My first attempt at galaxy nails!

I would like to preface this with the fact that this is my first ever attempt at this nail art design.

It has been very popular in the past year, and many tutorials can be found both on Pinterest, as well as YouTube.

Left Hand, direct sunlight

The lineup:

Base - 2 coats Color Club "Blue-Topia"

Sponged on:
"OPI INK"
OPI "Alpine Snow"
Sephora "Shark Attack"
OPI "Austintatious Turquoise"
OPI "Need Sunglasses?"
OPI "Elephantastic Pink"

Glitters:
OPI "When Monkeys Fly" (**Minus the large gold glitters)
Color Club "Si Vous Please"

I started with 2 coats of the navy - it's a  nice dark almost-black color that gives this manicure a bit more character than black would. I then sponged on a bit of OPI Ink to give it a bit of dimension in some places. From there, I just went crazy with the sponging - most colors took a couple of coats since the background is so dark. I then used the glitters in the overall "direction" the white travelled on the nail to highlight stars.

Next time I do this manicure, I'll have to mess around with the color palette a bit more!

Left Hand, direct sunlight

Left Hand, indirect sunlight

Right Hand

Left Thumb

Right Thumb

I know around the nails is a bit messy - "Blue-Topia" is a bit runny (as are most navy blues) and I didn't think to clean up much after sponging. I hope you like them anyway!


Happy Polishing!
-Maggie

Happy Fall! New York Yankees Nail Art

Back in August, I bought the hubby tickets for his birthday for us to see the Yankees play the San Fran Giants at Yankee Stadium - knowing full well that they had announced it to be "Mariano Rivera Day". We're both avid Yankees fans, and so I couldn't wait to some up with something minimalistic but still distinct for the manicure for this game!

I did this the morning of, and it took about an hour trying to get the pinstripes as perfect as I could. The most challenging part (as you can imagine) was the interlocking N Y, which I did freehand. This only took about 15-20 minutes, but I had to go back over it multiple times to make it opaque, and then touch-up over it with the navy.

For this look I used "OPI...Eurso Euro" (2 coats), with OPI "Alpine Snow" as the base on the ring finger accent nail. I used butter LONDON "Dodgy Barnett" for the thumb accent, a subtle silver holo that looks gray in the shade. 

Had I been a bit more careful/had more time, those lines would have been perfect...ah well. I was trying out a new striping brush I had bought a few weeks back, I guess I just need more patience with it.

See? I promise I was there!

The sunlight makes Eurso Euro a tad more vibrant than it is in person, but it's still one of my favorite navys for fall...not greyed-out or toned down one bit, quite saturated. I'm also proud of my thumb...ask anyone, that interlocking NY free hand is hard to replicate!

Happy Polishing!

-Maggie

Shorter nails - Essie "Smokin' Hot" is perfect for fall!

Hey guys! I know, I know. I've been neglecting you all. I PROMISE I've got a bunch of ideas in the works for this blog, but my newly-started internship in Brooklyn has been taking up most (if not all) of my free time! That being said, I've finally set some time aside to post a short little snippet about my manicure and nail care since heading back into the (somewhat) corporate world!

First off, I've had to cut my nails. Typing with somewhat-long rounded nails was leading to just...issues with efficiency and speed. So, I decided to trim my nails down and go back to a straight across square. It's clean, even, and works well for most (if not all) finger/nail types. I would say however that IF you do to a lot of typing like me and have week or peeling nails, make sure you have a UV/LED gel foundation (like me!) otherwise you'll see your corners start to peel, break, etc. And then you'll have to reshape them into something rounded, or cut them :(.

This color by Essie "Smokin' Hot"is from their Winter 2010 collection (the collection that brought us fan favorites like "Hot Coco" and "Going Incognito": Its a glossy warm gray creme that is SUPER great for fall. When I applied it, I used 2 thick coats that dried in a decent amount of time. It's a neutral that's edgy but still falls under the spectrum of professional (at least modern professional) and can be worn day or night.

I then decided to take it to the next level (and disguise tip wear) with 2 coats of "When Monkey's Fly" from OPI's Oz The Great and Powerful Collection. Huge gold hex glitter mixed in with various sizes of holographic silver glitters...hard to apply, but fun when spread out appropriately. I topped it with 1 coat of Seche Vite (though you'll need more if you want to get it really smooth). Let's just say that removing this will be a pain in the buns.

Happy Polishing!
-Maggie