricky, especially if you haven't mastered the art of not getting polish all over your cuticles, but if you sit at a table and have a surface to prop and steady your painting hand, you can get a very smooth round edge. It has taken me a lot of practice, but I think I have gotten it down pretty well now.

I love this combo and today is actually my 3rd consecutive day sporting this mani, which, if you know me, means that it is a HUGE hit. I might actually try to stretch it until tomorrow (!!!), if the slight tip wear doesn't drive me over the edge before then.

I am getting very fond of these creative manis, so I am sure that this is the first of many Pinspiration posts to come! If you'd like to follow my Pinboards, click here.

Happy Pinning and Painting!