Purple Gradient Aztec Nails

Arden: Sorry, dear readers!  We've been majorly derelict in blogging the last week.  Life got crazy!  But hopefully we're back on track now.

Today I have another not 100% successful nail art manicure to share.  It started with a gradient.  An awesome FOUR COLOR gradient.  I'm still pretty jazzed about my Julep Eden polish, and was looking to use it in a manicure.  I thought, "Hey, I've got a lot of shades of purple polish now.  Why not try a gradient with as many purple polishes as I can fit on my fingers?"  So I did!

I ultimately went with four purple polishes (listed from light to dark):

Sally Hansen I Lilac You
L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented
Zoya Mira
Julep Eden

I followed it up with a matte top coat (Essie Matte About You), because I always think gradients look cool mattified.  (Though as you can tell on my pointer finger, sometimes matte coats also cause the tip of your nail to look not-so-good.)

NOTD: Quick, Easy Dotted Nails

Arden: This manicure is one that can definitely be done by anyone in a hurry, because *I* did it in a hurry.  The day my rose nails spectacularly crashed and burned, I needed SOMETHING to put on my nails before I left the house, so I threw this together real fast.  I actually drew my inspiration from a manicure One Nail to Rule Them All did back at Christmastime. 

When I first saw the post on One Nail to Rule Them All, I thought the dots were in a shooting star pattern, which seemed appropriate all year long.  It wasn't until after I finished mine that I realized she'd originally intended them to be a Christmas tree.  Oops!

I created mine by painting on two coats of Zoya Monica and then adding dots of Sally Hansen Celeb City with my smallest dotting tool.  The first day I wore them glossy:

Please ignore how dry my cuticles are in all of these pictures.  I should've moisturized!

But the next I added a coat of Essie Matte About You.  I can't decide which I like better!  I think Monica looks better glossy, but I like the silver dots better in the mattified version.  With a different background color, the matte version could definitely be better.

And that's them!  These were really quick and easy.  If you're ever looking to make your first foray into nail art, I definitely recommend trying out a design with random dots.  Dots aren't that hard to do (especially ones that aren't in a regular pattern) and you get a big bang for your buck!

What easy manicures have you been trying out lately?

Leopard Print Camo Nails

Arden: I've got a crazy nail design for you today!  I just bought a new skirt + cardigan combo in a military green color palette (is there a better word for that color?  forest green? olive green?) and decided I wanted nails to match.

My first thought was to make camo nails, but I wasn't super confident in my ability to recreate camouflage on my nails, so I decided to use some very camo-like colors in a similar pattern that I'd never tried: leopard print.

I started by painting my nails with two coats of OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window (yes, it is actually called that).  I think this shade might have been discontinued, because I bought it in the mark-down bin at my local beauty supply store, so if you love it go searching for it now!  This was my first time trying it out, and I was surprised by how much I loved the luscious forest-y greenness of this polish.

I then used a dotting tool to make uneven splotches all over each nail using Essie Playa del Platinum.

I Can't Afford That: Stella McCartney Roseberry Lace Dress + Debut of my Mash Nail Art Brush Set

Aaaah!!!! So much to write about today, guys!  (By the by, this is Lisl, if you can't tell by the fact that I opened with "Aaaah!!!!")  Today I'm writing about my obsession with this amazing, amazeballs (that's right - two different kinds of amaze) Stella McCartney dress, and I am ALSO showing off my new nail art brush set.  Can we handle that many things at once? 

Keep reading to find out if we can handle that many things at once!

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.

Nail Art Nail-Off: Matte Nails

This week on Nail Art Nail-Off, we're experimenting with matte nail polish!  Matte nails are pretty fashionable right now, and there's actually a lot of fun stuff you can do by mattifying (is that a word?) your manicure!

Arden's take: I started by painting my nails with two coats of Maybelline Color Show's Impeccable Greys.

I then added a thin top coat of Essie Matte About You.  If you want to read more about this matte coat, check out my review here.

I then cut 3 triangles out of Scotch tape and applied them to my nails leaving a star burst pattern visible at the tips.  I'm afraid I forgot to take pictures of this step, but I went back later and took a picture of the tape so you could get an idea of how to position it:

Review: Essie Matte About You Top Coat

Arden: I did it guys!  I finally invested in a matte top coat.  I did a little bit of internet research, and it looked like most people's favorite matte top coat was the one made by Essie, so I decided to check it out.

For my first time out, I decided to just try a simple reverse triangle manicure.  I started by painting my nails Essie Navigate Her with L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented on my ring finger as an accent nail.  Then I used Scotch tape to tape of little triangles at the base of my nails and painted those in the opposite color.