Stress

Stress at work got the best of me and all my nails are toast.  They're back to the point of being gross.  Since no one wants to see terribly gross nails, no more photos for now.

Flowers

I've been able to stop mass nail biting but not little biting.  As in this week I've lost six nails, two on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and two Friday night.  Tuesday was biting due to stress but I'm not sure what happened Thursday and Friday.  The only similarity between all three days is that my nail polish chipped/peeled off my nails, I started picking at it, and the next thing I knew I was biting.

I'm thinking I should keep a bottle of nail polish remover at work.

Wedding this past weekend, I painted my nails to match the dress I was going to wear but didn't end up wearing because of the weather forecast.

The flowers look a little more tropical than I was hoping for.

I used Zoya Maya as a base with Konad white for the flowers and then Seche Vite as a top coat.

More Paisley

Painted my nails to match my shirt today.

The base is Sinful Colors Savage with Konad white stamped over it, design from plate m-60.

Seeing Spots

My Sally Hansen polish chipped to pieces after just one day of wear so I used Zoya Dove for the base, Konad Black for the spots, and plate BM 211.

I think next time I use these colors together I'd use a different plate.  I'm not over the moon about animal prints and that's what this look likes to me (spotted leopard anyone?).  Maybe swirly lines next time.  

Organic Architecture

Sunday I tried to do my nails in a cute artsy design.  The boyfriend and I were checking out the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit at the local art museum and I was trying to do something that matched.

I used Sally Hansen's Nailgrowth Miracle in Honor, Konad White, and plate BM 203.

Today that polish chipped and cracked and I wound up picking most of it off at work and then biting four nails.  I hope I'm not regressing too much.

Eeek!

When I took off my nail polish from yesterday my nail bed changed color - it's blue as well!  Blue nail bed, blue under my nails, blue cuticles, it's everywhere!  Yuck yuck yuck.

I use a base coat polish (Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthing Base & Top Coat) - I thought that was supposed to prevent this from happening??  Is there a better base coat I should be using?

Blue and Silver

Did my nails for a Brewer's game tonight.  I don't have any Brewer's gear so I did blue nails with a silver design (I don't have yellow nail polish).

The base coat is Zoya's Robyn, the silver is Avon's Glisten with Konad plate M60.

I messed up when I bought my first Konad kit - I didn't buy the special nail polish.  I thought you could use any old nail polish to do the stamping with.  Nope!  After a night of trying and trying to get something to stick to the Konad stamper I read posts on the internet that said in order for non-Konad polish to work it must be thick and typically metallics are this way.  So I dug out my decades old Avon polish (of which I have several metallics) and lo and behold - it worked!  I did go out and buy the Konad polish in black and white

PS - does anyone know how to keep nail polish from sticking so much to the skin surrounding the nail?  Q-tips seem to big and bulky to get the job done.

Subtle Purple

Week three of no infrequent nail biting.  Today's design features two purple polishes, one a cream and the other a metallic.

I have Zoya Mira for the base coat and Zoya Areetha applied using the BM-208 plate.  Some of my nails are wider/flatter than normal and the stamp width falls a little short of covering the full nail.  I thought about turning the stamp sideways but it looks like my nails are *finally* too long for that to be effective either.

Mother's Day

Moderate success at not biting over the last week.  I had a rough day last week and as a result three of my nails were casualties. Overall they're getting longer but as I haven't been measuring them (oops) I can't say at what rate.

I was at home this weekend in the Twin Cities for Mother's Day.  I did my nails and my mom's nails in Zoya Maya, a color I absolutely love.

It's this delightful coral shade, not too pink, not too red, with a little bit of orange.  It's more sheer than I realized but two coats of polish made it look better.  I think next time I'll try three coats.

Plane Jane's Honor

I think wrecking my nails while gardening on Sunday set a tone for the rest of the week.  I painted my nails this morning while I was getting ready for work and now it's just a few hours later but the polish is chipping on two nails.  Truthfully I've been pretty hard it them, the polish was full of dents before I put a top coat on and then while at work I accidentally sprayed them with ethanol and acetone while I was cleaning beakers.  Not a great combination.

The polish for today is a plain color, just Sally Hansen's Nailgrowth Miracle in Honor with Seche Vite top coat.

I picked up this nail polish because I'm absolutely in love with the Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Serum.  Before I was using the serum and I'd bite my nails, I'd bit faster than my nails could grow.  Since I've been applying this serum (I try for daily) I feel my nails grow faster than I can bite them.  I'm hoping I'll see even faster nailgrowth with the polish but that remains to be seen.

Today marks the two week anniversary of no biting.

Digging in the Dirt

I had painted my nails a solid color using Sally Hansen's Nailgrowth Miracle but then spent almost four hours today digging in the dirt and completely wrecked the polish job.  On the plus side, it's hard to bite nails when they're caked with dirt.