Simple Ways to Spice it Up

Hello readers!
For this post I am bringing you two simple manis. I love complicated, unique manis as much as the next girl - after all that is how this blog started! But this past week work has been hectic & life can be crazy in other ways - school, family, responsibilities - sometimes spending a couple hours on an awesome mani just isn't feasible. But that doesn't mean your nails have to look boring. So in this post I'm going to go over some simple, quick techniques you can use to give your mani some flair.

First things first - colors! Chose bright colors that are eye catching on their own. Glitter or high definition polishes comes with flair of their own & need little, if any, enhancement to turn some heads. Crackle polishes also add a cool effect with little effort. These polishes can be expensive but look out for sales! Today while browsing CVS I scored some Sally Hansen HD & crackle polishes for $1.82 down from $7.29. Neon polishes are also quite popular right now - not surprising considering it is summer.

Byte, Wavelength, Hue, Spectrum, & Antiqued Gold. Love a bargain!

So you got your color, now what? One really easy way to spice up a mani is to add an accent nail. Accent nails started as a way to highlight your ring finger & your engagement/wedding ring. But even if you don't have a ring an accent nail is still a fun trick & some people prefer to either do the thumb instead or in addition to the ring finger. But there are no rules - your accent finger(s) can be any one(s) you like! Here are a couple examples I played around with tonight -

Sally Hansen's HD Byte & Orly's Luxe 

Orly's Luxe & China Glaze's Dorothy Who?

Notice the shine on the blue accent nail? That is Essie's high definition topcoat Shine of the Times. There are a lot of top coats out there that can add shine & accents to your mani quickly.

Some other suggestions for a quick, fun mani -

• Taping like I used in my sunset pedi post.
• Dotting! I will do a post elaborating more on this in the future.
• Striping tape such as I used here, but instead of painting over them for a laser effect use the colors of the tape to add some colorful accent stripes.
• If you're talented, some freehand nail art can add some flair. This may take some practice to become quick at though
• Nail stickers can be added to one accent nail or your whole mani for some quick embellishments 

Seran Wrap Nails

When I first started getting interested in painting my nails I browsed a lot of different nail blogs. I found a lot of really nice blogs - too nice. I felt really intimidated by the amazing designs I saw and my own lack of skill. That is why I decided to start my own blog by an admitted novice. I'm not an expert, I'm showing my learning process and the tips I gain along the way. The only way to learn is practice so I figured I would jump in. I have a whole list of techniques I want to try but I decided to start out with a simple technique - seran wrap nails.

But before I start, I went shopping today!  While browsing Walgreens I stumbled across these Wet n' Wild polishes & for 99 cents a piece I couldn't help fill in some color gaps I had in my stash. I especially needed a yellow for when I attempt rainbow nails in the very near future. I was inspired to buy the gold by my excitement over receiving an early copy of Richelle Mead's The Golden Lily.

Yup, I have The Golden Lily early. I have a Barnes & Noble error to thank for that!

Anyway, on to the seran wrap nails! Seran wrap nails require at a minimum two different color polishes, so I chose to use Sally Hansen The Real Teal & Virtual Violet.

And of course, we need the seran wrap. The brand doesn't matter, you can find seran wrap at any grocery store & I'd be willing to bet the dollar store has it too. Before any polish comes out cut your pieces of seran wrap off the roll. It requires ten little pieces, one for each nail. This is much easier to do with dry nails. Also make sure to keep a trash can close for this manicure to discard of the seran pieces after they are used as to prevent a mess.

Before we get to painting there are a few things I need to take care of. Before I got to painting I would like to call attention to the unseen stars of all my manicures...

Here we have cuticle remover gel from Sally Hansen, a plastic cuticle pusher, & Seche Vite clear base & top coat. Since this is my first time outlining a manicure I thought I would go through my pre-mani routine. Unless I state otherwise this is my standard routine. I prefer not to cut my cuticles because 1. I heard cutting the cuticles can cause damage and impair growth and 2. I don't trust myself to not botch it and hack them to hell. So I use a cuticle remover gel. So far Sally Hansen's is the only one I've tried but once it runs out I will try another brand. It is easy to use, you simply apply it to the cuticles and allow it to sit & soak in. Once it has soaked use a cuticle pusher to remove the extra cuticle skin, with the gel it will come right off without any cutting. I prefer to use a plastic pusher since the gel moistens the wood cuticle pushers - plus they tend to splinter. 

Let it soak for 1-2 minutes but no longer than 10 minutes.

Next comes the base coat. Per the recommendations of many posters of r/RedditLaqueristas I used Seche Vite clear base coat. They were actually on sale at my local Sally Beauty Supply 2 for $10. Base coats are important for a few different reasons. The first is they help protect your nails from those pesky stains I was fighting with in my last post. They also often contain vitamins that contribute to the health of your nails. From an esthetic point of view they give your polish a smoother look & help the polish stick to your nails.

Base coat is now equipped. 

Now the fun part - the color! Paint the first color on your nails as you would with any regular mani. I chose to paint the violet polish on first & did two coats to get a deeper color. 

Before I decided to add a second coat. A little messy but since another color is going over it that is okay.

Before you start painting the next color on, keep in mind this next step needs to be done quickly & I found it easier to do it nail by nail instead of painting the whole hand. That being said...

Paint the second coat over the first completely. 

Time to use those seran wrap strips! After painting the second coat bunch the seran piece in your hands and dab it over the wet polish. Dab as much or as little as you please until you like the design. I found that if I took a little too much of the top polish off I could actually dab the wet seran wrap back on to restore a little bit of the polish with no negative consequences. 

Thank you to my sister Ashley for helping me take this picture

After repeating this process on all ten nails seal the design in with the top coat. This was my first time using the Seche Vite top coat and I loved it. It dried quickly and the shine was wonderful.

Pretty, but messy.

As you can see we have some clean-up to do. The dabbing aspect of this technique makes this an especially messy mani. In previous manis I had used q-tips dipped in polish remover to do clean-up but the shape & size of the q-tip made controlling the clean-up difficult. So for this clean-up I will be trying out the new brushes I bought & acetone.

This part is pretty simple. Simply dip the brush into the acetone and brush around the nail to clean up any polish on the skin. A word of caution - I decided to pour a little acetone into the lid rather than dip the brush right into the bottle because the acetone was actually removing the black paint from the brushes & causing a mess. 

I originally thought I would prefer the smaller brush due to not wanting to ruin the mani but I found the thicker brush actually worked better & with some patience didn't harm the mani. However it is still best to be careful & use the minimum acetone you can to avoid bleeding into your mani. Don't forget to moisturizing afterwards either. 

I was actually really happy with the outcome of this mani, but the Seche Vite top coat is so beautifully glossy that getting a decent picture without glare was difficult so I apologize for the somewhat poor lighting. I think when I do this mani technique in the future I will use colors with a stronger contrast to really get the full effect. Overall I'm happy with this quick, simple style.

Acquiring a Passion for Polish

Before recently I didn't paint my nails much for a couple reasons. The first being I work as a receiving associate which makes it hard to keep nails looking very pretty. The second reason was that I didn't know much about nails. Before a couple months ago I didn't know what a base coat was, how to have healthy cuticles (nor did I know why this was important) or how to get multiple colors on your nails - or even paint one color on smoothly! 

This past Christmas my mom decided we should get mani/pedis together. I was excited - just because my job makes it hard to have pretty nails doesn't mean I didn't want them! We both got acrylic nails, I picked a red tip with striping for a festive look.

They reminded me of candy canes!

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed having acrylic nails. But like all acrylic manicures, my nails started to grow out and once the first acrylic popped off it was all over. By this point Christmas was over as well so I was itching for a new color. So back to the salon I went...

By this point I was hooked. But I was also becoming more aware of the financial burden of going to the salon every time I needed a fill or wanted a different color. When this manicure started to grow out I didn't have the money right away for a new one so I figured I would remove them and wait until I could afford a new one. But when I took them off I was really disturbed by the condition of my nails underneath. They were weak, discolored, and uneven. I decided between the financial aspect and the damage my nails had taken acrylics weren't worth it.

By this point my best friend Pixie had introduced me to Reddit and I had stumbled upon the glorious subreddit known as r/RedditLaqueristas. After being inspired by so many of the wonderful posts I decided that I would build up a polish stash and learn to do my own nails. The following pictures include the cast of this blog - my polish stash thus far.

Sally Hansen Polishes

China Glaze Polishes

Misc Polishes

Which brings me to the point of this blog - to share what I learn (the good & the bad) as I experiment with my nail art. Posts will include step-by-step pictures of new techniques I try, pictures of new polishes I add to my stash, and general nail tips I come across as I go. I hope that through sharing these I can meet other nail enthusiasts and we can all learn from each other.

On that note, I want to share with you a few of my first attempts at doing my own nails. This manicure used China Glaze Dorothy Who? & China Glaze Platinum Pieces crackle polish.

This next one was a bit harder and took a few tries. I used a Sally Hansen french manicure kit. It came with a white french tip color, a sheer french pink coat, & a UV top coat. This kit also came with little stickers that are used to guide the painting of the tip. This took me a few tries and I had to redo a couple nails but overall I was happy with the outcome.

My latest manicure was inspired after watching a late night Harry Potter movie marathon. For this one I used Sally Hansen Red Carpet & China Glaze Electrify from the Hunger Games collection (which was a birthday present from my lovely girlfriend). Overall I liked the combination but I wish the tips were more even but since I drew them on freehand that was to be expected. If I do this manicure again I will try using the strips I used for the french mani. I also learned the glitter is not cooperative when it comes to removal - if I find a good technique for removing glitter polish I will share!

Gryffindor Nails!

This brings me to now. From here on out I will be sharing my manicures in more depth and hopefully improving!