Geometric Nails

Arden: Today's inspiration comes from this tutorial I saw online a week or two ago:

I wasn't super impressed with the argyle pattern in the tutorial, but I REALLY liked the other nails in the picture.  I liked them so much, I decided to recreate them in the same colors and everything!

I started with a base layer of L'Oreal One Stop Base Coat, then two coats of Sally Hansen White Out.  I applied Essie Good to Go to help the white base dry faster.  Once it was good and dry, I applied striping tape in the pattern I wanted, then painted over it with L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight and Cover Girl Non-Stop Stone.  After painting each nail (before the polish had a chance to dry) I removed the striping tape using a pair of tweezers.

Here's the previous instructions in a picture tutorial!

I then painted an additional coat of Essie Good to Go on top of each nail, and voila!  Super fun geometric nails!

You can tell in the pictures that I had a little trouble with the white showing through at the tips of my nails.  Not sure what caused this: not painting the grey or real all the way to the tip? adding the top coat while the polish was too wet? It's probably some combination of all of the above.

If you haven't tried striping tape yet, you SHOULD!  It's really really amazingly cheap (we're talking less than a dollar for 10 rolls) and it has a pretty shallow learning curve.  Once you figure out how to remove it with your tweezers, you're basically good to go!

Plus, it is ALWAYS my striping tape nail designs that make people take one look at my hands and go, "HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?"  So try it!

Nail Art Fail: Rose Nails

Arden: Hi, friends!  After Lisl made rose nail art for the tri-color challenge in May, I decided that I'd like to try them out myself.

Full disclosure: I was SUPER tempted not to blog these nails because they did NOT GO WELL.  But Lisl encouraged me to put them out there so you guys can see what it's like when nail bloggers try something and fail.  So here's to failure!

It started innocently enough.  I decided to use Sally Hansen I Lilac You (which I found in the clearance bin at Target two weeks ago) as my base.  It's the palest lilac purple I own, and I love it!

I then followed the Nailasaurus' tutorial on how to make rose nails.  I painted on splotches in New York & Company Peony Blossom and then added some outlining using Revlon Cherries in the Snow.  I first tried using our smallest nail art brush for this task, then our smallest dotting tool, and ultimately a toothpick.

NOTHING WORKED.  As much as I wanted to paint on nice artsy contour lines, what kept coming out onto my nails were ugly blobs.  I tried to make it better by adding some lighter colored lines using CoverGirl Pink Lady, but that didn't go well either.  This is what I was left with:

As you can tell, this manicure wasn't helped by the fact that Cherries in the Snow bleeds TERRIBLY when you apply a top coat over it.  Both the pointer and ring finger were hit hard by streakage.  

Not that I cared a whole lot, since my poor roses just looked like sad pink blotches.  I don't know, maybe I'll try this design again sometime, when I'm better at using our brushes (or maybe I have a different one?).  But for now, I can attest that this style is not nearly as simple as it looks.

Gradient Candy Stripe Nails

Arden: Hi, imaginary friends!  So sorry for our spotty posts last week-- I was out of town on leading my youth mission trip, where I often didn't have cell service, much less Internet access and nail polish supplies.  But I'm back now and excited to share my mission trip nails with you!

Before I left on my trip, I put a lot of thought into what manicure I wanted to sport on my nails for the whole week I was gone.  I ultimately decided on this gradient candy stripes design I found on Pack a Punch Polish. 

I started by painting my nails white using OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  I decided that instead of doing my usual base coat + two coats of white, I'd follow these directions Julep published recently.  So, I painted a base coat, one coat of white, a matte top coat, and then another coat of white.  Not gonna lie, didn't really see a huge difference in how evenly my white coat looked.  Sorry, Julep, don't think I'll be using your method again.

Then I applied striping tape in diagonal lines across my nails (three pieces per nail).  Following the instructions on Pack a Punch Polish, I then sponged on brightly colored gradients doing each color individually on the sponge.  In retrospect, I think my colors would've blended a lot better if I'd followed my usual gradient method of applying several colors on the sponge at once.   If you try these out, let me know which way you think works best!

Colorful Feathery Striped Nails

Arden: When I saw The Nailasaurus' striped manicure technique last Friday, I instantly knew I wanted to try it out!  I initially was just going to use a couple of colors (greens, blues, and purples), but before I knew it I'd ended up using nearly every shade of the rainbow, and I loved it!  Though I wasn't thinking about it going in, the end result really reminded me of some kind of multicolored furry creature that might be in a Dr. Seuss book.  What do you think?

I started by painting my nails with two coats of L'Oreal Creme Puffs.

I thought that looked a little too yellow for the neutral base color I was going for, so I ended up adding two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu and it worked perfectly to transform the color into a little creme shade:

Next, I started adding color!  Using one of the striping brushes from our MASH nail art brush set, I striped on lines of each color.  I tried to alternate between long brush strokes and shorter ones, as well as between darker colors and lighter ones.  I didn't want all of the darker colors to get covered up by the lighter colors, or vice versa.

Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Glosstini Review & Swatches

Arden here!  In my very first post on Casa de Polish I swatched a couple of Cover Girl's Outlast Stay Brilliatn nail polishes, and now they're back!  Cover Girl has just released a bunch of new summery shades in these cute smaller bottles they call "glosstinis."  I have long been a fan of miniature versions of items, so these mini bottles of polish called my name as soon as I spotted them.  I ended up getting four colors to try: Pink Lady (#500), Lemon Drop (#525), Blue Hawaiian (#535), and Purple Freeze (#540).  (Cover Girl still insists on not listing the name of the polish on the bottle, just the number.)

First up is Pink Lady, two coats plus top coat.  I will admit that this is probably my least favorite of the shades I bought, but I also am not a big fan of pink polishes.  It is a lovely light pink shade, and I didn't own anything like it (again, because I rarely buy pink polish), but on my nails it didn't really pop out at me as much as I'd hoped.

Next is Lemon Drop.  I really like this polish-- it's a shade lighter than the other yellows I own, but it's still plenty bright and summery.  It also had good coverage-- this is only two coats plus top coat.  The one downside to this polish is that it stained my skin when I took it off with acetone.  You can tell in the next picture how my knuckles kind of have a yellowish tint to them.  I'm sure I could have scrubbed harder with acetone to remove it all, but this is usually not as bad a problem with other polishes.

Splatter Paint Nails Tutorial

Arden here!  Did anybody else's family do a lot of splatter painting when they were younger?  Maybe it was just me, but I definitely had several articles of clothing that featured some home-made splatter paint when I was in elementary school.  Today's manicure brought back all that 90's awesomeness!

I had been looking to do some really colorful nails, and my original plan was to try a rainbow pattern.  But the more I thought about it, the more tedious, time-consuming, and un-fun painting on a gazillion rainbow stripes sounded.  So I decided to go in another, infinitely more fun direction.  And I'm so glad I did, because this is by far my favorite manicure I've given myself yet!

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Sally Hansen Black Out.

I then started splatter painting!  All you really need to do this technique is a straw.  I did not have a full-sized drinking straw, so I used a little red coffee stirrer straw.  I do think that no matter the diameter of your straw, it probably helps to cut them down so they're shorter.  I ended up cutting each coffee stirrer in thirds.

Next, make a little puddle of the nail polish you want to splatter on a paper plate/wax paper/Ziploc baggie/whatever water-resistant surface you want.  Dip one end of the straw in the nail polish.  Then hold it over your nail, and blow into the other end of the straw.  (Be careful not to inhale the polish!)

It will probably take you a couple of tries to work out all of the kinks.  Here I am practicing on wax paper.  As you can tell, the nail polish didn't so much splatter out of the straw as drip down.  (But that one in the lower left corner looks good!)

I found that blowing a quick sharp breath helped.  Also, it worked better for me when I made a tah sound as I blew, instead of a wah.

Here are my nails after I finished my first color.  They weren't too impressive.

Yeah, that's right, the pinky and pointer finger basically only have small drops on them.

May Tri-Polish Challenge Day 4 - Tuxedo Nails + Mini-Tutorial

Ok guys!  This is it. Today is the last day of the Tri-Polish Challenge for May.  I did it!  I'm done!  I don't know what it was about this month, but I feel like it was extra hard, but I did it! Go me!  

So, perhaps you have not been keeping up with the Tri-Polish Challenge and wonder what my SUPER GRUELING task was.  Let me tell you:

I picked three nail polishes (OPI - Quarter of a Cent-Cherry, Butter London Blagger, and Cover Girl Non-Stop Stone), for the three assigned colors this month - red, blue and grey and created four manicures using those polishes.  Want to see the other ones? Check them out here, here and here.

Anyhoodle, I felt like the colors I chose this month were really mens-wear-y so I decided to make some tuxedo nails.

Keep reading for the tutorial and more pictures!

Crumpets Nail Tarts: May Tri-Polish Challenge Day 3

Hey y'all, it's Lisl. So here is my third Tri-Polish Challenge manicure for May presented without comment.

Just kidding! I have so many comments! Read on!

Before I start the commenting, here's the deal with the Tri-Polish Challenge.  It's a challenge organized by Crumpet's Nail Tarts.  The rules are simple.  Every month there are three assigned colors.  This month it's grey, blue and red and I chose the nail polishes Cover Girl Non-Stop Stone, Butter London Blagger and OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry.  Now I just have to create four manicures using those three polishes!

For manicure #3 I was inspired by all the pretty rose manicures I've been seeing recently, like the ones on Polished Elegance and Nailasaurus. I started out using striping tape to make vertical stripes on each nail, with Sally Hansen White Out as a base.

Crumpets Nail Tarts: May Tri-Polish Challenge Day 2

Hey y'all, it's Lisl.  It's a little late now (I mean as I'm writing this, not as you're reading it. I don't know your life), so I'm going to keep this quick!  This is my second manicure for the Tri-Polish challenge this month.  

(Tri-Polish Challenge recap: there are three official colors for the challenge every month, I pick three polishes corresponding to those colors and create four manicures using those colors!)

Florida Nails

Arden here: Hi everyone!  I'm super excited to report that I'm headed out tomorrow to visit family in Florida for a week!  I can't wait!

To celebrate my impeding vacation, I painted my nails to match my destination!  After an extensive Google search for "Florida nail art" I discovered this design.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to pull it off, but I think I did a pretty good job.

I started by painting my nails with two coats of L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight.

I then cut up a make-up sponge into little pieces and used each on to sponge on a different color of the sunset.

Crumpet's Nail Tarts: May Tri-Polish Challenge Day 1

Hiya! It's Lisl.  So we are coming up on the tail end of May, which is absurd because I'm 90% sure that yesterday it was February, but whatever.  End of May means it is Tri-Polish Challenge time again, and this is great because challenges give my life structure, and I am a child and require lots of structure in order to be able to do anything.

Anyway. Challenges have RULES and the full rules for the Tri-Polish Challenge are here.  But the simple story is this:  there are three official colors for the challenge every month, I pick three polishes corresponding to those colors and create four manicures using those colors!

This month I chose OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry, Butter London Blagger, and Cover Girl Non-Stop Stone.

I started with a base of Quarter of a Cent-Cherry.

Two things about this nail polish.  One: when I was cleaning off the edges of my nails it bled all over my cuticles and then stained them bright red.  So that is what is going on there. Two:  it looks CRAZY different depending on what light it is in.  I started out all "this is a lot darker than I expected," then I went into the bathroom and it suddenly turned bright red.  Here is a very janky picture of my nails in the bathroom!

Rainbow Vertical Gradient Nails

Arden: I've seen a couple of iterations of rainbow nails on the internet the last several weeks, so I decided to finally try it myself!  For mine, I did a vertical gradient, so instead of sponging on colors from the tip to the base of the nail, I sponged them on from left to right.

I used three colors on each nail: a darker shade of color A, a lighter shade of color A, and then a darker shade of color B (with the colors going in the order of the rainbow, ROYGBIV).  On a couple of nails I initially used four colors (adding a lighter shade of color B), but that didn't really look good, so I ultimately just used 3 colors on each nail.

I used A TON of colors in this manicure!  Here they are (in pictorial and list form):

NOTD: Skittle Saran Wrap Manicure

Arden here: For today's nail of the day, we're going to learn some new nail art vocabulary!  Here are three nail art techniques that are often confused:

1. Gradient: when one color gradually gives way to the next on an individual nail.  Check out our gradient tutorial here.

from http://blog.julep.com/fan-nail-of-the-day-ombre/

2. Ombre: when each nail is a different shade of the same color (often going from darkest to lightest).  We haven't posted one of these yet on Casa de Polish, but maybe we should!

Eagle-eyed readers will notice this is both a Skittle AND a gradient.

3. Skittle: when each nail is a different color--- like a bag of Skittles!  We've shown a couple of these, most notably right after Easter.

Springtime Gradient Nails

Arden here: Friends, I have a confession.  I ultimately ended up doing two Easter manicures.  After I painted on my cute Easter egg mani, I ended up destroying one of the nails in the shower!  It was slightly devastating.

For my second attempt, I went slightly less specifically Easter, so I could wear it for a few days after Easter.  (I don't know about you, but one of my least favorite things about a holiday-themed manicure is waking up the day after and being like, "UGH, my nails are so out of date now!")  I ended up deciding on a sparkly pastel gradient skittle manicure!  (That was a lot of adjectives all together!)

Nail Art Nail-Off: Happy Easter! (Part 2)

Happy Easter, everyone!  I hope you enjoyed Lisl's Easter nails and decal tutorial!  Here is my take on Easter nails. 

I started by painting my nails with Revlon Dreamer.  Then I sponged on OPI Did it On 'Em  for grass.  I carved an egg shape out of a pencil eraser (no picture cause I'm a little embarrassed how makeshift my egg stamp looks).

I used the erase egg stamp to stamp eggs onto the nails using L'Oreal Creme Puffs,  Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Pink Blink, L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented, and Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Coral Silk.  I used the same colors to decorate the eggs using a "dotting tool" (read: a super small wall nail).  I also stamped some Revlon Snow Flurries onto the remaining eggs for some sparkle.  (Disclaimer: I have had Snow Flurries since I was in 9th grade or something, so I have NO IDEA if they still make it or not.)

Please excuse the cut on my pointer finger

Nail Polish Swatches: Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss

When Jennifer Lawrence got up to the microphone to accept her Oscar at the Academy Awards a few weeks ago, I instantly tweeted:

Seriously, look how beautiful her nails were that night!

from: http://www.beautybloggingjunkie.com/2013/02/oscars-nails-jennifer-lawrence.html

I took to Google, and the internet gods smiled on me not once, but twice: not only had the 24 hr news cycle already reported on what nail polish she used (or more accurately, her manicurist), but it was a brand I could get for $6 at the drugstore!  Since I'd been in the market for a good nude polish, I stopped by CVS on the way home from work the next evening and bought a bottle of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss (what a mouthful!) in Forever Frosted (#115).