Spartan Nails

 This is my favorite time of year: Fall, College Football, and Fancy Nails. I'm hoping to keep up my weekly show of Spartan pride this year and I will be collecting those looks here. EDIT: Due to a ridiculous amount of weddings on game days, I didn't get a creative design in each week, but here are the weeks I did manage to find time and inspiration.

 WEEK 11 - SPARTAN INTERLOCKING DOTS

Green: Essie - Mojito Madness
White: Sinful Colors - Snow Me White

How To: This pin should help visually, because my explanations are a bit rough sometimes. I painted my nails all white and then added a diagonal green tip. I started with the green dots (made with a medium tip dotting tool) on the white side of the line, spaced a dot's width apart. Then on the green side I added white dots sort of in between the green dots (check out steps 5 and 6 in the pin above). Then I filled in all the green and white dots, keeping in line with the first set I had made. Yeah, that made no sense.


WEEK 7 - SPARTAN CLOUDS

Green: Essie - Mojito Madness
White: Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather

How To: This is where I got the idea for the design, her tutorial is probably better, but it didn't quite work as well as I wanted. This is what I actually ended up doing. I started with all regularly painted green nails. I had a hard time getting the tops of my clouds to be the perfect OCD round I was looking for. I tried using a dotting tool, but that was too small, so I ended up using the end of a pen (totally normal). Using my very official "dotting tool" I made 3-4 white dots and using the brush I painted a white stripe from just the lowest dot. I repeated the process with the black, and filled in the rest of the tip using the regular brush.



 WEEK 5 - SPARTAN FRENCH

White: Sally Hansen - White On
Green: A ridiculous combo of green polish and glitter (just buy a green glitter striper, I found one after this at Sally's Beauty)
Pink: Essie - Vanity Fairest

How To: Pretty standard french tip process. I painted all my nails the base pink color and free handed the white tip. The best part of adding glitter is that you can cover up any imperfections in the white. Now, I do not recommend using a paintbrush and a sketchy glitter concoction, like I did. Go get a green glitter striper and make it easy on yourself.



WEEK 4 - SPARTAN ARGYLE

Green: Sally Hansen - Going Green
White - Sally Hansen - White On
Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather
Silver striper

How To: Start off by painting half your nail green and half white, I alternated each nail as to which color was on the tip/base. I tried to be somewhat neat, but I didn't go crazy making sure my lines were perfect, because I essentially covered up the area they meet. (Sidenote: this green polish will make this white polish turn yellow if they overlap, I don't which one is more to blame, so I've tried to start using other polishes if I know the white is going on top of the green.) Now I waited forever for that to dry, I may have actually done this the night before and finished in the am. Next, I cut a piece of tape in half so I had square corners and placed the tape corner to corner meeting where my two polish colors met. Then I just painted the non-tape covered areas with the black polish and removed the tape immediately. And to finish I took a silver striper and added the criss-crossing lines. I always started with the "V" at the base of my nail and made sure that all the lines crossed each other. Just watch her video it makes more sense then my rambling. I get a lot of my ideas from her and then I just make it Spartanified.



WEEK 2 - SPARTAN CHEVRONS



Green: Essie - Mojito Madness
White: Sally Hansen - White On
Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather

How To: This is actually a lot easier than it looks, but be warned it's somewhat time consuming. First, get some regular Scotch tape and paint a large section 2 coats of white and another large section 2 coats of black. Then while those are drying, apply to your nails 2 coats of green and seche vite top coat. I would suggest a very long dry time (as in go get a coffee and pick up your dry cleaning) before moving on to part two. Now that everything is super dry you can get on to the fun part. Using a pair of craft scissors cut varying widths of white and black zig-zags. I cut and placed the strips individually so I could work on one pattern at a time. I placed each strip with a tweezer for better control and then with a cuticle clipper I trimmed off any excess pieces. And finally, apply a thick top coat to meld the whole thing together.



WEEK 1 - NEON POLKA DOTS

Green: China Glaze - Kiwi Cool-ada
White: Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather

How To: This one is pretty simple. As with all neons, I started with a coat of an opaque white and 2 coats of Kiwi Cool-ada. Using a medium size dotting tool, I started with one color of dots then filled in between with the opposite color.

Parade of Pinks

I want to preface the next few posts with a few FYI items. When I was only working in the office I felt like I could do some crazy things because I wasn't going to see any clients and no one else really cares, but now I'm back out on jobs so I have to tone it down a bit. As a result, I unintentionally picked only pink and purple polishes for the last two months (and one green that is going to show up randomly in a future post). Also, you may notice that as my work stress level increases there is an inverse effect on the length of my nails, so sorry about the that. 

Orly - Fancy Fuchsia

Fancy Fuchsia - This color makes me super happy!!!! It may be the best Barbie pink I think I may ever find. FF is very bright and it borders on neon. The best part of this polish is that is has way better coverage than any of the CG neons that I own. As a reference, this has a cream finish and the shade is right in between CG Shocking Pink and CG Purple Panic.

Layla - Coral Glam

Coral Glam - oooooooooo soooo pretttyyyy. This is another one of the Layla holo polishes I picked up at Ulta a while ago. Ulta was out of Retro Pink by the time I went to get more, so I had to settle for Coral Glam. While it's more peach than I would prefer, all of these holos have a gorgeous rainbow effect, so I imagine I'm going to love all of them. I did end up using Gelous as a top coat, which did make the mani last a bit longer, but not much.

Essie - Plumberry, Fergie by W&W - Hollywood Walk of Fame

Plumberry w/ Hollywood Walk of Fame - I wore this polish just recently and it is a great color to transition into Fall. At first this reminded me of Essie Watermelon, until I swatched them next to each other. Plumberry, while also leaning more red than pink, has a lot more bluish/berry tones. Fergie partnered with Wet n Wild on this small collection, but I just picked up this one polish. This has Star confetti (gold, silver, teal, coral, and lilac) with small silver bar and round glitters. The glitter did not go on evenly, I suggest just placing the color stars that you would like around your nail.

OPI - You Callin' Me a Lyre?

You Callin' Me a Lyre? - This is the pink from the OPI NYC Ballet collection. Like the white that I had previously worn, it is very sheer, but has that nice one color french mani effect. I'm glad that I went with the pink in a full size over the white, because the pink is a much more flattering than the slightly dirty looking white.

Sinful Colors - Glass Pink

Glass Pink - So I didn't even take a picture of this polish because I just kind of threw it on when I couldn't decide on anything else. It was very sheer, pale, had a bit of silver shimmer, and wasn't anything special. It gave sort of the same effect as the OPI, but not quite as good.

OLYMPIC NAILS!!!

 Here's how I decided to show my Olympic spirit throughout the Games.

Olympic Medals

The Polish:   

• Gold: Studio M - Gold Glitter
• Silver: Sinful Colors - Queen of Beauty
• Bronze: OPI - Warm & Fozzie
• Red: Art Club Striper -  Red on Red
• White: Sally Hansen - White On
• Blue: Art Club Striper - Electric Universe

The Process:
Medals - Paint a nail gold, silver, and bronze, duh. Although to make it a little easier and to avoid a really thick layer of glitter polish, I would suggest using a similar color of an opaque metallic first then layer the glitter over it. 

U.S. Flag - First, I painted the whole nail white. Next, I used the blue striper to create a square in the corner of my nail. I then followed up with a red striper on the rest of the nail. To finish, I used a very small dotting tool to create the white "stars."

Union Jack - First, I painted the whole nail white. Using the red striper I created the cross in the center of the nail. Then, I added the diagonal red stripes. Finally, using a blue striper I added little blue triangles next to each red stripe. To be honest if I ever do this again I would go about the process completely differently. I would paint the whole nail blue, paint a large white cross and white diagonal stripes, and then add the red stripes in the center of all the white. I think that would make the design a bit cleaner overall. 

Olympic Rings

The Polish:   

• White: Sally Hansen - White On
• Yellow: China Glaze - Sunshine Pop
• Blue: Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue
• Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather
• Red: Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby
• Green: Essie - Mojito Madness  

The Process:  Let me just start by saying I don't think I will do anything like this again. I know it seems fairly similar to a half moon mani, but somehow it was a complete mess and I mostly blame it on that crappy yellow that I don't like that much aslfjl;asjdfiofoajsdohfoej. Rant over. I started by painting each nail the color of an Olympic ring and let it dry. Then, like the half moon mani, I placed those hole reinforcement stickers around my nail where I wanted the color to show through. Next, I painted over the whole nail with a white polish. This is where it got really messy. I'm not sure if it was because my white polish was getting old so it was goopy or if I was trying to go too fast and the layers weren't dry enough, but regardless white got everywhere. The other big problem was that the yellow reacted with the white so that it wasn't white anymore. I ended up adding a layer of top coat and then layered more white; if you're keeping track there are about 10 layers of polish on my thumb at this point (strengthener, base, 2 color, 2 white, top coat, 2 white, top coat). 

Butter London - The Black Knight

The Black Knight - Ok it's not exactly Olympics-y but I thought the fact that it was a Butter London polish made it fit with the theme. And besides aren't those red, white, and blue glitters..... well no, they're actually pink, blue, and gold, but still pretty. I honestly couldn't get a picture to really show how much the glitter shimmers. The glitter looks kind of grainy in the pic, but in really life it's all sparkle. From my previous experience with Butter London, I thought I would be proactive and just start with an opaque black and then add the glitter over top. I did two coats of CG - Liquid Leather and one coat of The Black Knight and it worked great.

NOTW - Audrey Gets Inspired by the Internet

These are a few nail art designs that I found all over the internets (blogs, YouTube, Pinterest) and decided to try for myself. Here are the results:

Effie Trinket Reaping Nails

The Polish: 

     Purple: Zoya - Reagan

     Gold: Color Club - Disco Nap

 

The Process: I started with my few day old Reagan mani and decided to extend it with gold tips. I painted the gold polish onto the end of a cosmetic sponge and began dabbing it on the tip of my nail. I focused on the tip first to get the gold opaque and then moved gradually up the nail. When there was just a little gold left on the sponge I dabbed it all over the nail to get very subtle gold gradient.

The Inspiration: To be fair there are a bunch of YouTube tutorials out there and plenty of versions on Pinterest, but here are the first two that I saw: julieg713, cutepolish

White On Black Half Moon Mani

The Polish: 

      Black: China Glaze - Liquid Leather

      White: Sally Hansen - White On

      Glitter: Kiss Nail Art Paint - Silver Glitter

The Process: This is actually one of the simplest nail art designs to work with and it's so easy to change it up and play with different colors/combos. First, I painted all my nails black (I suggest using an opaque-in-one-coat polish so there is less drying time). After the base polish is dry, I placed one of those hole reinforcement stickers, cut in half, on each nail covering as much of the black that I want to be exposed at the end of the mani. I then painted the tips of each nail white and let that color dry almost completely before removing the stickers. The nice thing about adding the glitter is that if there are any imperfections after pulling up the stickers, the glitter will cover it.

The Inspiration: I got this idea from a pin I found during one of my first browsing sessions through Pinterest, and here is the link to the actual blog post from Let them have Polish!

AMERICA!!!!!!!

The Polish:

     Red: Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby

     White: Sally Hansen - White On

     Blue: Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue

     Glitter: Essie - Set in Stones 

     Stars: Michaels Confetti Stars (I actually only found white stars in the "It's a Girl" confetti pack so I got 

        those, but I also bought a pack of multi-color stars)

The Process: My version of this began by painting by thumb and index finger blue and then painting the rest white. I waited for my nails to be fairly dry before I started the actual nail art process. I had some blank sticker labels laying around, so I cut those into strips and placed a couple on my pinkie and middle finger. I painted the entire nail red, after it dried I pulled off the strips to uncover the white underneath. Just to add a little sparkle, I topped my ring finger with some glitter (basically one coat, with a couple glitters strategically placed). On to the stars, I put a dab of clear polish where I wanted the stars and placed them around the nail. To be honest I would do this differently if was ever going to put stars on my nails again. I needed to push the stars into the blue polish more and they needed to be shaped a little so they actually fit the curve of my nail and didn't stick out and scratch the bejezzus out of everything.

The Inspiration: This design comes from MissJenFABULOUS, you can find her info on this design on YouTube, her Blog, or Pinterest.

NOTW - Sunshine Pop, Avery, Hazard

China Glaze - Sunshine Pop

Sunshine Pop - More like sunshine fizzle. I've never tried a yellow polish, so I thought I would give it a whirl...yeah pretty much never again. I think I'll reserve the yellow for something involving rainbows or Lisa Frank. Although it looks like it, this is not a "happy-face" yellow. The polish has some shimmer which is what makes it look less than pure, bright yellow. I felt like there was a slight (teeny, tiny slight) orange cast, which made the color look dingy on my nails. Overall, just not a fan of this on me.

Zoya - Avery

Avery - It may not seem very exciting, but I reeeeaaaallllllllllly liked this polish. I just couldn't think of anything "fun" that I wanted to do, so I decided to try out one of the other neutrals that I bought from Zoya a while ago. I have to say that I actually liked this a lot more than Kennedy (cuz they're sooooo different [this is a joke, I know that having polishes barely a shade different is silly, but I do, so that happened]). Zoya's website does a good job of describing the color, opacity, finish, and tone. I should really start paying more attention to that, becuase I need to stop buying cool toned polishes; they make my skin look terrible. Avery was more complementary to my skin tone and just made my fingers look long and elegant.

Sinful Colors - Hazard

Hazard - I thought this looked a lot like Coral Reef (although not based on the photo in a previous post, I feel like that pic made it look a bit more pink than real life), and CR also had that odd dingy look. I would definitely call Hazard an orange, but it's a soft orange. This is a very wearable, happy summer polish.

NOTW - Rage, Pink Forever, Blue Me Away!

Orly - Rage

Rage - (with Suzi and the Lifeguard, Jewelry Heist) Unimpressed. Rose gold is huge right now and even though I don't wear a ton of jewelry I am soooo close to giving into this trend. Well I guess technically with this polish I did give in. Basically every aspect of Rage fell short of my expectations. The rose part of rose gold was too subtle, application got more frustrating as it became progressively more goopy, the finish was streaky, and the glitter/sparkle/metallic effect was grainy. Clearly it sounds like I hate it, but now that I'm looking at it I guess I'm only moderately disappointed. Here's the thing, I could look past the application issues if this was more rosey and was distinctly different than any other gold metallic polish I own, but it's not. Honestly, if you want a rose gold polish, you could probably do better with something else, and if you're looking for any gold polish option, you can definitely do better.

Sinful Colors - Pink Fovever

Pink Forever - I was contemplating doing another ombre manicure with pinks this time, but I realized I only have really pale pinks or dark pinks, and nothing seems to go together. Let me give you some background on me, when I decide to do an ombre my OCD comes out in full force; the polishes I use have to be the same tone and finish (only creams, only shimmer, etc.). ANYWAY! I realized I don't have any medium pink cream polishes, well this had to be remedied immediately. I found this polish at Target and it certainly fit the bill and as an added bonus, didn't break the budget (ahahhaha budget, nail polish, me, ahahahah). There is nothing ground breaking about this polish, but for $2 it's a great bubble gum pink cream. No complaints about application, easily opaque in two coats. It is possibly a bit runny, as it dripped off the wand part of the brush, but that may have been due to operator error.

Sally Hansen - Blue Me Away!

Blue Me Away! - Cute name, but false. The main reason I wasn't blown away is because the color was a lot darker on my nails than it looked in the bottle (the pic is actually a lot lighter than real life). The polish was very opaque so I'm wondering if you were really careful and only applied one coat, if that would keep the polish lighter like the bottle. On my accent nails are Blue Me Away! and Pacific Blue, yeah that lighter color is the same polish as the rest of the mani. I used Konad plate M57 (I think I need to expand my Konad collection, I have a whole mess of Bundle Monster plates, but the quality just does not compare) and stamped the flowers individually, alternating colors. I liked the mani because it worked with my outfit that day, but I'm not sure this color will make it into the favorites, or even likes, rotation.