Broken Hearted Dove

Did you know that mourning doves are monogamous creatures and form strong attachment bonds?  That's why I had a bit of a chuckle when I looked at the names of the two polishes I used to create this manicure.  I picked Zoya Dove and a crackle: China Glaze Broken Hearted.

Dove is one of my favorite colors from Zoya.  It's a very light, opaque grey but it comes out very streaky and I need three coats to get full coverage.  Broken Hearted is just an awesome hot pink crackle.  

Glittering Flowers

Happy Pink Wednesday!  For this manicure I used two new-to-me nail polishes and it was my first time using rhinestones on my nails.  Many firsts here :)

I'd ordered the M.A.S.H. twelve color rhinestone wheel in January but hadn't really found an application to use the rhinestones.  Suffice to say, I'm going to try and incorporate rhinestones into a lot more manicures - I love how this looks!

This is three coats of Essie A Crewed Interest stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Presto Pink using Bundle Monster plate BM-224.  I'm not really pleased with the formula on A Crewed Interest: it just doesn't cover well.  It's opaque, but incredibly streaky.  I probably should have done a fourth coat of it because there were still patchy areas, but since I was stamping I just went with the three.  Formula issue aside, I LOVE wearing this.  I love that the colors have high contrast (for being in the same color group) and I love the sparkle of the rhinestones.

To adhere the rhinestones I'd added a drop of Presto Pink where I wanted to place the gem and then used a tweezers to lower the rhinestone into place.  I added a thick layer of Seche Vite to keep everything together and so far it's holding up great!

Pink Lace

Happy Pink Wednesday!  I'm trying to get caught up on my blog so this will just be a quick post today.  I had Valentines Day in mind when I was creating this manicure.

I used two coats of Zoya Zanna as my base, then using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White I stamped the lace image from Konad plate m71 on top.  I always have the worst of luck stamping with my Konad plates.  I'm not sure if the engraving isn't as deep, but I don't get good results for the transfer of an image to the stamper.  I don't have this problem with my M.A.S.H. or Bundle Monster plates.

Week 3: Color Block Manicure

Week 3 Color Block Manicure was a test of my taping ability.  For this challenge I used the following imaged I pinned on Pinterest for inspiration (BTW if you know the original source for this image please let me know!):

Source:  thenailbank.tumblr.com  via Kristen on Pinterest   

Here's my take:

What do you think?  I started with a base of Essie Eternal Optimist, followed by taping off areas to paint Sally Hansen I Pink I Can, Zoya Areej, and Butter London Rosie Lee.  In between each layer I used a coat of Seche Vite so that the tape wouldn't pull off the layers below.  I forgot what an absolute pain in the bottom this type of manicure is half way though it, but thanks to Hulu I finished it.  And its been much too long since I've worn pink on a Wednesday!

Finally, here is a shot of Essie Eternal Optimist on its own.  This is my go to wear to work polish color.

Be sure to check out what others have done for this challenge by visiting their blogs:

LizMarie at I'm Simply Complex • Jenna at I'm Still Thinking... • Caitlin at Addicted 2 Nails • Sarah at PrncessSarah02 • Charlotte at Charlotte's Nails :) • Shally at Polished & Not Quite Put Together • Rachel-Karina at Polished Criminails • Liz at Nothing But Nail Polish • Fun With My Nail Polish • Operation: Nail It! • Lauriestrodes Fun With Nails • Square Polish • Only Always Soccermom  • Hurr Did, Nails Did • Olivia Writes • The Dragon Lady • Kaki at Glitter Obsession • Isa at IsaBella's World • Gypsy at Gypsy's Glitter • Jackie at MeMa's Mani's  • Lissa at Lissa's Nail Blog

Fifth Avenue Half-Moon

Remember China Glaze Innocence from Monday?  Monday seems so far away now.  For this week's pink manicure I gave the half-moon manicure another try and am loving the results.  On top of Monday's nail color I added two coats of China Glaze Fifth Avenue.

This photo was taken before clean up.  I was cleaning my kitchen and wanted to snap a quick photo in case I damaged a nail and guess what - I did damage one.  I used Out the Door as my top coat and ended up with major tip shrinkage on several of my nails.  Eeek.


Some half-moon manicure tips:

• Apply a top coat (and allow it to try) before putting down tape.  I found that without a top coat my tape would sometimes lift the base color right off my nail when I removed the tape.
• If you place the outer edge of the inner circle's circumference at the base of your cuticle it creates a very evenly sized half-moon on each finger.  

Felicity

When you see pink you know it's Wednesday!  After spending the day with Zoya Felicity on my nails it's hard for me to understand why I bought this polish almost a year ago and didn't wear it until now.

The description that Zoya provides about Felicity is what drew me to this color in the first place:

Soft dusty tea-rose pink with champagne and bright pink duochrome shimmer and flecks of gold.  Multifaceted, magical and very unique, definitely not your average plain pink.

I agree!  It's a truly lovely, magical shade.  I'm also super pleased with how well my manicure held up today; I was terrible on my nails.  I spent all day setting up a standard test method for laboratory evaluation of sacrificial anode test specimens and in the process I used my nails as a scissors, flat-head screw driver, tweezers, wire twister, and pliers.  Not a single chip or tear, and hardly any signs of wear.  The down side to Felicity is that it's still sheer after two coats so any dirt under the fingernail shows up a little too well.

Please pardon the poor cuticle condition.  It's been very hard to keep them in anything less than a semi-arid condition with what I've been up to.

Not Wednesday Anymore But...

Apparently I wasn't meant to wear pink on Wednesday but I tried, I really did.  The plan was to come home from work, polish my nails while doing laundry, and then walk to a class lab.  My plan was perfect, foil-proof.

And then I found my self in my car making an unexpected drive just minutes after painstakingly adorning the tips of my digits with the delightful pink Zoya Portia.  Seven of my ten tiny canvasses had gouges or dents in the polish.  Declaring this polish ruined beyond repair I headed to Walgreens to grab more cotton balls (I would need them, drenched with acetone to remove this calamity).  I snapped a quick picture of my three undamaged nails before heading into the store...where I managed to wreck the polish on those nails too.

I've never had a bottle of Zoya polish like this before - this one stunk to high heavens and gave me an instant headache.  Some people joke that environmental engineers have the worst sense of smell because we're used to smelling sewage all day.  I don't know if that's true or not but my boyfriend can always tell when I've been doing my nails in our apartment even hours afterwards...and I never smell a thing.  Other than the smell, Zoya Portia was a nice polish, applying smoothly with some streaks and was very shiny even without a top coat.

Business Appropriate

I'm back from China as of last week (read more about my China adventure here) and have been super busy catching up with work and graduate school.  I haven't had a lot of time to pull out my nail polish from much less think about painting my nails.

This is essie's Eternal Optimist.  I love this color because it feels very professional to me.  Most nudes end up making me look like I have mannequin hands but this is darker without being over the top.  Before I went to China this is the color I painted my nails - foolish me I thought it would last.  The polish chipped off within two weeks and I wound up biting my nails, ugh.  All that hard work down the drain.

Lovely shade perfect for formal business situations.

Petal Pink

This is a scheduled post because I'm in China! 
(Read more about my trip to China here)

I have pinks in my nail polish collection, sure, but most are bright bold colors.  Lacking are the soft pinks that would match the pinks in my wardrobe!  I picked up this color from my local Walgreens because it was on sale but had I known it was a jelly I would have tried a different color.  I'm usually a two-coat girl but this was five coats, wow, and I still have visible nail line (VNL).  Very true to a typical jelly in the sheer color and how shiny it is.

The color was so sheer and the formula was so thin that I had a hard time seeing where the polish went as I was applying it.  As such I got it everywhere and I am still working on the clean-up at this time.

I smudged my thumb :(

This is essie's Petal Pink, all five ridiculous coats of it.

Why do most people take pictures of the nails while holding a bottle of polish in their hand?  Is it because they feel awkward holding nothing?  I have big hands and I feel awkward trying to fit a little bottle of polish in my hand.  What are your thoughts on this?

Wild for You Pt. 2

This is a scheduled post because I'm in China!

In keeping with the nail polish theme of the week, as determined by the Polish-aholics Anonymous group on Facebook, and since today is Wednesday, and On Wednesdays We Wear Pink, this is a pink zebra manicure.  My cuticles look especially horrible in these photos.  I spent the day cleaning before I painted my nails and they're terribly dried out.  :(

I used Sally Hanson Complete Salon Manicure I Pink I Can as the base with Konad Special Polish in White stamped on top using M.A.S.H. plate m57.

Happi

I'm really amazed at how fast nails grow when they're not bitten.  In fact, it makes me very "happi"!

This is Zoya's Happi.  I love how soft and shimmery this duo-chrome color looks.

Pink

I'm not great at coming up with creative titles for these posts.  Oh well.

This is Zoya Areej with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Disco Ball over top.  I suffer from "it looked a lot lighter in the bottle..." syndrome.  I would love this shade if it looked more like Moondancerjen's nails in this photo than mine.