Teal holo dry brush with fancy chevron tip

It's monochromatic nails time for this weeks nails in the weekly nail art challenge (WNAC) I co-host on Instagram along with lovely ladies Kristin of Lacquerstyle and Tracey of MissBellaTracey. I went with teal holo cause I love teal holo and cause I have so many of them.... COLLECT ALL THE TEAL HOLOS.

I used a basic dry-brush technique then slapped on some fancy chevron tips using vinyls I got from Up Your Nail. You may have also noticed that I haven't been posting as much nail art lately... read on to hear me blab about why!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ↓!

Work appropriate mani Monday: Neon and nude

Who says you can't wear neon at work? If someone does, they're lying.

I wore this look for a week at the office and no one told me I was fired. Therefore, you too can wear neon at work. But for real though, I am of the opinion that you can mix nude and neon (at least a lemon-lime neon) and pull it off, assuming it compliments your awesome personality.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Random pixie dust... I have no idea what I was trying to achieve.

I have no idea what I was going for here, but one thing I did know when I set out to do this mani was that I wanted to use a sheer black jelly I made at home in my nail polish lair/cat den/taking-over-the-world laboratory. Everything else that came after that jelly base was pure luck/chaos/consequence. It kind of looks like Lady Gaga threw up on my nails, which in her eyes would mean sickkkkk.

Work (in)appropriate mani Monday: Let's get lacy

Oh hey there office slew nails... I mean boss lady nails. I decided to turn the weekly work appropriate mani tradition into something a litle more risque this week because I'm feeling spicy, obviously.

Transparent/translucent/sheer polish has recently become somewhat of a thing. OPI launched their Sheer Tints line in early 2014 that consists of four transluscent polishes you can use to layer as jellies or use alone for a see-through look - All Lacquered Up has some good swatches and reviews.

Now OPI did not introduce a black, grey, or otherwise neutral-hued sheer polish. Nail bloggers have been using indie polishes like Loaded Lacquer's 'Toasted marshmallow' or mixing their own polish by adding 10-20 drops of black polish into a bottle of clear polish or topcoat (see Nailstorming's tutorial for example). I reckon OPI or another major nail polish brand will catch on soon and put out their own once they realize how big this is going to get.

The first time I saw the sheer black polish look was when Badgirl Nails on IG paired it with nude accents and some black dots. Then Just1nail on IG stripped off the nude and kept things black and glossy. Jamylyn Nails on IG used sheer black as a cityscape backdrop and it was very a-la-nighttime-in-NYC. Nailstorming on IG also revealed a simple matte black dotticure with a sheer black background. All these racy ladies, I just had to join in!

Now, to the good stuff (pic heavy, but hey, I just can't get enough of that lacy business):

Oh hey there, magnetic polish, where you been hiding?

Magnetic polish was a hot new thing for nails along with other sorts of textures (concrete, leather, etc.) that started trending a couple years ago. I'm pretty sure the first time I ever heard of it was in 2011, with hard-to-find-companies (at least in Canada) like Layla Cosmetics and Nails Inc. releasing a line of magnetic polishes. Soon enough wallet-friendly brands like Sally Hansen and Revlon among others caught on and the next thing you know almost ever brand of polish had at least one magnetic polish and you could find them at your local drug store. That shit spread like wildfire.

What is magnetic polish? Essentially it's polish that has magnetic particles in it so that when you hold a magnet directly over your nail immediately after applying the polish it replicates the design of whatever the magnet's shape is. No, not just any magnet will work. Specialty magnets usually came with the polish (embedded in the cap) in various designs like stars, lines, waves, and so on. Essie jumped on the magnetic polish party train in late 2012, releasing a line of 6 magnetic polishes under the 'repstyle' collection, all with the same snakeskin-ish pattern that would be revealed by the magnet.  Some reviews of the collection weren't so great, and some talked about using ad hoc tricks to get the magnetic pattern to better show itself.

I've had these two Essie repstyle magnetic polishes for probably two years now and had only ever used them once. I hated how they turned out cause whenever I placed the magnet over the wet polish I ended up smushing it cause I'm a tard, and then well, it was just ugly. So when I was re-organizing my polish rack I thought I should give these little bastards a try again. This is the result:

Work appropriate mani Monday: Neutral gradient with french X tips

Here's a very simple work appropriate mani I did in October of 2013. I had an interview and I must say it made me super sad to take off my likely neon or sparkly polish and to replace it with THIS. But, at least I gave off a profesh appearance, right? After all, we all know that once we start a new job we tend to do our nail art on the mild side and then... give it a few weeks or a couple of months and then BAM no one can judge you for your neon holo-flakie-glitter laden nails because they already know you're crazy.

A basic ombre using three neutral hues and a makeup sponge, topped with hand painted X's on the tips. At the time I had not yet experienced the magic of striping tape, so the X's are messy for the new standard striping tape has set!

Pastel ombre dotticure

Here's a quick and simple mani I did last month. The base is an ombre/gradient from white to mint green or from white to pastel orange on the accent nail. Over the base is a simple dark tip (all dark green with the exception of dark blue on the accent nail), followed by white dots and then the same dark colour as the tip using a small/medium sized dotting tool I bought from nailpolishcanada.com.

Finally, the whole mani was mattified to best compliment the soft gradients.

Exactly 4 years ago swirls

On February 6, 2010, I painted this design on my nails below and I swear at the time NAIL ART WAS NOT REALLY A THING. The proof is in the tan, the youthful looking fingers, and the flashy new macbook which we know is so 2010.

People used to think I was crazy (perhaps irrespective of nail eccentricities) but I thought I was onto something. Too bad for me I did not materialize my madness into something that could be forever preserved on the internets, otherwise I could possibly be one of the most famous nail artists by now. I'd probably be rich too. Let's call this swirls of sadness and regret instead...!

Textured triangles

Today I've got some nails from some of my first adventures with nail striping tape (about $3.00 on amazon/ebay). For about 3 years I had not yet discovered this magic tape and I used to paint 'straight' lines by hand. After realizing there was an entire online world of nail art freaks like myself I realized there was so much more knowledge I had to absorb.

This mani was probably inspired by a myriad of nail blogging artists, but the first one that popped into my mind as inspiration was a few of the manicurator's designs using striping tape, triangle designs, and textured polishes.

The backdrop polish comes matte, no mattifier was applied, and a clear top coat was applied only to the textured triangles.

Coffee in New York... minus the 87263057512837 people

This design was originally done around three or four years ago when I went through a phase of what I called 'tri-folds'. Now having not been acclimated to the nail blogging community until the last year or so, it's entirely possible that someone other than myself had already invented this three-layer design and called it (GASP) something more intelligent than tri-fold.

This one is reminiscent of coffee in New York because of its simple design and edgy but neutral
(and some might argue office-friendly) colour scheme.