Essie -- Fiji (plus how to score great nail polish deals on eBay)

Why do some of the prettiest colors have to be so damn difficult to work with? Such is the case of Essie's Fiji. Is it gorgeous? Yes. Is it a pain in the ass to apply? Oh, yes. Is it worth the struggle? Probably. Okay, yes, it's worth the struggle. 

Review: e.l.f. Nourishing Cuticle Pen

I am a cuticle product junkie, especially when it comes to oils, balms, and other hydrating things, so last week when I was ordering some makeup from eyeslipsface.com I threw one of their $1 cuticle pens into my basket. I was excited about the form of this product because I really like the idea of a pen-like applicator. If you are not familiar with e.l.f., they are a very affordable cosmetics brand with two tiers of products: their Essentials line, which is commonly priced around $1, and their Studio line, which is a better quality product ranging from $3-$8. I use their $1 concealer brush for nail polish clean up and it's been great, so if you're looking for a good clean up brush I definitely recommend it.

My recent e.l.f. purchase, including the cuticle pen and a backup concealer brush for nail polish clean up

Easy Nail Art: The Plastic Bag Mani

Easy nail art is my favorite nail art, that's why I love the plastic bag manicure! The technique itself is almost foolproof and it only takes a short amount of time to execute. There's nothing more annoying than spending a lot time working on some intricate bit of nail art that is always one wrong move away from disaster. Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but you know what I mean. 


SUPPLIES NEEDED:

• Nail polish (duh)
• Top coat
• Saran wrap, or any sort of plastic bag, ie: a Ziplock or a plastic grocery bag. It helps to have the plastic pre-cut into little squares that are a little bit bigger than your finger nail.

Step 1: Apply your base nail polish color and then a fast-drying top coat. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls and HK Girl for both looks below. 

Step 2: Once your base color is dry, apply your accent colors in fairly big blobs in various spots on your nail. 

Step 3: Take a piece of your plastic wrap and place it over your nail. Lightly press down to marble the colors together, and then gently remove it from your nail. 

Step 4: Top coat and viola!

NOTE: This technique can get messy, so if you own a protective barrier product like Liquid Palisade you'll probably want to use it. 

(L-R) My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Van D'Go, Mint Candy Apple, Chinchilly, Bronze Beauty, HK Girl topcoat

(L-R) My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Tart Deco, Chinchilly, Did He Wink At Me, HK Girl top coat

I've been really loving using Chinchilly by Essie with nail art. It's such a great accent color that really pulls a look together. I can't wait to experiment with more color combos using this technique! I think the look it produces is really cool, and I just love how fast and easy it is. 

I hope this post was helpful in some way. If you want to see the plastic bag manicure in action there are lots of videos on YouTube and Instagram, and here's one by Young Wild and Polished. Until next time, happy polishing!

EPIC July Nail Polish Haul

Hey guys! Today's post is my July nail polish haul, and this month was pretty epic thanks to the generosity of a former co-worker of mine. I got a DM asking if I'd like to take some nail polish off of her hands and OF COURSE I (excitedly) said yes, but I had no idea just how many bottles I would be inheriting. Turns out that there were about 60 bottles of nail polish and nail care items in the bin she gave me. Can you imagine how shocked I was? It was like Christmas in July. So, if you want to find out what nail polish I added to my collection in the month of July just keep on reading...

Tutorial: How I Photograph My Nails

  Taking a good picture of my nails was something I struggled with when I first started trying. I would see all of these awesome pictures on Instagram and I just couldn't figure out how to make my pictures turn out like that. Every time I would paint my nails I'd try to snap a picture with my phone immediately afterwards and let's just say it didn't look great. I just couldn't figure out how to get that nice, tight shot, or how to get the lighting to not look awful. It was frustrating. I asked Nicole from youngwildandpolished how she took the pictures that she posts on Instagram because her nail pics are always so good. I asked if she was using a real camera, or a macro setting or something, and she said that she always just used her iPhone. That meant that there was hope for me! She extolled the importance of really good lighting, and encouraged me to keep trying. It was that same night that I finally (a little late to the party) realized the tools I had at my disposal in the form of editing a picture. It was like a little lightbulb went off, the missing piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place. Rather than trying to get the perfect angle, or put my hand in front of the lens close enough for a tight shot, I could just crop and rotate my pictures! #duh...

June Haul and reviews

Hi guys! Somehow it's already July... How did that happen? I don't know about you, but for me the month of June just came and went in the blink of an eye. I love summer because I work at a college and over the summer we work four 10 hour days since the campus is closed on Fridays, which means 3-day weekends for 11 glorious weeks. It's wonderful, and it means I have more time for blogging (yay!), reading (yay!) and shopping (bad!). 

So over the summer my goal is to put up a bunch of how-to posts: how I paint my nails, shape them, photograph them, care for them... you get the picture. I know that I found those types of posts very helpful when I started painting my own nails, and I still hit up those kinds of things every now and then, just to see if there are any more techniques out there that could improve my routine. So if you're interested in those types of posts, stay tuned.  : )

But now, on to the haul. If you remember from my May haul, I told myself that in June I would be under a "no-buy" moratorium. Well, I almost immediately broke that promise because I found a super sweet deal on eBay for a lot of 4 Essie polishes that included three specific shades that were on my "want" list. But it was such a terrific price that I really don't care, I literally couldn't pass that offer up. After that I actually only bought one more bottle of nail polish in the month of June, everything else I'll be talking about below were all gifts. I did, however, buy a lot of makeup and makeup tools in the month of June, so I guess I really didn't do a very good job after all....

Essie -- Coacha'Bella

Hello again!

Today I am featuring Coacha'Bella, one of the new polishes in the Essie Summer Neon "Make Some Noise!" collection. My darling mother got this one for me, and while it wouldn't have been the color I would have chosen from this collection, it still is a really pretty shade. For the record---If I was buying I would have picked up Groove is in the Heart. All Access Pass also caught my eye, but after hearing multiple people say it had a terrible formula I sort of gave up on that one.