Zoya Crystal + Snowpocalypse!

WOW. I haven't blogged in awhile. Weather has been crazy blizzard like lately so I've been staying in a lot. Snow days are kind of fun every once in awhile but we've had so many I will have to come back to school even after I've officially graduated! I don't like that idea but we have gone way over our allowed snow days.

I got my Zoya 3 free order in about a 2 weeks ago (minus Zoya Kelly, which was backordered). Zoya Crystal seemed like the perfect icy blue to wear during this cold weather. It went on kind of sheer at first but built up nicely in only 2 coats. The colour is beautiful and has gold flakes in it. It looks really glittery but isn't gritty at all. My pictures don't really show how pretty it is, I had to take them quickly before my fingers froze off. I had never tried Zoya before and I'm impressed so far. The brushes are really nice and easy to use and I haven't had any chipping after a week.

I don't know about the rest of you but we have lots of snow! My boyfriend actually ventured out in the snow and it took him 2 hours to get to my house. (It normally takes 5-10 minutes.) One of those hours was spent shoveling his car out of the apartment parking lot. His car ended up getting stuck right in front of our house. My dad helped him get unstuck.

Have you tried Zoya polishes?
How is the weather where you live?
Peace and Love,
Serena

Cosmic Blue

I recently purchased Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cosmic Blue. Out of all the new Sally Hansen's this one looked the most interesting to me. Its a royal blue with small round holographic glitter and stringy bar shaped holographic glitter. This one looks crazy holographic in the bottle, even in shade.

That picture is just in the shade. Judging by the crazy rainbow effect in the bottle you would think (hope) that all of it showed up on the nail. Not exactly. The blue base covers most of the glitter, making it look like you have bumpy blue glitter. A few pieces of glitter show through and show a holographic effect, but not as much as I was wanting.

Capturing the glitter and holographic was difficult, but my pictures turned out accurate. My expectations are a little high though, this colour still looks neat and a several people noticed the holographic effect. It took 3 coats to get this one opaque and I didn't have any application issues. I wish more of the string glitter showed up on the nail, I only got a few pieces to stick.

What do you think of this colour, is it on your wish list?

Thanks for reading!
Peace and Love,
Serena

Anchor Nail Art

There's a first time for everything I guess...I actually had to edit one of my photos for this blog. Normally my camera does a great job of capturing what the colours actually look like so all I have to do is crop my photos. I took the photos yesterday right before the sun set, so that's probably why the came out looking off. I took more just now in proper sunlight and they all came out accurate. The last picture in this post is edited, the rest are just cropped.

 I have been in the mood to do freehand nail art lately but I have been lacking ideas. All of a sudden I thought I would do a nautical anchor design. The base colour is China Glaze Frostbite, a glowing electric blue. Then I used LA Colors Art Deco to paint stripes on all my nails except the ring finger. I put a few drops of white polish on a piece of paper and used a small artist detail brush to draw the anchor.

My edited picture shows how this colour looks in shade or indoors. My other pictures are in bright sunlight. I never take pictures indoors because the lighting in my house is horrible. We have dark walls and not enough windows. I hope to do more freehand designs like this, I find them really fun and more rewarding. Duplicating this design on my right hand was not fun though!

On another note, a few days ago I checked my blog email and someone emailed me asking to check out their giveaway. She is giving away several prize packages and for each package there are different ways to enter.  I love watching beauty videos on youtube to get nail inspiration. Here is a link to her channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LovelysInstinct . Her contest is running until October 19th so you have plenty of time to enter. While we're on the subject of youtube, one of my favourite nail art channels is LOVE4NAILS. She does step by step nail art tutorials every week and she makes everything look so easy. I get a lot of ideas and inspiration from her. If you're interested in learning how to have strong, healthy, long nails she has several videos on that.

Do you watch nail related videos on youtube?
Who do you watch?

Thanks for reading!
Peace and Love,
Serena

Blue Diagonal Nails

Today's manicure is a simple one. I decided to try a diagonal two colour look, using blue. The first colour I used is OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, a dusty blue. Next to other blues it leans a little blue green. Then I did a diagonal side-swipe using China Glaze Up All Night, a dark navy blue that looks almost black unless you're in bright lighting. Up All Night looks like a creme indoors as well but in the sun it is noticeably shimmery. I think I did a pretty good job doing a straight line with a regular polish brush. This is really easy to do so if you want to try something different with your nails but don't have konad or can't do freehand this would be good for you.

I have no idea why I took that picture with the Dasani water bottle. Maybe I should try to find something random that matches my nails every time I take pictures! If you wanted to you could use a nail art striper brush to do this, but I don't like painting large areas with them. I'm starting to get inspiration, I don't know what was up with me last week. Reading other blogs and watching nail art videos on youtube has helped tremendously. I have 59 followers as of right now, which is amazing to me. I know this sounds cliche but I wasn't expecting so many followers in such a short amount of time. I really enjoy blogging and reading all of your comments, so thank you! 

Peace and Love,

Serena

Scherer Chameleon Blue Sky Duochrome

Today was my first day of school and things went pretty well. I can't believe it's my senior year! I had to cut my nails shorter since I'm in the school orchestra and its impossible to play the violin well with long nails. I was a bit sad at first but I think they still look good. I know this sounds weird but I keep them a little longer on my right hand because I can grip the violin bow better that way. But my left hand has to be short so I can press down on the strings and use vibrato. Anyway, I painted my nails with a polish I bought at Rite Aid before I even started this blog. It's by a brand called Scherer and they call their polishes 'Chameleon'. They all have a pretty strong duochrome, colour changing effect, almost similar to mood rings. This one is called Scherer Chameleon Blue Sky. The name doesn't really fit because blue isn't really the dominant colour in this and it shows up more in the bottle than on the nail.

The application on this polish was horrible...it dried so quickly that it was difficult to apply cleanly and it streaked. I got it to look decent once I figured out how to work the formula. I also encountered bubbling and major brush strokes. The brush didn't fan out very well either, which also contributed to the brush strokes. Despite all the issues I still think its pretty and an interesting polish. It is also fairly cheap so if you really like colours like this and can deal with the formula this is a fun polish to wear. From far away you don't notice the imperfections so much. The colour changing effect is just as noticeable indoors as it is outdoors. I found these at Rite Aid and I believe they were 2 or 3 dollars. I have a few more of these I might try out...I hope the formula on the others is a bit easier to work with but I'm not expecting much. 

The last two pictures I'm holding my crab apple tree that is in my front yard. I heard from one of my neighbors (who has lived in my neighborhood for a long time) that this tree has been there as long as she could remember. I've never eaten one of the crab apples but one of my friends did a while ago and told me they were sour. This tree blooms bright pink during spring, the petals almost resemble cherry blossoms. 

What do you think of this Chameleon polish? Have you seen or tried these? 

Peace and Love,

Serena

Polka Dot Nail Art using Nubar Nail Art Pen

Hello! I meant to post this Saturday but I actually had a somewhat busy weekend. I wanted to do something simple so I used the Nubar Nail Art pen to do a polka dot manicure. I really like these nail art pens, they have a pen tip for dotting and fine details, and a thin brush for lines. I have two of these nail art pens, one is navy blue and the other is blue-green. Here are pictures of one of my nail art pens: (I took a picture of the blue green one because it's easier to see the label on it.)

 You can get these on Nubar's website here: http://www.bynubar.com/store/index.php?p=home . They are $7 each. On the bottom under the label there is a small needle you can use if your pen tip gets clogged up. I have seen similar nail art pens at Claire's for five dollars but I don't have any to compare.

Anyway, now onto the manicure! The base colour I used is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue. It was very opaque and almost perfect in one coat, I did two. Then I used my Nubar Nail Art pen to paint the dots. The pen tip is perfect for dotting but make sure your base colour is completely dry. Also, wait a good 20 or so minutes before putting on topcoat because you could smear your design.

I have been wearing this for 3 days when I took this so excuse the bit of wear. Have you tried Nubar's Nail Art Pens, or Claire's?
Peace and Love,
Serena

OPI What's With The Cattitude? + Konad M73

Konad take two! This is my second attempt at doing some Konad designs on my nails and I am really pleased with how I did. This is only my second attempt at Konad and I decided to try a full nail design. First I painted my nails with OPI What's With The Cattitude?, a pastel-ish sky blue. In my photos it appears much brighter for some reason. I find that odd because these pictures were taken outdoors in stormy weather. The indoor picture is more colour accurate but still slightly off. Anyway, then I used Konad White Special nail polish and stamped a flowery design with plate M73.

Like I said earlier I am really happy with how this turned out. I didn't expect my second attempt to turn out this well. Its not perfect by any means but I still like it! The Konad design effectively masked the horrible application of this polish. I don't think its OPI's formula that is at fault, I think it is the brushes on the OPI minis. I've never had good luck applying with them. When my nails dry they do look slightly better though.

 Do any of you have any nail polish storage tips? I have about 70 or so nail polishes and my current storage is not working. A few bottles of nail polish are just lying around because I don't have a place for them. Right now the majority of my polishes are in an old Sephora box that was lying around the house. Back when I had about 20 or so polishes I thought it would work great. Currently I think it is holding 65 nail polishes, which is way more than I thought I could squeeze in there! If you have any storage suggestions I would really appreciate them.

Peace and Love,
Serena