Sorta Swoopy Funky Frenchy

Hey Y'all! It's been a while. I wish I could say that I was doing something super interesting while I've been away, but I live a boring life.

Oh! Except that I was cast in RENT!! Which is crazy exciting. We started rehearsing last week and it's been AWESOME so far. iloveitsomuch.

Anywho, nails! For Christmas my lovely mother bought me Zoya Payton. It was part of their holiday collection for last year and as soon as I saw swatches of it I knew I NEEDED it.

It's so pretty, but kind of hard to capture on camera. It's an almost vampy dark plum jelly with tiny holographic glitter. When the sun hits it, it absolutely glows.

I lightened this picture a little too much, but it gives you a good idea of the color in the sun. And you can see the sparkles in the bottle really well. 

I'm pretty happy with this mani. I've never done the swoopy french thing before, so that was fun. On my left hand I freehanded it, then cleaned up the line with some acetone and a brush. On my right hand I used tape. I think the freehanding was actually faster and easier, which was a surprise... of course I only free handed with my dominant hand, so that could have something to do with it. 

Thanks for reading!

And She's Holding On My Heart Like a Hand Grenade

So tomorrow night I'm going to see American Idiot the Musical and I'm FREAKING EXCITED about it!! American Idiot was one of the albums I grew up with. It's one of those albums that I listened to so many times, that now if I hear a song from it on the radio, I can hear the next song on the album. I love it, and I love the musical adaption. EXCITED.

So excited, I had to do my nails for the event. Duh.

 Chalkboard Nails did a distressed nail tutorial that I thought would be perfect for the feel of this show, so I tried it. I'm pretty happy with it, but I definitely want to try this look again with more colors.

Do you see that? That heart-grenade? FREEHAND BABY. Haha, I'm really excited with how it turned out, cause I usually super suck at freehand designs. It helps that the whole look is grungy, so perfect lines aren't necessary.

Colors were all Zoya: Purity (white), Carmen (red), Raven (black). I need to get some more of Purity; mine is starting to get really gloopy and I'm nearly out of it anyway, but it's such a good white. Two coats and it's opaque.

Anywhozle, thanks for looking! If anyone is still looking... Someday I will have a consistent schedule for updates...

Someday...

Dreaming of the Beach!

It's getting so cold here!! Frost on car windows, clouds of breath floating in the air. Winter is definitely coming. So let's think of the beach! 

No, my nails did not just magically grow like 5 mm and change shape. Yes, I still have the claws. I'm finding them... difficult. I can't decide what looks good with the stiletto shape. So I'm gonna post some older manicures while these puppies grow out. 

I LOVED this mani. It's vaguely representative of a beach scene and I thought it turned out perfectly. 

Tutorial! 

Colors used were Zoya Shay for the base,  Zoya Robyn, Essie Bouncer it's me, and Zoya Blu. 

Alrighty yall! I hope you like this mani as much as I did! 

Thanks for reading! 

Trying a different shape!

I've had square or "squoval" nails pretty much since I started getting into nail art. I like the shape a lot, but I wanted a change. I'm not a huge fan of just rounded nails on myself, so that pretty much leaves stiletto. I figure, what better month to have claw-like nails than October? 

So here's what I came up with: 

I... like it? The stiletto shape is a strange one for me. I can remember the first time I saw it and I thought it was crazy. Like, how do you NOT stab yourself? And I guess I still think that for the long stilettos. But these are short! And maybe cute? 

I do really like this color combination, for sure. It's Zoya Blaze and Manglaze Matte is Murder. The contrast between the glossy sparkle and matte black looks really awesome in person. 

Bonus shot of just Blaze. Such a gorgeous color:

Well, what do you think? Have I been too exposed to the nail art world and these stilettos are crazy? Are they cute?  I need opinions!! 

Thanks for reading!! 

Last Year's Rocky Horror Nails

So last year (and the year before) I was in a local production of The Rocky Horror Show. I was Magenta. It was insanely fun and an incredible experience for me.

I was pretty into nail art at this point and I decided I was going to do a different red and black design for each week of the production (the whole month of October). And these are those designs. Keep in mind, this was before I even had this blog, so the pictures (and clean up job) are not the best quality.

Onward!

Week one:

These were great because they looked like claws on stage. I remember I actually had a lady come up to me after the show and ask to see my nails.

Week Two:

I think this was my first time doing a tape mani! right before I took this one off, I decided to see how it would look mattified: 

I LOVED it mattified, but I've found that if you don't add the matte top coat the same day you do the rest of the manicure, it will pull up the edges of the polish. You can kind of see it in this picture.

Week 3:

Mmmm, sparkly coagulated blood.

And Week 4:

Probably my favorite of the month, and definitely the most time consuming of the 4.

I miss my Rocky family!! This year, a different theater group is doing RHS and we're trying to get a big group of us together to go see it and yell callbacks. I'm very excited for it.

Thanks for reading!!

Pam's Wedding Nails!

My wonderful friends Pam and Jason are getting married on Saturday, so she asked me do to her nails for her! More specifically, she got acrylic french tips and then I decorated them. Her colors are purple and forest green, so here's what we came up with!

I think they turned out pretty well. I tried out a few different designs on some swatch sticks to give her some ideas.  Some are better than others...

Can you tell I like dots? And that I suck at freehand? Yeah...

Bonus: I repainted Pam's mother's nails as well.

Yay! Thanks for reading. I have a huge backlog of manicures from the last couple months that I need to edit and post. Here's hoping that happens soon. We're in the process of selling/buying a house and it's been stressful. By the time I get a chance to sit down, I'd rather watch netflix and paint nails than edit pictures to post. But I'll try to get back on track!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pride Nails!

Remember how I love rainbows? And stripes? And going cross-eyed? And the LGBTQ community?

Yeah.

Boom. 

Tomorrow is Pride here, so of course I have to have awesome nails. It's a requirement.

I'm not sure if I like the black stripes or white stripes more. Either way, love them. I'm very happy, if not cross-eyed. Actually, maybe they look so awesome to me BECAUSE I'm cross-eyed. Oh well. Still happy.


Tutorial! Definitely embiggen.

Also for a fun bonus, I was playing around with my new awesome eye shadows and I came up with this look:

Okay. Yay Rainbows! Yay Pride! Yay Love!

Thanks for reading as always :)