Duochrome Topper Madness

Hey everyone!

Today I have for you some old pictures that originally appeared as a guest post on Wendy's blog, but since I've gotten a tiny bit better at photo editing I figured I'd give them a second chance. I've also been missing my long nails since I recently chopped them lower than ever (pictures to come!).

First I have pictures of Zoya Breezi (blue) and OPI Manicurist of Seville (red). Then, I'll show you what can happen with a little layering magic!

Here's Breezi again, topped with Nubar 2010. How gorgeous are flakies over blues? I mean, come on now.

And the final transformation: MoS topped with Kleancolor Chunky Holo Fuschia. Another winner!

There we have it! Sorry this first-post-of-the-semester didn't come sooner, but I've been really discouraged by the amount of work I have already! I'm trying to change that!

Thank you so much for reading! What are your favorite layering combinations?

Janna

Summertime with Zoya Zuza and Myrta

Hey everyone!

I'm back today with two colors from the Zoya Surf Collection that came out this summer. I really liked the look of these two together so I decided to pair them together. Here are Zoya Zuza (blue) and Zoya Myrta (orange).

Truest to color

As you can see, Myrta is a very red-toned orange and NOT a secondary or pumpkin orange. Don't be fooled! I tried to make sure my pictures are true-to-color.

I really loved both of these colors but I have some comments. They both stained, Myrta more than Zuza surprisingly and I used base coat, so next time I'll have to double-up. The formula was very interesting; they both dried fast so I had some drag marks where the polish came up when I went over it a second time, so I would suggest working fast and as few strokes as possible.

You can also notice the chip on my thumb that I hastily tried to cover up with another coat of polish. I don't think this is the fault of the polish, just so you know.

This is a fun summer manicure and I love a good accent nail. What do you think about the Surf Collection?

Thanks for reading!

Janna

"Jewel" Tone Manicure

Hello there!

Today I really wanted to share with you an entry I made for a nail art contest. I really loved the result!

First I started with two coats of OPI San Tan-tonio for opacity. Then I added thin lines with my gold Stripe Rite to use as guides.

Then I just filled in the lines using the nail polish's own brush in one straight swipe of lacquer. I did have to retrace my lines a few times, but they ended up pretty straight.

The red is OPI Bullish on OPI, the orange is a mix of Finger Paints Courdur-Orange and Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Lightening, the blue is Zoya Breezi and the purple is OPI No Spain No Gain. The accent nail is a bunch of 3mm and 2mm rhinestones in coordinating colors that I got from the Born Pretty Store. Jewel tones are by far my favorite color family!

This manicure took some time to do and I've been itching to do an all-rhinestones nail for a long time. I loved it! Please tell me what you think!

Thanks so much for reading,

Janna

My Take on: The Ever-Popular Gradient!

Hello!

How's everyone been? So since I was so behind on my blog-reading, I only-recently came across the wave of gradient manicures that swept the blogosphere, so I had to try it.

For this manicure, I started with a coat of Sally Hansen No Hard Feelings, a really pretty lilac that was opaque and actually vibrant enough for me without looking washed out or almost-white. On top of that, I took a regular kitchen sponge and painted one "strip" of OPI No Room for the Blues (blue), then under that a strip of No Hard Feelings (lilac), and finallly a strip of Zoya Whitney (pink) directly onto the sponge, so it differs slightly from the technique of painting the colors onto a piece of plastic and swirling (I originally tried that but my sponge wouldn't pick up the color from the plastic baggie!).

Then I went crazy on my nails, sponging onto each one with No Room for the Blues near the tip and Whitney nearest the cuticle. I made sure to move the sponge up and down to create a more gradual fade, and I ended up doing two coats of sponging. These are also topped with a coat of Cover Girl Night Lights to smooth/distract from the lines. Check it out!

For some reason, I could not get this to turn out normal. Don't judge.

 I really loved this manicure and kept getting a ton of compliments over Memorial Day Weekend. Someone even asked, "How do you ask them to do them like that?!" thinking I had them done at a salon, and my boyfriend grabbed my hands (without being provoked) and told me they looked really cool, which we know are like two of the best compliments ever.

Oh, and don't mind my amateur watermark. I like watermarks on pictures because as I'm reading through Google Reader, I can remember whose post is whose as I read. There's also the added benefit of actually getting credit for your photos, but whatever. Let me know if you have any suggestions for it! I just did it very quickly whilst playing around on Gimp.

So that's it for now. Are you tired of seeing gradient manis? I'm going to do my best to do more nail art for you all while I have time!

Thanks for reading!

Janna

One Year Blogiversary Guest Post!

(Hi everyone! Today we have another guest post from Amanda of the Nail Polish Enthusiast blog. It's a special one as today is my one year blogiversary and also her birthday! Thank you all for your support over the last year! Enjoy!)

Hello again, Janna's readers!

I'm here with a very special post for you: Janna's 1 year blogiversary post! (It also happens to be my birthday, but let's focus on the important stuff here.) Janna is in Spain and has given me the honor of her one year post, so we decided on a celebration theme. Instantly, Janna and I both thought of Milani Gems, a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday. It's a sparse glitter with a variety of colors in it, but we'll get to that soon.

Step one was figuring out what color to layer it over. I couldn't figure out what color scheme I wanted to do, since Gems has so many colors and I wanted all the glitter to stand out. I swatched it over Zoya Phoebe, Misa The Grass is Greener on My Side, OPI Chapel of Love, and Color Club Pucci-licious (I still don't understand that name, by the way).

 

For some reason, Zoya Phoebe stuck out to me as the most celebration-y of the bunch. The blue and glitter just seemed to scream cupcakes and celebrating and fun drinks (okay, maybe the last one is more of an adult celebration technique...). Here's Phoebe on her own:

 

 

Phoebe is a matte polish from one of Zoya's summer 2011 lines, Mod Mattes. This is shown with 2-3 coats and no topcoat. It dries with a shimmery finish, something unusual for a matte but somehow very appealing. (Ignore the poor cleanup, I wanted to wait until I put Gems on to clean up completely.)

 

Finally, I added Gems to my index and thumb, two coats each. I thought I would add it to all my fingers but I thought it stood out more as an accent than on every finger. Then I just added topcoat to all my nails. (I now see that my cleanup on my middle finger wasn't as good as I thought in person. Hmph. That's the trouble with up close pictures, I guess!)

 

Blurry to show the sparkliness and shininess with topcoat, mmmm:

 

 

What do you ladies think? Would you have chosen Phoebe, TGIGOMS (what a long name, Misa!), Chapel of Love, or Pucci-licious? Would you have done all nails with Gems?

xoxo,
Amanda

(Thanks again, Amanda! I love the accent nail and removal was probably much easier =] But Gems looks great over all of the colors! And Happy Birthday! Thanks for reading everyone! -Janna)

MAC Hint of Sapphire-Inspired Water Marble

Hi everybody!

I'm bursting with excitement right now to share this manicure! It's been in my head for weeks and I'm really happy with the way it turned out!

If you keep up with cosmetics, you may already know that MAC's summer collection, due out in July, is called Semi-Precious and will feature mineralize blushes, mineralize skin finishes, cream sheen glasses, and other products. What really caught my attention, however, was the mineralize eyeshadows. (Check out beautezine.com's post of the full press release of the Semi-Precious collection from MAC.)

Now, I don't know too much about MAC and the only MAC products I have were a gift, so I'm not going to pretend I know the difference between a creamsheen glass and a lustreglass (if you know, please share!), but these eyeshadows look just plain gorgeous in the pan. I mean, how could you stand to use them?! The colors swirl together beautifully and compliment each other to a T, and there are some really unique color combinations in this collection.

So when I saw the press release for the Semi-Precious collection on several beauty blogs and I saw the eyeshadows, I was reminded of watermarbled designs for nails. The eyeshadow that stuck out the most to me was Hint of Sapphire. Here's a look:

Image Credit:  beautezine.com.

Seriously beautiful. These things are truly a work of art. So I let my creativity flow and set out to create a water marble that utilized the colors in this particular eyeshadow. MAC describes Hint of Sapphire as a "melange of pink, violet, teal, copper, blue." Respectively, I used Zoya Perrie (even though Zoya describes Perrie as purple), China Glaze Spontaneous, Color Club Age of Aquarius (on loan from my sister), Pure Ice Iced Copper, and Sally Hansen Blue It. The combination is awesome! Take a look =]

Left Hand

Right Hand

Left

Right

My favorite nails:

Left Index

Left Pinky.

Right Ring

Before you can say it, I did go overboard on the pictures. I wanted to do this manicure justice and I think I did =] And pardon my shoddy cleanup job.

The contrast of all these colors really pops on my nails, and in my opinion the copper just makes this look. And, if you're wondering how I did this, click HERE for my tutorial on how to water marble!

I'd like to do another watermarble based on one of the other shadows from this collection, but I'm not sure which one. I was leaning toward another multi-colored one, but do you have a preference? Let me know!

Swatches of this collection are starting to circulate, so tell me, are you getting anything from the Semi-Precious collection? Any eyeshadows? If you are, would you actually use them? =P What do you think of this manicure?

Thanks to Jessica of beautezine.com for letting me use her picture of Hint of Sapphire! =]


Thanks so much for reading!

Janna

Haulage Part II - While I Was at School

Hellooo!

Here's another haul for you....do you like reading about hauls? I definitely do!

First up is the 6 polishes I got from the Zoya Polish Exchange! Two of them aren't pictured; I'll explain below!



Left to right: Savita, Rica, Breezi, and Perrie. How amazing are the frosted bottles?!

The two that aren't pictured are Isla, shown HERE, and Zoya Erin, which I gifted to a friend with the same name =] Rica looks a little orange-y in this photo, sorry about that, but I assure you it's a gorgeous coral. And it's much brighter than I thought it'd be so I'm happy! Savita, I've wanted forever because I love purples, Breezi just seemed like a good polish to have even though I wasn't specifically drawn to it (am I the only one who shops like that? Please say no! =P), and Perrie seems like my perfect warm-toned lilac.


Up next is China Glaze 2NITE. I bought this on a whim kind of, from Medusa's Threads, which is a shop run by April of Concrete and Nail Polish. I'll never have any other OMGs, so I figured I might as well grab one while I can. It's still on the site, though admittedly the price has been raised a bit. Still probably cheaper than you would pay if you bought it from a seller on eBay.




Waiting for the PERFECT time to wear this one. A jewel in my collection for sure.


Finally, a Sally's haul. Well, this is actually 2 (maybe more) hauls in one.

Top Row: China Glaze Lightning Bolt, Cracked Concrete, Broken Hearted, Fault Link, and Black Mesh. (Not pictured is Crushed Candy. I wore it and misplaced it!)
Bottom Row: Orly Royal Velvet, China Glaze Señorita Bonita, ChG Electric Pineapple, ChG Frostbite, and a Sally's Girl polish in Periwinkle. Not pictured is Flip Flop Fantasy...I obviously have a problem locating polishes. My apologies!

My Sally's got the crackles back in stock after the initial sellout little by little. Black Mesh was the first purchase, along with Flip Flop Fantasy and Frostbite, since they were running the buy 2 get 1. Then they had the white, gray, pink, and teal, and the buy 2 get one was still on, so at that time I also picked up (or my mom did) Señorita Bonita and Electric Pineapple. (I was on the phone with my mom to pick out the polishes, and Sally's had justtt gotten in the Island Escapes. Like, the saleswoman opened the box for my mom, and was extremely impressed that I rattled off the polishes that I wanted on the phone before my mom could describe them. =P) Sally's held the purple crackle for us when it came in, so I have the complete crackle collection! =]

Oh, and I bought Orly Royal Velvet way before the crackles. So pretty.

Sorry for the long-winded post! I like to write a little background on the polishes, why I picked them, and the deals going on when I purchased them. What good are just pictures? You may disagree lol.

Thank you so much for reading, and PLEASE don't forget to enter my Long Overdue Giveaway!

Janna

Some Shameless Self-Promotion and Zoya Isla

Hello!

Okay, first the shamelessness and then the mani. Over at More Nail Polish blog, a contest is going on where each of the participants entered a franken, and now it's up to the blog's followers to vote on a winner! Go check out the gallery of participants! There are some awesome frankens, and if you'd like to help me out, I'm lucky #7, Frankenberry. On the site you can read a description and the recipe I used. If anyone's interested in more pictures, let me know, but I submitted the only perfectly-color-accurate one to the contest =] To vote, you must be a follow of More Nail Polish and fill out the form. Vote #7! =D Here's the link.



Now onto Isla! This is a deep red shimmer from Zoya, and as soon as I saw Scrangie's swatch, I fell in love. This color is amazing in person and I tried my hardest to capture it in photos! Here it goes:








After a couple of days I fauxnaded it with a Mash plate using Design-a-Nail polish in Voodoo. I loved this and got so many compliments!









Thank you for reading!

Janna