Update

Hi Guys!

I'm in the middle of a sudden move! My nail polish is currently packed up. However, once I'm settled, I'll be posting again. :)

Non-Nail Wednesday

Ok so I worked from 8:30 am until 9:00 pm so yeah this is coming late. :( IM SO EXHAUSTED! I'm doing the same thing tomorrow. Comparatively, Friday is a shorter day and hallelujah I am off on Saturday for once. Training for the new position is fantabulous and life is peachy.

However, I managed to get three pairs of shoes today for mega cheap (we're talking under $35) and some Butter London nail polish for only $11. So, needless to say, Michele is quite the happy camper!

Okay, so here's one of the shoes I purchased today- I also got a pair of nude flats and basic pumps because I actually have more non-basic shoes than I do just plain wear-with-everything. Yeah... that just needs to be corrected.

I'll be pairing these with a caviar mani super soon. No idea what I'll wear with them quite yet but they'll be worn super soon.

Oh, on another note, look for my Julep box post. I got it today and I am super excited for the colors in it. I got a pinky-red and a gold frost.

Whatcha think of the shoes?!

Sunset Gradient

Happy Tuesday! I hope you had a great day. Apart from my poor feet, I had a good day. The morning was decidedly meh but the day picked up as I started my new and improved job!

Tomorrow I'm debuting something different from nails. I'll post it on Wednesdays- I haven't decided on every Wednesday or every other Wednesday, but we'll see. :)

Last night I did this mani- you can tell because even with a top coat, the next day I will almost always have tip wear. I also did not feel like cleaning it up last night so the clean up that I did this morning was er, a little hairy, because it was the first thing I did after rolling out of bed. HOWEVER, I love the colors. Do I love the mani? Uhm... well I'm taking it off as soon as this post is written.

It reminds me of a sunset at a beach. I definitely thought of home- I was going to add some yellow and maybe a few black lines to mimic the silhouette of a seagull or two BUT that will wait for another day when I  have thought more about how to go about this.

The polishes I used are:

China Glaze: Bahamian Escape

Essie: Tart Deco

SOPI: High Maintenance

Peter thinks it looks like parrot inspired. So, is a sunset, or a parrot?

New Polishes!

A few days ago I ordered from 8ty8beauty and picked up two polishes from China Glaze's Safari Collection- Jungle Queen and I'm Not Lion.

Jungle Queen is a dusty purple whereas I'm Not Lion is a beautiful dense glitter with gold, silver, green and blue glitter. It was opaque in two coats. Jungle Queen liked to pool at the edges but other than that, application was fine. I just needed, like with almost all China Glazes, thin coats. I'm a sucker for purples and have to tell myself to not buy all of the purple.

Here's the mani I did with it. I will probably be using these colors again to liven it up a bit more and "refresh" the manicure.

The glitter is incredibly glitzy but it wasn't translating perfectly into pictures. If you end up buying this, know that it dries matte but with a top coat becomes super shiny!

I love the color combo. It's a great fall combo and one thing I love about fall & winter is the excuse to wear as much glitter (and sequin skirts/shirts) as I can. I originally meant to get I Herd That but that will have to wait another day... I guess I was just too excited and ended up ordering the wrong one. Oh well, I love it nonetheless!

I have a super busy week ahead but I'll still keep up. I'll be introducing something new on Wednesday so stay posted.

I'm also submitting this post as part of a link up!



If you're a manicure blogger, you should do it too.

Oreo Candy bar Mani

Last evening I went to a friend's place to do her nails. She saw my galaxy nails post and wanted me to do that for her, so we did! I hope she likes them. :) While I was there, I also painted my nails since she has a great collection of colors I don't have. So, I decided I wanted to do a jelly sandwich that ended up reminding me of an Oreo candy bar!

I used Rescue Beauty Lounge's Bella and Lynnderella's Connect the Dots. I layered two or three coats of Bella, then two coats of Connect the Dots and then added one more layer of Bella to finish my sandwich.

Please excuse the staining- the red and pink got everywhere last night when I was removing my previous mani.

The Mister says it reminds him of a speckled egg. I think I definitely prefer thinking of this as candy-inspired! What does it remind you of? Speckled eggs or oreo candy bars?

3-2 Nails

I got a new job! This time in management, thank you baby jesus. It's a dangerous job too- for my bank account and for my wallet because 40% off everything = a hell of a lot more shoes. Oh god I love shoes. I could blog about shoes too but nail polish is my true love. This company is also a bit more fashion forward (not that my current location isn't) and hopefully, not as restricting on what I can wear.

ANYWAY-

Today I have 3-2 nails. What that means is three of my nails are one color, and the other two are a different color. For the colors today, I have Sephora by OPI's High Maintenance which is a gorgeous bright red with orange and yellow undertones. I forgot how much I love this color! I also have China Glaze's Purple Panic on. I wasn't super excited about the color combination  until I had it dried. There's something super duper refreshing about the color combination. I've been very matchy-matchy/color coordinating lately so maybe it has something to do with that. It's new, and it's the last few weeks of summer.

In the shade

In the sun

Yayyy! Now all that I need to do is figure out what in the world I'm going to wear today.

What's your favorite off-beat color combination?

All You Need Is Love

This manicure was inspired by a client. I was having a rough day until one of my newest clients came to see me. As she was leaving she walked straight up to a manager and said, "Michele deserves a promotion!" Her walk was definitely determined- I was actually terrified for a moment, thinking that she was actually going to complain, or something. It's particularly great because I've been chasing one for god knows how long now. Finally some support!

She made my day. So this manicure is for her- she says she only wears black, grey and navy but an outfit I put together for her proved otherwise!

The base coat is Otherwise Engaged by OPI. It's their Spring 2009 Softshades collection. Even after years of having this- it still applies beautifully even if the dry time leaves me watching tv for two hours. Seriously if I don't have t.v. on or something that doesn't require hands while I do my nails, I will 100% always ruin it.

The hearts are China Glaze Dance Baby and Spoiled Pink Flamingo (the darker/neon pink).

Don't forget to make someone's day- do a random act of happiness. :)

Glitter Gradient & a note on Fall

On Pinterest a few weeks ago I saw a beautiful manicure that I needed to recreate. It is called a Mermaid manicure, and it's super easy. My nails look like a million bucks!

Recently, nail art has become a huge trend; to the point that it's actually being used as an accessory. So that makes my life easier- I don't have to wear as much jewelry. I'm not big into jewelry anyway! However, I do love sparkly nails.

This manicure screams summer. Now that labor day is passed and we're getting into September (holy moly!), I only have a few weeks in which I feel like I can rock the super bright colors. I mean, I'll probably wear neons into fall to be perfectly honest, but it will be for nostalgia. I have some great fall looks coming up, however. Among it, I have two series- a wedding/fall-love manicure series, which I'll debut on September 22nd, and a halloween series that I will start in October. I'll be showing how to coordinate fall trends with nail art/manicures and fall events.

On to the nail pictures-

First I painted my nails with Milani's Fresh Teal. I've raved about this before. It's on of my favorite colors and I use it pretty consistently. I actually need to get a new bottle soon. After that dried, I sponged on Wet 'N Wild's Diving for Pearls to create a gradient. I would start at the tips of my nails, when I had the most polish on the sponge, and gradually moved up the nail until I had none. So the color would be concentrated at the tips and sparse towards my cuticles so Fresh Teal shown more.

After that dried, I repeated the same sponging technique with Sally Hansen's Bling-tastic, which is a part of their Gem Crush collection. If you don't have this blue glitter polish, you need it in your collection. It has small blue glitter with larger circle silver glitters. It coats pretty well on its own.

It's super important that you wrap your tips in this mani- the glitter does sit on the very tip of your nail where it's most concentrated. So if you don't wrap your tips, it will chip within a day or so. I mean, you should always wrap the tips but especially so with this mani. It will prevent the glitter from snagging on anything too.

What are you looking forward to most this fall? What is your favorite trend?

A poorly planned mani

I was super scatterbrained this weekend. I was just completely out of it, and wasn't thinking for much of it. I need more than just one day off! This mani is just as confused as I am! I also ran out of q-tips for clean up...

I went into this thinking I was going to do a Chevron mani. Then, I realized I set up wrong. The neon pink should have been the base coat.  So I thought, "Ooh! I'm going to do hour glasses!" But no, that didn't happen either. But it will, because I'm sure I can think of some crazy fashion inspiration for it.

Speaking of inspiration, I was thinking chocolate and I always imagine chocolate coming in bright pink packaging even though it doesn't. Since Peter the Great picked up scotch tape for me, I decided to attempt a chevron mani... I mean they aren't difficult by any means, but I got my colors reversed. Sigh. 

Despite how completely baffled he is by this obsession, he's been pretty supportive. He even picked up a nail polish I've been wanting for a while for me and endured a trip to Sally Beauty Supply yesterday! What a trooper.

For this mani, I used China Glaze's Call of the Wild as a base, China Glaze's Purple Panic, and Milani's Fresh Teal.

Fresh Teal is one of my favorite polishes. It's in my top rotation. The formula is great, but like most neons you definitely need a top coat for it. Cool toned pale people rejoice! This is SUCH a beautiful teal cream. I can wear it year round and while a neon, it isn't "you need sunglasses'" so it's a bit more versatile. It has the best of both worlds- vibrant, but pliant.

Anyhoo:

This photo was taken in the evening shortly after completing the manicure.

The second one was taken in sunlight whereas the third one was taken in shade.

What do you think of the chocolate and pink combo?

Galaxy nails!

Let me start of with saying: I love this manicure.

It's super easy despite how complicated it looks on the nail. All you need is a black base, 3-4 nail polish colors for sponging, a white (or glitter nail polish) for stars, and a cosmetic sponge. I tear my sponges into tiny pieces, but some people have issues with sponge lumps so you can also cut the sponges.

I actually did this on my friend's nails! A few days ago, I walked into work with these nails and she demanded that I do them. So I'm quite happy to do them for her, especially since she's moving away to FL.

But anyway, have a picture!

The weather was pretty icky today- we have the remnants of Hurricane Isaac so unfortunately this was the only good shot I got because lighting was kind of difficult.


I used:

• Mourning Glory by OPI (Your standard black creme base)
• Turquoise & Caicos by Essie
• Purple Dragon by China Glaze
• Pink Flamingo by Spoiled
• Snow Globe by China Glaze

Thanks R for providing your fingertips! Enjoy your nails. :)

NOTD

Happy Saturday! I know most people stateside are enjoying three day weekends so I hope that they're relaxing and/or super fun!

I originally had work today but then I didn't so that means I'm going to enjoy an actual day off. Otherwise, I would have been working 8 days in a row before I had one day off and then started work again.

Last night I also noticed that my top coat was getting goopy again. I already applied thinner to it, so I dragged the Mister to Sally Beauty supply where they had Seche Vite because it's way cheaper there than at CVS. Also added Call of the Wild from China Glaze's Safari Collection.

Today I have a classic look with a little twist- it's your simple french manicure but with the Material Girl Psychedelic I swatched yesterday and then Pure Ice Best Friend for the tips. I did it free hand because I couldn't locate my tape. I originally was going to do a gradient, but couldn't decide on a color! So I kept it simple and refined with the champagne color. However, I'm already over it! My poor nails- from typing, to yoga, to handling clothes (You would think fabric would be nice to handle on a daily basis!), my manicures don't last long.

I've tried several Pure Ice polishes before and can't really complain due to their price point. However, I believe Charlotte Russe sells them and I don't have one near me. Chances are, I probably wouldn't go anyway since on a day-to-day basis I'm wearing fancy clothes like this beautiful wrap dress.

Best Friend is a champagne frost. I'll eventually swatch it, but the end result shows brush strokes. This isn't surprising, considering it's a frost finish, but for that reason I rarely use it for a base. It's similar to OPI's I Only Drink Champagne but is a bit more opaque.

But oh! You can actually see the pink shimmer that I referenced in my last post.


What are your favorite color combinations for a french tip?