31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 21: Inspired by a Color

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry for the late post again! It's going to take me a while to get back into my schedule because I have so many events to go to these next few weeks. Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and so much more!

But here I have for you the next post for the 31DC! Today's post is "Inspired by a Color" and I kept thinking of way too many things for various colors. So instead, I decided to be "inspired by" the name of one of my polishes. I ended up getting inspired by two of them: Revlon Kiss Me Coral and Revlon Plum Seduction.. The two polish names just work so well together that I decided to use them both for my mani. However, the combined colors made it extremely difficult to get a good picture so I apologize for the horrible pictures.

To get this look:

• I started off by applying my base coat and then applied three coats of Revlon Kiss Me Coral. 
• To make the kisses, I used a dotting tool and Revlon Plum Seduction and dotted on the kisses.
• The kisses needed to look like they were put there by someone kissing the area, so to get that look, I used a striping brush and striped on some of the Revlon Kiss Me Coral. I think that's the reason the plum polish didn't pop out as much. Before the striping, the kisses were more noticeable.
• I ended the mani with my favorite top coat.

Even though the pictures didn't turn out so great, I think the mani looks great in real life. The plum kisses are more noticeable than the pictures show so you can definitely see them; they don't blend in with the background.

Let me know what you think of this and if you think my interpretation of the challenge was alright. I hope you all like it!!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 19: Galaxies

Hi everyone!

I have the next 31DC post for you and I was able to make this one because I had to do something with my nails for my trip anyways! And what a better mani to have for a cruise to Alaska! I thought that the galaxies mani could somewhat represent the northern lights as well, so it sort of goes, right?

Anyways, this is going to be a quick post because I need to head out to the airport soon! Take a look at my attempt.

To get this look:

• After applying a trusty base coat, I applied one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White because I don't like applying black polish directly to my nails. 
• I followed the white with two coats of Sinful Colors Black On Black.
• Then I used a sponge to sponge on blue polish (Revlon Plunge Pool), lavender polish (Revlon Enchanting), bright pink polish (Revlon Colorstay Wild Strawberry), and yellow polish (Revlon Sunshine Sparkle). After all of that, I went back and added a little bit more of the blue polish.
• I also sponged on some Orly Space Cadet because, well, it has the word "space" in it. I had to use it! Plus the multichrome glitter particles went with the whole look perfectly.
• I also added some silver glitter by applying one coat of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Ice Queen.
• I sealed everything with a top coat.

This was super easy to create and I love how it turned out! I even did the galaxies on my big toes so I'm totally galaxy-fied!

I've seen other bloggers add white dots to this type of mani too and I tried that out on my toes (I did my toes before my fingers) and I didn't like how it looked on me. Maybe I should have tried to use a light grey instead of white? Who knows. But I like the effect the glitter brings to this look.

Well, there you have it! What do you all think of this? Let me know!! This is my very first attempt at galaxy nails. I've tried sponging in a similar way before but the mani wasn't actually a galaxy mani. So hopefully you all think my first attempt was alright!

I hope you all have an amazing couple of weeks and I'll see you all once I get back!

Nail Art Tutorial: Splatter

Hi everyone!!

I made my very first nail art tutorial today! The tutorial is for the splatter manicure that I created for Day 4 of April's Tri-Polish Challenge. I'm very excited to show it to all of you and I hope it helps!! If there is anything that I missed or if you would like me to include another step in future tutorials, please let me know in the comments section below.

To refresh, here's the manicure that I created for the Tri-Polish Challenge:

To get the look, you'll need:
The exact names of what I used are in parentheses, but you can use whichever brands/colors you prefer.

Base coat (Essie 3 Way Glaze) and top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat)

 

A toothpick/small-sized dotting tool/orange stick

White polish (Sinful Colors Snow Me White)

*Cream polishes work best*
**You can use any combination of colors*
Purple polish (Sinful Colors Amethyst), pinky coral polish (Sinful Colors Timbleberry), green polish (Sinful Colors Irish Green)

 

Now, onto the tutorial!

I hope this tutorial was helpful! And as I stated before, if any of you believe that I missed a step, or believe that I should explain something more clearly, let me know in the comments section below. Also, if you try out my tutorial, I would love to see pictures! Leave me a link in the comments section!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 10: Gradient Nails

Happy Monday everyone!

Today is such an amazing day in Chicago! The weather is finally awesome (even though the wind is trying to knock me off my feet) and it's definitely getting me out of the winter blues!

The challenge mani for today had to have some type of gradient. I have never created a gradient before so I was a bit worried as to how it would turn out or if I would even be able to make one. I saw a lot of tutorials on the best way to create a gradient and my first attempt failed miserably. I couldn't figure out why because I waited for the base color to dry completely, put the polish on the sponge, used the up and down motion, but the polish just did not want to cooperate. I then noticed that the sponges in all of the tutorials had openings, or "pores", that were quite visible and then saw that I couldn't see the "pores" in the sponge that I was using. So I ran out to Walmart and found makeup sponges that some pores in them and tried those out. They worked!!! I'm super super happy with this mani and I will be definitely be using gradients a lot more because they look awesome!

So here I have a tropical, warm weather inspired gradient mani for you all!

The light base polish that I started off with was Sinful Colors Island Coral (even the polish color is from the tropics!!). I then created the gradient using the Island Coral along with Sinful Colors Timbleberry and Sinful Colors Amethyst. The palm trees were created using a small detail brush and Sinful Colors Black On Black. I guess it was a Sinful Colors kind of day for me!

Seriously, I am so in love with this mani and so happy with my first attempt! It's also making me miss the super warm weather and beaches and everyone fun about the summer. I can't wait for it to be nice enough to go to the beach!!

I hope you all liked my attempt at the gradient! If you have any suggestions or ideas on what else I can do with a gradient, feel free to email me or leave a comment in the comments section below!

As always, be sure to check out my friend Hetal's gradient mani at My Life In Turquoise!

So that's the end of the first 3rd of the 31 Day Challenge!! 
10 down and only 21 more to go!

Have a lovely Monday, everyone!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 9: Rainbow Nails

Hey guys!!

I'm super excited to show you all my challenge mani for today. Originally, I was going to have one balloon on each finger but then I realized that I would have to lose one color since there are only five fingers. So I decided to have two balloons on each finger so that I could fit in that extra color.

I'm also dedicating this party inspired mani to my boyfriend's nephew because his 1st birthday just passed!!

A lot of polishes went into creating this challenge mani. I wanted to have a base color because I didn't want to have the balloons and confetti on my bare nail and I didn't want to have a white background either. So for my base polish color, I used one coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Platinum because I still wanted to have a VNL. The red balloons and confetti were made using Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Perfect Cherry. All of the orange was created by Sinful Colors Courtney Orange. I used Revlong Sunshine Sparkle for the yellow but it was too light so I ended up going over it with Wet n Wild Fast Dry The Wonder Yellows. The green I used was Sinful Colors Irish Green. The blue was made using Rimmel London Marine Blue. And last but not least, the purple came from Nicole by OPI Prized Possession Purple. Now for the detail work. For the balloon strings, I used Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen Black. To make the "shine" streaks on the balloons, I used Nubar Nail Art Pen Basic White. Of course, none of this would have been possible without my handy dandy small detail brush!

Even though there were a lot of nail polishes involved in making this mani, it would super easy because of the detail brush. I worked with one color at a time so that I didn't have to keep cleaning the brush after every single use. But I'm not going to lie, as easy as this mani was, it was highly time consuming because of all of the small detail work.

This is such a fun mani and it makes me so happy every time I see it! It just reminds me of parties and all the fun that goes along with it. I really hope you all love this mani as much as I do!

Be sure to check out the challenge mani by My Life In Turquoise!

That's 9 down and 22 more to go!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 8: Metallic Nails

Hi everyone!!

I have a funky mani for you today to fulfill my metallic challenge! Metallic things always seem to be pretty funky to me so I decided to do something like that for my mani because I couldn't think of something else, hah. I think I could have done something different to it to make it a little better. Also, I could not capture the real colors of the polishes even if my life depended on it. I think i ended up taking about fifty pictures and then gave up. Then tried again a little while later, still with no luck. So please bare with me on these photos.

This mani was made using SEPHORA by OPI Queen of Everything. Then I used a medium sized detail brush and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Potion to add the purple/blue metallic/duochrome polish on top of the silver metallic polish. It still seemed a little plain so I went back and added the stripes using Sally Hansen Crackle Ink Splatter.

The mani was very easy to make since it only involved striping across the nail. But I really like how it looks! It's so different and "out there" and quirky!

I really hope that all of you liked my mani and enjoyed seeing something different! I definitely had fun creating it and can't wait to show you next week's challenge mani!

Don't forget to stop by at My Life In Turquoise and see my friend's challenge mani for this week.

Woo! 8 down, 23 more to go!!

Drugstore Haul

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! I had to run to a few drugstores to pick up some things and I guess it was my lucky day! Of course, I have to check on the nail polish to see if there is anything new or if there are any sales. SALE!!!

I ended up getting 9 polishes in really fun colors!! They remind me of Spring so I'm really excited to try them out and get out of this winter funk. Hopefully, I'll have the swatches for you soon, even though I'm not a big fan of swatches because I think they're boring and I'd much rather show you my nail art. But swatches are great to see how a polish will look before you get a bottle, if you want to make sure you will like it.

Stay warm, everyone!

Revlon Review & Swatch

Hey guys!

I have a Revlon swatch for you all today. Grape Icy is from their Scented Collection and actually smells pretty good! It has a sweet scent that is not harsh at all. The color is bright but not too bright, which is perfect for adding that little bit of Spring during this snowy winter. It looks like a royal purple with a softer touch to it. The formula wasn't that great. My swatch shows 4 coats and 4 coats were required to not have a VNL. I'm not a big fan of VNLs so I needed the 4 coats, but if you don't mind it, 3 coats is good enough. If you don't mind using a bit more polish every time, this polish is good, but you'll have to decide that.

Revlon's scented polishes are available at Revlon, Ulta, Walgreens, and CVS.

Have any of you tried any scented polishes that you really like? Let me know in the comments section below!

31 Day (Week) Challenge - Day 6: Violet Nails

Hi everyone!! I'm so excited to show you all today's challenge mani!

Originally, I had planned a completely different mani for today but it didn't work out so I decided to go with this look instead. I will definitely show you all the other look that I had mine sometime soon because it's a great idea and looks awesome!

Ikat print!! For the base coat, I used Revlon Scented Parfume Grape Icy. It's a very pretty purple and really smells like grapes!! The color is almost like a royal purple but with a softer look to it soI thought it would be perfect for this print to soften it up a bit. For the black and white parts of the print, I used some nail art pens, Nubar White and Nubar Black. The blue/green color that I used in the print is Sinful Colors Mint Apple, which has a nice sparkle to it.

I've been wanting to try this one out for a while and what a better opportunity to do it! It was fun making this mani and I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out because I thought I would mess up badly. But I like it!

My friend at My Life In Turquoise also has her challenge mani for all of you so make sure to stop by there.

I can't believe week 6 is already done!! Next week is black and white and I already have something in mind for that. Let's hope that it turns out well.

6 down, 25 more to go!!

Doodles and Flowers

Hey everyone! So last December my family has 2 weddings to attend. Before the first one, I obviously did my nails to get ready for the upcoming festivities! After seeing my nails, a few of our friends asked to get their nails done by me (yay!) and of course, I was thrilled and more than happy to do their nails! Indian weddings are all about color so the girls brought over their outfits and we decided to match the colors and patterns that were on their dresses.

Here's what the end product looked like:

  The left one: Her dress was green and pink and had a lot of intricate swirls that almost looked vine-like. Then there were pink embellishments and embroidery work that went along with the green swirl pattern. The detail in the dress made me go for a simple look so that everything did not look too busy. I opted for pink french tips and a cute simple green design.

 The right one: This dress was blue and purple with lots of shine and sparkles. Again, the pattern and overall look of this dress was very detailed so to not make everything look too busy, I went for something simple. To match the background color of her dress, I gave her blue french tips. The dress had purple and some flower patterns so to go along with that, I highlighted her ring finger and put a purple with some dots on it.

I hope you like it! These were simple but fun to do because they were happy with the end result :)

Fishtail

Hey everyone! I thought of trying out the fishtail braid design that I've been seeing a lot. It's quite simple to do, you just have to be a patient to let each layer dry a bit before applying the next one so that the polish doesn't smear.

Here's what my attempt looked like:

 

What do you think??

Swirls of Blue and Purple

Hello everyone!

I tried out sponging for the first time! My mom had an event to go to and I decided to try this out to match the print on her dress. I think it turned out pretty well considering it was my first time.

All you need to create this is a makeup sponge and the polishes that you want to use.

Enjoy!

Toothpicks

Helloooo. Some of my bottles of nail polishes are a bit old and I noticed that the brushes aren't soft anymore. So whenever I put the polishes on, the brush would scratch the polish during the second coat. That got me wondering...what would happen if I used something sharp to put on the polish? I searched online and found out that you can do this with toothpicks!!

Doesn't it look awesome??

And it wasn't even that hard to do!

Here are the steps:
1) Pick a base color and apply (I chose white)
2) Pick some colors that you want to "scratch" with the toothpick (blue, pink, purple, teal in the picture)
3) Start with one color and do all of your nails so you don't have to go back and forth opening the bottles over and over again. Put a drop of one of the colors at the crown and then take a toothpick and start scratching it lightly towards the tip of the nail (the size of the drop will determine how far you are able to scratch the color)
4) Repeat with each of your chosen colors
5) Finish it off with a top coat!

I hope you like this because I sure did!!

And yes, that's henna on my hands. I got it done for a wedding that I had to go to.

Triangles

Once again, here are my mom's nails! I just love doing her nails because she keeps them long most of the time and I always end up cutting mine after I'm unable to type anymore.

Again, I made a design to match her outfit. The base color was a light purple with a grey tint, then I went over it with a yellowish gold, and then a black. Topped it off with a red dot!

I normally use painter's tape to make the lines straight but since her nails are so long, it was easy for me to be able to make almost straight lines without the tape. So if you try to do this but aren't able to make straight lines, use painter's tape! Or any tape that you like and prefer :)

Solo Flowers

I did my mom's nails again! This time I tried to just make it really simple and do one little drawing on it...a flower! The colors I chose were to match the outfit she was wearing.

I just used a light pink as the base color and then used an art brush to make purple flowers! It wasn't hard, just took a lot of concentration on my part :P 

Uneven French

My mom wanted me to do her nails but she doesn't like anything too drastic and out there. So I tried out an uneven french with some fun colors.

The base color she chose was a shiny, light greenish color that had a hint of grey sparkles in it (I don't think you can see it in the picture). For the french tip, I used a dark purple and made it at an angle and then used a dotting tool to add some gold dots along the line.

What do you think?!

And I promise, as I get to recent designs, I'll add more of a tutorial and the names of the polishes that I used.

Bunnies, Eggs, and Pastel

Bunnies, eggs, and pastel colors remind me of Easter so I thought of putting those on my nails! 

Bunny on the thumb and a chick hatching out of an egg on the ring finger. And then for the other nails I decided to try to make them look like decorated eggs.

I used an art brush and dotting tools to make the designs. Isn't it cute?! I hope you all liked it!

ZigZags

Hi everyone! French manicures are fun but I thought of adding a twist to it!

  

It's quite easy to do:

1) Put on a base coat

2) Apply your base color (I chose purple)

3) Cut piece of tape (I used painters tape) in whatever shape you would like the tips of your nails to be (I have zigzags)

4) Put pieces of tape on your nails after your base color has dried

5) Apply tip color over nails while making sure they don't go out of their boundaries

6) Peel off tape after polish has dried

7) Apply top coat

That's all! Have fun :)