Minions Assemble!

IT'S TODAY, IT'S TODAY!

Ladies and germs, today is the day that Despicable Me 2 hits theaters. And what better way to celebrate than with:

MINIONS!

Minions! Minions! Minions!

I used 3 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Yellow Kitty for the base colour. As with most yellows, streakiness is an issue. However, this particular one leveled out reasonably well after the 3rd coat. For the minions' clothes, I used Maybelline Color Show Denim Dash, applied like a French tip. The details were put on using a black striping polish and dotting tools with China Glaze Immortal (gray), Sally Hansen White On, and Sally Hansen Coral Crush. (I would show you my thumbs, but they are far less minion-shaped than my other fingernails, and thus are not as cute).

I had a bit of a dilemma with trying to figure out if I wanted to give them hair or not. They were just so cute after I finished all the face details, I was unsure if I would be ruining it with the hair. I figure I'll wear it like this for a few days and then try putting the hairs on. This way, if it doesn't turn out right, at least I've had a few good days with cute, hairless minions. :)

My life goal is to finally get my hands on a giant minion plushie. True story. In the meantime, I'll have to settle for 10 minion fingernail friends.

Jeans and Cocktails

Last Saturday, my friends and I went out for drinks and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out this cocktail manicure that has been floating around the interwebs.

The idea is that you paint the first 3 fingers on the hand you hold your drink with in a bold accent colour so that it stands out as you hold your drink. I originally started with a plain manicure using a duochrome polish, but it clashed with my outfit so I switched to the cocktail manicure.

I started out with the "base" colour, for lack of a better word. I used a polish from the new Maybelline Color Show line called Denim Dash.

What's interesting about this polish is that it has a fine silvery-gray shimmer and it dries matte, giving the illusion of looking like denim. Genius. This is such a special polish. It has a twin called Styled Out that I originally passed up on because I thought it would be too similar to Essie's Smooth Sailing, but I pretty much ran back to Wal-Mart to get it when I saw that these polishes marked "Denims" had such an interesting finish.

For the accent colour, I used Optical Illusion from the recent China Glaze Prismatic collection, a dense glitter in a tinted base that shifts from teal to pink depending on the angle/lighting. The flash pictures bring out this crazy mermaid-scale-like quality to the colour. There are no words.

Lightbox, direct

Lightbox, indirect

Lightbox, flash

Flash

 Bonus, the bottle that I got at Winners came with one of those limited edition silver bottle caps, which is something that I've always wanted to have from China Glaze, but for some reason I just never got one, even when the opportunity presented itself. I'm a very picky polish fiend.

I was also hoping to get a picture of me holding the actual cocktail that I drank that night, but...it never happened, for obvious reasons, LOL. Instead, please enjoy this picture of me holding a wine glass filled with blue water as a simulation of the true purpose of a cocktail manicure.

 I hope you enjoyed that extremely pic-heavy post and had just as good of a weekend as I've had. (I know that the event I'm talking about happened two weekends ago, but I wish you happiness and funtimes all the same.) 

Cocktail manicures (as per the chart from China Glaze) are supposed to be representative of a certain cocktail, but since I just matched the colours to my outfit, I'm not sure what cocktail it would have represented...what cocktail do you think it could have been?

My First Ruffian

Remember how I said  I had bigger plans for Orly Wild Wisteria?

My very first ruffian manicure! I was really excited about doing it, since I waited until my nails were of a good enough length. The decision about the colour combo took a little while, though. I saw the new Revlon French Mix duos at Wal-Mart last week, and the light purple/pink glitter duo drew my eye. The pink glitter looked sheer as hell, and I wasn't willing to pay $7.99 for 0.26oz of that gorgeous purple shimmery polish, so I got Maybelline Iced Queen (from their new Color Show line) instead and topped it off with Essie Pure Pearlfection. I think it replicates the general look of that purple polish. I've read that it's pretty sheer, so I'm happy with the decision I made.

I didn't know how difficult it could be to get a good shape on the design. I ended up going over the darker part near the cuticle again with Wild Wisteria to get the shape right, but  there are a few nails on my right hand where I got the hang of shaping out the lighter part with just a once over with the lighter colour. There's also a bald spot on my pinky because I used too many brushstrokes. I could have fixed it later, but I didn't notice it until after I had put on a coat of the Pure Pearlfection, and...I'm pretty lazy.

This photo here is probably the most colour accurate. My camera doesn't do well with anything that has blue in it because that seems to be the only nuance that it likes to pick up. I had to colour adjust for temperature on these to get them to even remotely resemble the medium purple that Iced Queen is.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with myself and how well this turned out. I really enjoy the look of it and I will definitely be trying this trend out again!