SOTD: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue

Oh, what a beautiful color! There are no words to describe it! (Or rather, there are too many words to describe it.) A perfect shade of cornflower blue: a lighter medium-toned blue with the barest hint of violet. Such a unique shade!





For about $3US you get .4 fl oz of this beautiful liquid. Goes on with creamy coverage in two coats.




Indirect sunlight, pictured above.



Direct Sunlight, pictured above.


Verdict: the hype you may or may not have heard about this polish is true - it is a must have! Honestly, if this is the type of polish (on consistency of the formula alone) that people are describing when they talk about Rescue Beauty Lounge polishes, I could see why they would be in love with that company. Buttery, creamy, opaque. And all in two coats!

Now the shade is another matter altogether. In bright light, it appears a lighter shade of blue (as seen in the first photo), but go indoors to dimmer lighting and the color seems to change. The purple undertones come out and the polish looks like it's almost a different polish. Still completely beautiful, but a darker shade altogether. If you can, stop by your local drugstore as soon as possible to pick up this beauty!

ND5: Triple Scoop

When picking out the colors used for this nail design, the first thing that came to mind was Rainbow Sherbet Ice Cream. And what could be better than one scoop of three flavors mixed together? Why three separate scoops, of course!

images from polyvore.com

The colors used for this nail design (from left to right) were: Powerful Peach by Jessica, Sun Kissed by Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear, and Green With Envy by Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear.





Step 1: Cut a thick strip of blue painter's tape that covers about one-third of your nail. Place the strip of tape diagonally across the nail, pressing down firmly. On each nail, paint the first color, immediately followed by the third color in the pattern, layering the colors on the nail in quick succession.




When done with the painting, quickly pull up the piece of tape in the same direction the piece of tape lies on the nail, following the angle the tape was placed in.




Step 2: Once Step 1 is dry, use two pieces of tape per nail to cover the edge of the top (first) and bottom (third) color, making sure to get as close to the edge where the middle color will be laid down, without leaving a gap.




Here is the final product, with top coat:




What do you think? Does this manicure/nail design make you think of ice cream? Or maybe it just screams "Spring"?


Thanks for looking. Bye for now.

ND4: Golden Stripes of Sunshine aka Cheshire Stripes

Nail Design 4 is an alternating pattern of two different colors, with three stripes of each color. The final design reminded me of golden sunrays, so that's where the name comes in.

image from physics.unlv.edu

This basic pattern was used in the Cheshire Cat inspired nails (shown HERE), but this design can be used in a simplified format, if both colors used are cremes that are completely opaque, or if the purpose of this design is to have the color on top overlapping the original color, for a more unique look.



Step 1 is to completely cover the nail in the base color. The color used here is Orly Spark (an old formula polish), that translated as a light yellow creme.




If you are short on time and would like to move onto Step 2 right away, you can use your favorite fast dry top coat or quick dry nail drops to speed up the drying process.




Step 2 is where the blue tape comes in. Depending on the nail length, cut three even strips of blue tape and layer it at even intervals over the original color, making sure to press the tape down firmly so there is no gap where the second/top nail color can leak under and leave a mark.




After painting the top color, immediately pull off the strips of tape in the direction the tape was laid down, so no pull will occur from the top polish and the lines should be straight and even.


Here is the final result:




Now this same design can be used with Jelly polishes that you don't want overlapped, and that follows a slightly different format. These are the first 3 steps to the Cheshire Cat nail design.


Step 1 is to cut three even strips of painter's tape and layer them evenly along the nail, then painting on the first color over the base coat/natural nails.





After pulling off the tape used in Step 1 and letting the first color dry, cut a total of 5 slim strips of blue tape, where 4 of the strips should be slim enough to not completely cover the original color, but wide enough to be overlapped with another strip of tape to then completely cover the original color.


When laying down the strips of tape in Step 2, make sure each strip of tape just barely touches the edge of each side of the original color of polish, so there will be a barely visible overlap, otherwise there is the possibility of a gap occurring between the two colors.




And this is the final look for the alternating stripes of color when using Jelly, transparent, or sheer polishes.




There are extra details that can be added to this look, such as painting a glitter top coat over the dried stripes, but this look can be left alone to wow the crowd.

So, what do you think? Would you try one of these looks? Or both? What colors would you use?


Thanks for looking! Bye for now.

Easter Inspired Nails

I thought I'd do something Easter inspired for a nail design. Not eggsactly egg-inspired, but quite close.

image from eHow.com

I wanted to use light colors, keeping Spring and all its light and bright it brings to mind. From left to right, I used Tattoo You Want Candy? by OPI, Sun Kissed by Sally Hansen, Spark by Orly, I Love Mummy by OPI, and Witch Arm? by OPI. (Note: The mini OPI polishes are from the Tattoo Ta-Boo Halloween Kit from October 2009. These polishes are said to be comparable to actual OPI colors - like I Love Mummy being the same shade, consistency, and quality as Alpine Snow.)




Step 1 was a complete coat of a creme white polish. Because it was the tops of the nails that were going to be layered over in other colors, the white polish did not have to be painted all the way to the beginning top of the nail.





Step 2 begins the use of blue tape. The size of the small strip of tape that is layered over the white first, is the one in which size matters, since that piece is meant to divide between the painting of the yellow and orange polishes.





For Step 3, after the yellow and orange stripes have been laid down on the thumb, middle, and pinky fingers, the tape for the design on the index and ring finger must be cut. To achieve the zig-zag/wavy line that looks like a cracked egg shell design, pinking sheers (craft scissors) can be used. If you do not have craft scissors, you can draw a wavy line on a piece of paper or cardstock, adhereing a piece of painter's tape to the other side, then cutting along the wavy line (which is what I did).

image from Adorama.com

After the tape is placed on the bottom-half of the nail with the wavy edge facing up, the yellow polish is layered onto the top of the nail.





Step 4 consisted of adding the detailing to the image of the baby chick for a face, on both the index and ring fingers. First, a triangle was made using small strips of tape to mask off the area of the beak, then the tape was pulled away, and the polish brush from the bottle was used to dot on two eyes.





So the final product is as follows:




An alternating pattern of stripes and baby chicks in bright/pastel shades to represent both Easter and Spring.


The little baby chick was inspired by a nail design I saw on the nail blog Katrina's Nail Blog. Check out the design HERE to see my inspiration.


Thanks for looking at my Easter nail design. Bye for now.

SOTD: Irish Green, but not Irish Green

For weeks I checked out my local Walgreens and Rite Aid, but I could not find Sinful Colors Irish Green. I really do adore neon colors, so I was looking forward to this one, but I cannot seem to get my hands on it. I would have settled for China Glaze's Four Leaf Clover, since just because of the name, it sounds like a color I would associate with St. Patrick's Day. Well, no luck there either, since no store near me sells China Glaze.

Instead I stopped by my local Claire's on my (other) relentless pursuit in search of a good neon yellow and picked up this neon green as well...




Here is Claire's Lime Yours. This Claire's polish had a label on the bottom of the bottle, and the name does work for this green shade. It looks like a lime green shade in real life. But for some unknown reason, once I uploaded the photos to blogger, the shade of the polish changed colors to a more yellow hue.




See what I mean about the color change? I know neons are hard to capture, but the above bottle pic shows even more yellow than the first photo. So just imagine with me that this shade looks like a bright green liquid highlighter.


For a better color representation follow the link HERE to this website called "COLOURlovers". (On a side note, it's kind of fun to browse around their website, because it's like looking at a ton of Pantone color swatches.) The green swatch I linked to above, looks the closest to what this nail polish looks like in real life.


But, back to the nail polish...




With a top coat (I used Orly Won't Chip), the outcome was a nice smooth neon green after 3 coats. Ignoring the fact that in these photos I look like I have lobster hands because the green polish seems to bring out the pink/red undertones in my skin, this color was very bright and really caught attention, thus making it a fun color to wear for St. Patrick's Day.


Being a true neon, the color dried matte without a top coat, so here is another picture so you can see what it looks like sans shiny finish:




Another problem I had with this polish (besides the fact that blogger doesn't seem to like the color), is that even though I attempted to paint on three thin coats, I still developed bubbles, as seen in the above photograph. When I added the top coat, the bubbles went away. I'm kind of disappointed about the bubbles thing, because I'm not sure if that means this polish was old when I bought it (since I bought it late January/early February and a month or two shouldn't make a difference on an unopened bottle of polish), or if it just doesn't work right with my layering skills and/or body chemistry.


Final verdict: It was quite fun to wear a bright green for St. Patrick's Day, and I may attempt to use this polish one more time, but if I have the same bubbling results, I don't think I'll be investing in Claire's polishes again, if they work like this for me. There are other neon collections coming out soon, so I may turn to those instead.


So did anyone else wear a green polish for St. Patrick's Day? Has anyone else had bubbling occur in a nail polish - particularly a Claire's nail polish? I think I'll give this polish another try, but for now, I'm undecided.


Thanks for looking. Bye for now.

ND3: Pie Day

So 3/14 is Pie Day...or rather, Pi Day, for 3.14....




In honor of pie and pi, I decided to do a manicure inspired by both Pi(e)s.

image from collectingtokens.wordpress.com

To start out this Pi(e) manicure, I thought of a peach/cherry pie. A little mix of bright orange and red. The colors that fit this idea perfectly were OPI's The "It" Color for the yellow background, followed by OPI's Brights Power for the orange circle, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red - perfect for red cherries!






For Step 1, I simply covered my nails completely in OPI's The "It" Color, followed by a top coat.






Step 2 is where the blue tape appears! For this design, you'll only need a regular hole punch. I used a three hole punch, but it worked just fine.


To make sure the tape does not stick to the hole puncher, cut a square of tape from the role, then stick it down to a card (I used a neon colored index card I had sitting next to my computer - really any type of cardstock will work). The great thing about painter's tape, is that it is meant to peel off from a surface, so the tape comes right off the cardstock and still sticks nicely to your nails.







Step 3 is a repeat of Step 2, with the same process for the blue tape occurring. Just cut out circles from the blue tape (if you have the time and the will, you can always use a drafting compass to draw a circle the size you want, and then use an exacto knife to cut out each circle, but that would be more labor intensive).




Just paint the second color, making sure it layers opaquely over the other color(s). For the design I chose to do for PiDay, I wanted the circles to be offset from each other. Depending on the width of your nail, you can slant the circles (in the line/angle they are layered over each other) as much as you want.




The final step: Just add top coat!



I hope everyone had a good Pi(e) Day! Did you celebrate with a manicure? And if not, did you at least eat pie?


Thanks for looking! Bye for now.