The Alesha manicure

press sample/purchased by me

Time for some bad nail art!  Woo! :-)

I have a co-worker who is bubbly, fun, sweet and half my age, but she still knows her movies, and sometimes I'm the only one who gets her references and vice versa.  One of the outfits I like on her is a mint colored shirt with a royal blue sweater, and when she wore it on Monday, I told her I was going to do a mani inspired by it on Tuesday.

So here is the Alesha, a freehand half-moon mani with Zoya Tiana and OPI Miss Piggy's Big Number:

Clearly, I need to practice more, but I love the color combo and I made a friend smile, so it's good.

Green & gold half-moons

I may not be all that great at stamping or drawing on my nails, but at least I can do a relatively decent half-moon mani.  It's even more fun to use polishes in contrasting finishes, such as a foil and a matte!  For this look I used two coats of Zoya Ziv, a gorgeous gold foil, and topped it with two coats of Zoya Veruschka, a beautiful velvety matte.  Sadly, Veruschka is no longer available, but you can get Ziv at Zoya.com.

Indoors with flash:

Indoors without flash:

I love the texture contrast and the color combination of this mani, and I got a ton of compliments on it as well!

Purple Week: Color Club Fashion Addict and Wild at Heart

I should warn my readers that this is not strictly a nail polish post, it's also a bit personal and maybe a little philosophical and probably a lot sentimental. In 2009, I had to have my beloved heartdog, Stormy, euthanized and in 2010 I had to have my other sweetheart, Beau, euthanized. I donated the outfit I was wearing when I took Stormy to the vet's to Goodwill, and I haven't worn Color Club Wild at Heart since the day of Beau's euthanasia. It's a beautiful polish, and I own the holo version, but every time I looked at it, I remembered my nails on the steering wheel on that sunny August day, and I'd put it away in favor of something else. It's been a year and a half, and I decided to see if I could wear it and maybe fade the memories or merge them with new ones.

I didn't start out with a full Wild at Heart manicure. Instead, I wore Color Club Fashion Addict, a pale lilac holo, for a couple of days. I did actually manage to get a shot of this one in the sun. This is two coats of Fashion Addict and one coat of Nubar Diamont (which did not affect the holo at all).

In the sun:



Indoors with flash:



Indoors without flash:



After a couple of days, I got out my circle labels and did a half-moon mani with Wild at Heart, which is a gorgeous deep purple holo. This is just one coat, and thank goodness the polish is gorgeous, because my stickers need to be replaced! Sadly, I was indoors during the approximately four minutes we had sunshine today, so I just have indoor pics.

Indoors with flash:



Indoors without flash:



Am I going to be able to wear this now without mourning Beau? I think so, largely because I'm so vexed with myself for screwing up the half-moon nail art and because I'm wondering how the word "holographic" which translates to "wholly written" and is used in the legal field to mean an handwritten will became a word meaning "related to the use of coherent light from a laser in order to make a hologram that can then be used to create a three-dimensional image."

Orly Stone Cold

So, did anyone happen to notice anything intriguing in the picture of my BPAL decants? You go look, I'll wait. ;)















Back?

Okay, here's a bigger hint:



The lovely and amazing JenJenRebecca made me a white polish with scattered holo glitter, and named it "Jammies' Glitzy Blizzard"! I fell instantly in love and just had to wear it. This is two coats, and while there appear to be bare spots in the pictures, none were visible to the naked eye.

And I had to take pictures, of course!

Inside, with flash:



Out in the sunshine:



The back of the bottle, just to show off the polish some more:



One small problem--I had promised Steph an entire week of blue polish! Plus I'd just gotten Orly's Stone Cold, and I wanted to wear it almost as much as I wanted to wear Glitzy Blizzard.

Much pondering ensued.

I decided to try something brand new, so I present to you, my very first half-moon mani! I used Avery 5408 round labels, which I keep on hand for labeling the tops of my BPAL bottles, and I was pretty impressed. It looks very good for a first try! This is two coats of Stone Cold over two coats of Glitzy Blizzard.

Inside, no flash:



Inside, with flash:



No outside pictures because the sun has deserted NE Ohio. :(