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.

Zooey Deschanel Stripy Nails

Arden:  We are BIG New Girl fans here at the Casa de Polish.  It's probably the one show that we DVR and watch multiple times throughout the week.  And coincidentally enough, its star, Zooey Deschanel, is pretty well known for her fabulous manicures.  She got a little camera and film strip painted on for the Golden Globes last year, and teeny tiny televisions for the Emmys.  While most of those are too ambitious for me to try out right now, I was browsing the internet a few days ago and found this picture that Zooey Deschanel posted a while ago and thought, "I could do those!"

from http://instagram.com/p/J7Fkk_Ljl_/

I started by painting my nails with two coats of Zoya Wednesday.  I started by dipping the striper brush from our Mash nail brush set in both Essie Mint Candy Apple and OPI Did It On 'Em and then making little X's in both of those colors.  I finished by adding a few more stripes using our gold and silver Color Club striper polishes.  I finished with a top coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat because Essie Good to Go doesn't work well with Zoya polishes (a phenomenon that I will some day devote an entire post to).

Nail Art Nail-Off: Fruit Nails

Interestingly enough, we have now had multiple people suggest to us that we do some fruit-inspired nail art, so today we're both trying our hands at painting fruit on our nails!

Arden:  I decided a bowl of fruit would be my inspiration.  I'd draw a different fruit on four of my nails, and then have them all in a bowl on my thumb.

I started by painting each nail a lighter version of the color of fruit that was going to go on it.  (For the bowl of fruit on my thumb, I used a light blue.)  Then I went through and drew the fruit!

I used a dotting tool to make all of the grapes, and then used a couple of brushes from our new Mash nail brush set to paint on the rest of the fruit.

Here they are in detail: