Happy Monday Kittens! Today's manicure was inspired by the awesome nail blog Chloe's Nails. She always does amazing things with her nails and one idea that I got from her was the concept of the matte flakies. Up until a few days ago I was struggling with my inferior matte top coats. One wasn't matte enough while the other cracked apart while drying. I finally caved and bought Essie Matte About You. I seriously am smacking myself for not buying it sooner. I saw it at Duane Reade for a few dollars cheaper than anywhere else, so that must have been a sign. I FREAKING LOVE IT! I don't know what about fall makes me want matte nails more, but I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of matte mani mondays in the fall.

Now, don't get too put off by the amount of layers on this particular manicure. It evolved over a few day span.
1. I started off with GOSH, Fix Base Coat
2. Then applied two coats of Sally Hanson Hard As Nails Extreme Wear, Purple Pizzazz, a jelly finish purple with specks of golden pink micro flake.
3. Then topped it with a coat of Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat
4. Followed by another coat of Sally Hanson Hard As Nails Extreme Wear, Purple Pizzazz.
5. One more coat of the Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat
(Geez, that's a lot of coats, eh?) I wore that for a few days (no chips baby!) before I added...
6. INGLOT, 205 Flakies
7. One coat of Essie, Matte About You.

Flakies and I were taking a break after a whirl-win romance about a year ago. But when I saw their beautiful duochrome and fiery glow the spark in my glittery heart came rushing back. Oh flakies, how could I have ever let you go!?

Do you like matte nail polish?

Shatter, crackle, whatever you call it, and whether you like it or not, there is no escaping this nail trend. I wasn’t a huge fan of it when it was big in the 90’s and I’m still not today. This is mostly because of the color options. Back in the day there were two choices, white and black. Now, it seems like every polish brand is coming out with their own line of crackle effects thus increasing the color options tremendously. Well kittens, I’m still not sold. I like to be in control of my own colors so I of course DIY’d a work around.

How’d I do it?

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Indian culture has some of the most amaizing colors and embellishishments in the world. This nail design was inspired by beautiful Indian textiles. I started out with just two coats of Zoya, Areej but of course I had up the drama ante by adding some more goodies. I added a 2 sheer layers of Petites, Universe (a sheer gold shimmer with gold flakies) I deepend the gold at the cutical end with GOSH, Gold. To finish it up, I added a couple layers of Sally Girl, gold glittler (unnamed) which has with small and large hex glitters. Then I topped it all off with a layer of Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat.

Pictured: top with all the embellishment and bottom without.

Two manis in a week? YES! Here's my St. Patrick's Day manicure for you all! My background color is two coats of CND, Green Scene. I then then it topped with a coat of INGLOT, 203 which is a green-tone flakie in a clear base. Sally Girl, Chunky Gold Glitter finished off the look. I applied a coat of Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat between the flakies and the gold glitter and two more on top. I included a close up picture to show the depth. Its a little on the blurry part, I should have lit it better and maybe used a tripod. oh well.

The inspiration was green for obvious reasons, the flakies add an essence of magic and the gold represents the pot of gold. Horray... now lets drink a green beer and call it a day. Cheers!

Ok, well, I'm using the term manicure loosely. Even I am offended by state of my own cuticles. Try to avoid the horror and focus on the girly luster of my princess polish. I was inspired by @alwaysinstyle's mani that I saw when we went to a clothing swap a few weekends ago. Hers was a little more on the cool, lilac-pink tone but I don't have anything like that. My collection of polishes errs on the side of warm.

I used two coats of China Glaze, Naked followed by a heavy coat of Sally Girl, EH9. I topped it all off with my usual Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat. So kittens, are you a pretty pretty princess? PS. This would also make a cute, super girly valentines day mani!

I am really excited to show off my first successful half moon manicure. I have always had a hard time doing half moon manicures. This is mostly due to not having proper brushes. Since I got my nail art brushes back in November, I have been able to create much better nail designs. I used two coats of CND, Anchor Blue as my background color. Honestly, this stuff is so opaque that you could get away with only using one coat if you're in a hurry. I then used a short and wide nail art brush to carefully apply the half moon pattern with GOSH, Gold. I then topped it all off with Seche Vite, Fast dry top coat.

I was inspired by the movie Black Swan for my latest nail design. I used two coats of CND, Studio White to create a soft, milky white base color to mimic the white theater makeup worn by Natalie Portman's character. I then used CND, Oil Slick and a medium striping brush to create the wispy dark feather shapes that run diagonally across each nail. The final detail of metallic striping accent was made using Color Club, What A Drag and a small striping brush. For the thumb I filled the entire nail with the feather streaks. I topped it all with Seche Vite, Fast Dry Top Coat.

Have you seen the movie? What do you think?

If you have been hiding under a rock, you may not know about the amazingness that is the flakie. They are one of the coolest nail polish trends to hit the beauty world in a long time. Iridescent flakes of varying sizes and shapes reflect different colors depending on the light, angle and background color. Seriously. They are ridiculously cool.

Products used:

Color Club, Master Of Disguise
INGLOT, 205
Seche Vite, Fast Dry top coat

On the black background, the flakies appear to shine yellow and green. On other background colors, they look different.

I went to a party this weekend and the theme was watermelons. I decided to take it literally and do a watermelon manicure. Please ignore the state of my cuticles. I didn't have time to really make them look nice.

Colors:

Color club: black
China Glaze: watermelon rind
OPI: Jade is the the black
China Glaze: re-fresh mint
China Glaze: strawberry fields
OPI regis radiance
Seche Vite: Fast dry top coat (not pictured)

Technique:

1. apply 1 coat of Regis Radiance
2. apply a coat of Strawberry Fields
3. sponge on Regis Radiance on to top half of nails, let dry for a few minutes
4. apply Jade is the New Black on tip, let dry for few minutes
5. use a small brush to dab on Re-Fresh mint as the stripes on the watermelon rind, on the tips only. apply 2 or 3 on each nail, let dry for a minute
6. apply 1 coat of Watermelon Rind on the tips only. let dry for 2-3 minutes
7. apply 1 or 2 coats of Seche Vite Fast dry top coat.