Fish Egg Manicure

I wanted to post this as a caviar manicure, but I really didn't think that this was a great time for me to be getting any cease and desist letters, so I changed it last second. Today is a special post, as today I will be going to my cousin's wedding...and to celebrate, a wedding manicure!

It's a wedding manicure because it incorporates 4 elements: something old (Barielle - Love: I already owned this polish, and it is appropriately named), something new (the beads, bought at Michael's while they still had their 20% off e-mail promotion), something borrowed (THE TREND!), and something blue (Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect - Air, a light blue pastel with a hint of shimmer).

Doing a fish egg manicure was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. Sticking the beads on was much easier than I thought; I thought that the beads would just roll off and I would really have to work hard to stick them on, but I was wrong -- the beads stuck to my nail polish as I sprinkled them on and only needed light pressure to really get them in there. The clean-up was definitely harder. As I type this, my foot has picked up about a billion little beads while brushing against the floor. I'll definitely be using a more efficient way to collect the loose beads next time.

I'm kind of regretting my decision now to paint my thumb blue underneath. The white is much more elegant. But the blue has some charm to it as well. It casts the clear beads more towards their purple/gold colour from the shimmer.

I like the look much more than I thought I would. I fully expected to be borderline disgusted with the look, owing to my lack of experience with this type of mani, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how well it turned out!

My Greatest Creation...

No, I'm not talking about a mani, at least not in particular. This is my friend Susan:

I didn't know if she was ok with a face picture, so I settled for a Times Square jumping shot

I made her into a nail polish addict. Like, standing in the middle of a drugstore debating between two shades of almost-identical red at 11 o'clock at night on your vacation while 12 other people waited addicted (I was about to say 13, but I was clearly doing exactly the same thing as she was). Or like, I-didn't-study-for-two-hours-because-I-was-shopping-for-nail-polish addicted. I've created a monster, and I'm damn proud of it.

Anywhooooo, this is a joint project of ours, that we were supposed to wear to New York together, except that we did it too early and quickly tired of it. Here was my contribution:

Mind you, I did this in an hour after I gave up on studying. I tried using hole punch reinforcements to help me with the sweetheart neckline of what was supposed to be a dress, but it was far too time consuming so I free-handed it. The dress is Sally Hansen's Save the Date, the skin tone is Zoya Cho, and the pearls are Barielle Love. It honestly looks kind of crappy. But...

Seriously, is that not the cutest? Almost makes up for my crappy free handing. I'm kind of bummed that we didn't keep them on long enough for the cute nails couple to go and see Phantom of the Opera. They would have been so much more well dressed than we were...

I'm so glad we've recruited another one over to the dark side. So glad.

Forever Alone...?

Happy Valentine's Day! Quick (or maybe not-so-quick) mani that I did this evening as a wind-down from my midterm this morning:

It's 2 coats of Wet 'N' Wild Tickled Pink, with one coat of Essie Pure Pearlfection, and hearts and lips drawn on with American Apparel Angeline and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red. The shimmer that the Pure Pearlfection adds can be seen in the picture below. Brilliant.

And the piece de resistance...

Even Forever Alone guy needs some love. Just trying to keep it real this Valentine's Day! :P

Working Hard, or Heart-ly Working?

So, yesterday, I was trying very hard to be productive, and I was pretty successful for the most part. School is literally going to be the death of me, so sometimes the distractions are more than welcome. Despite the relative productivity, yesterday was really no exception to the "you will get distracted" rule:

This was staring at me:

Yes, I know that the bottle is pictured right on top of my drug interactions notes, and no, that's not how I study, with a nail polish bottle on top of my papers, but it was photographed there merely for the insert some hipster talk here. It's a nail polish called Love, from Barielle. LOVE! How could I leave it forever alone on the periphery of my notes?

So I did this with my dotting tools, while listening to the drug interactions podcast lecture, in addition to sending out my minutes -- multitasking!

I was so productive that my body felt obligated to stay up until 1:30 in the morning to do some proper procrastination activities before bed. (I beat my Fruit Ninja score again! 595!)

I would like to think of this addition to my manicure as an exercise in pseudso-self-control. I could have easily done my whole hand, but instead I just did my ring finger (big hearts in Wet 'n' Wild Tickled Pink). That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, I was sort of upset yesterday -- not verge of tears upset, but like, disappointed upset. I went to Trade Secrets on Wednesday fully expecting to pick up my lemming from the OPI Holland Collection, but the lady at the store told me that they weren't expecting them in until the end of the month and even if they did have them they weren't allowed to put them out until later. Which was totally fine, because I expected that the US release date may not be the same as the Canadian release date. That is, until I checked the Trade Secrets beauty blog last night, with a post titled somewhere along the lines of "OPI Holland Collection Lands in Stores Today!" dated on Wednesday! I don't know what her deal was, or if maybe the blog is just lying, but it made me a little angry how I walked all the way there and was told that they were not going to be in for awhile, when they could have very well just been right behind the counter.

TGSBS = Thank God for Sally Beauty Supply: those ladies know what they're talking about.

Lazy = Elle's Spell

My last mani, if you hadn't noticed, was done in matte - my very first matte manicure lasting more than a couple of hours, (which was usually the amount of time it took me to realize that it would look better glossy.) It accumulated pen marks and shadows of black ink rapidly after my midterm on Monday, which I did not enjoy. I don't think that I will be wearing anything matte for awhile.

Anyway, I meant to do another Valentine's Day themed mani, but it was almost midnight and I was pretty exhausted and still suffering from itis after this delicious baby:

YUM! In any case, I didn't feel like breaking out the stripers and brushes, so I decided to just go with a one-colour manicure that would still be vaguely related to Valentine's Day. Here is Barielle Elle's Spell:

Red = Valentine's Day. Flakies = Awesome.

This one was a little sheer, and I'm sure I would have some visible nail line if I had a visible nail line right now. This was 3 coats.

Anyway, that's all for now. Off to school for me!