September Nail Art Day 3: School!

Hey Everyone!
I apologize for this look being so late, but I've had a pretty busy weekend and haven't had time to write a post.  Anyway, the theme for day three is school colors.  My school's colors are red, white and blue, but I decided to substitute white for silver just so I could use a little glitter.  Cuz who doesn't like a little glitter, right? :)

For a base color I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon in Navy Baby.  I thought about using red as a base, but I think the navy is a little more classy.  Then I used Zoya Sarah to add a red stripe on the side.  The silver stripe was added with my Kiss silver glitter polish.  This is one of my favorite ways to do my nails lately, and I think it does my school's colors justice.  I hope y'all enjoyed, and stay tuned for more (day 4's design will be a little late too)!  Have a terrific Tuesday, and bow wow bulldogs!!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Collective Pink Wednesday!

Hey There!
So today I am returning to Pink Wednesday! I have painted my nails pink on several Wednesdays, but I just haven't gotten around to posting them.  So today I decided to post the best of the pink manis I have done lately.  Hope you enjoy!

Alrighty, so this design started with a base of OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia.  This is one of those colors that I didn't like at all when I bought it.  I thought it was too bright for my skin tone.  However, over the last month I realized that I really love this color!  Anyway, I used a dotting tool for the half moon of polka dots.  The polish I used was OPI Pedal Faster, Suzi!  Cute, simple, and pink!

Now this is the look I did for Valentines day, but I never got a chance to do a post about it.  Good thing Pink Wednesday exists!  Anyway, I used Pretty Please Pink Crush for the base of this one.  I used two coats, but one pretty much did the job.  For the lip prints I used Bundle Monster plate BM02 and Sally Hansen Insta-dri in Silver Sweep.  For the rose I used Bundle Monster BM14 and Pretty Please Preppy in Pink.  I thought this was a perfect Valentines day mani :)
I hope y'all enjoyed this post, and I highly encourage you to participate in Pink Wednesday!  Have a wonderful Wednesday!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Nail Essentials Updated

Hey Guys!
I totally just realized today that I have been blogging for a whole year! So in order to celebrate, I thought I would redo one of my first blog posts ever: my nail essentials.  If you want to take a look at the original post, click here.  The things I use to take care of my nails have changed since then, and I think it would be good to update my post about them.

 First off, the products I use to keep my hands moisturized.  For my cuticles I use the Smith's Rosebud Salve.  I got mine at Sephora, but I'm pretty sure you can get at least a similar product at Bath and Body Works.  You can use this on other dry areas such as your lips and elbows and such, but I just use it for my cuticles.  This is a nice creamy product that moisturizes my cuticles like a dream.  It can get a little sticky, so apply it before my lotion.  The lotion I use is L'Occitane Creme Mains hand cream.  I like that it keeps my hands moisturized without being greasy.  The only caveat: it kinda smells like bug spray.  I can get over that though :) In late October when it began getting cold where I go to college, my hands got super dry, and my cuticles freaked out! I was getting hangnails left and right.  These products helped me get my hands back to normal.

 The nail polish remover I have been using is the CVS regular polish remover.  I like this one in particular because it seems to take off my nail polish more quickly.  Plus the smell is not as bad as most of the remover I have used.  I never go to fancy with my nail polish remover because I am just not willing to pay the money for the OPI or Zoya ones.  The cheap drugstore ones seem to work just fine for me. 

 Now, on to base coat.  I have been using the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat.  I have mainly been using this one because I ran out of my OPI one and needed a new base coat, so I got this one in a pinch.  It works pretty well.  I like the smooth base it gives, however it seems to peel a little more than the OPI.

 For top coat I have been using Sally Hansen Insta-dri anti chip top coat.  I like this because it drys quickly while still giving a shiny finish to the nails.  It's also a lot cheaper than the Seche Vite top coat. 

I have found that for nail clippers, straight clippers are the way to go.  I am not positive what brand these are, but I love them! I have noticed that curved nail clippers tend to cut my nails too short.  The straight ones just give me more control.

One thing that I don't have a picture of that I use in my nail care is a glass file.  I don't have a picture because I recently broke mine.  That's what happens when you drop a glass file on tile dorm floor.  Anyway, I find that a glass file makes my nails peel less than a normal emery board.

I hope this was informational for you, and happy one year blogiversary (close enough anyway)!  Have a top notch Tuesday!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Christmas Nails

Hello There!
So today I decided to share with you the two nail designs I did for Christmas! I love just about any holiday that has theme colors because I can do things like this.  I hope this gets you back into the Christmas spirit :)

 This nail design is the more complicated of the two.  For the base color I used Essie Clutch Me if you Can Zoya Frida on the ring finger.  I like Clutch Me if you Can rather than a stark red because it looks better on my skin tone.  Reds usually tend to wash me out, so I tend to go for a darker, more burgundy shade.  For the tips I used OPI Goldeneye from the James Bond collection.  This one is a little thin and flaky, so it took two coats to get the tips solid.  For the stripes I used my Kiss nail art polish in gold.  I topped it off with Sally Hansen Insta-dri top coat.

For this look I started with a base of OPI Care to Danse.  I always use sheer polishes like this one for french manicures.  I used Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Honeymoon Red for the tips.  This is the exception to my no red rule.  For the glitter fade I used OPI Getting Miss Piggy With It.  This made a great glitter fade, oddly enough.  I thought the red would look weird on my nails, but it actually looked fantastic.  So there's my holiday nail fun!  I hope you enjoyed it, and have a wonderful week!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Today's Mani

Hey Everybody!
It's good to be back!  Today I am just doing a quick post on my nail of the day (NOTD).  I found this combo and thought it looked gorgeous, so I thought I would share it with you!

I started with Sally Hansen complete manicure base coat.  Then for a base color I applied two coats of OPI India Mood for Love.  This is a beautiful pink creme formula.  It only takes two coats to get solid.  The glitter I used is OPI Excuse Moi! from the Muppet collection.  It's a fine multicolored glitter with a red/pink base.  This is the kind of glitter that I hate to use on it's own because 1) it's a pain in the butt to take off, and 2) the red/pink base stains my nails.  However by putting a color base underneath it I avoid the staining problem.  I topped it off with Sally Hansen Insta-dri topcoat, which I will be doing a review on very soon.  I hope y'all enjoyed this post, and have a marvelous Monday!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Secret Garden Nails!

Happy Saturday everybody!
I know I didn't post a Pink Wednesday this week, but I wanted to wait to post this manicure!  This weekend my school's drama department is putting on The Secret Garden, and I am house managing (which means that I am in charge of the ushers and making sure the audience isn't distracting anybody).  It is a tradition that my nails match the show, so of course I had to do Secret Garden nails!

 For the base color I used OPI Uh oh, Roll Down the Window.  I really don't use this one too much, but I thought it fit for this look.  Then I used Bundle Monster plate BM19 and Sally Hansen Insta-dri Silver Sweep, which I reviewed in my last post.  It works really well for stamping! for the flower, I used OPI Cajun Shrimp for the petals and Kiss gold glitter for the middle.  I may do a tutorial on how to make these flowers.  Finally I used Seche Vite top coat.  I hope you all enjoyed this post, and have a lovely weekend!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Review: Sally Hansen Insta-dri

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great week!  So today I am going to review a polish I picked up yesterday: Sally Hansen Insta-dri.  

The color I chose was Silver Sweep.  I chose this color because I ran out of my favorite silver, Sally Hansen Celeb City.  Also, I heard that these polishes are really good for stamping, so I figured silver would be a good color to start with.  Overall I really like this polish.  It went on very opaquely.  In the picture above, I only used one coat.  Ordinarily I would use two coats even if it really only needs one, but i didn't feel the need to use a second coat.  The finish is really nice and metallic.  I think I will get a lot of use out of this polish!  I got bored with the simple silver, so I added some stamping!

The plate I used Bundle Monster BM19.  It is a cool houndstooth print.  The problem I have with these plates is that the print is not always big enough to fit my whole nail.  Anyway, I thought this would look cool over the silver, and I was right! It turned out really nice!  So I hope y'all enjoyed this post.  I'm sorry I haven't been posting a whole lot; I've been crazy busy and probably will be for the rest of the school year, but this summer I hope to be able to post more often!  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday!
~ Mary Elizabeth
Edit: for those of you who read this when I first posted it, I spelled Insta-dri wrong, so I went back and corrected it :)

PROM!!

Hello lovelies!
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.  For me this weekend was not only Easter, but PROM TOO!  No, I did not have a date, but that's ok.  I had a fabulous time with my friends.  I thought I would post what I did with my hair, makeup, and nails.

Me and my friend Bianca :)

 I hope you can see my hair ok.  My best friend Maddi did my hair for me.  She used a one inch curling iron and curled it all to the right.  Then she put most of the hair in a side ponytail.  She left several pieces out so that it didn't look too much like a ponytail.  For my makeup I used a simple foundation and powder.  nothing crazy, but it stayed on all night!  On my eyes I used white glitter on the inner corner, grey in the crease, and a soft black in the outer corner.  I winged my eyeliner and used the same black shadow to smoke it out.  I used a waterproof mascara so that it didn't slide around.  On my cheeks I used MAC Dame blush.  Finally, I used a coral lipstick. 

Now for the nails, I used Essie Ballet Slippers as a base.  For the tips I used Sally Hansen Celeb City.  This is one of my favorite silvers.  Definitely a one coater.  For the black line I used a Kiss nail art polish.  Then I used Sinful Colors Black on Black and Bundle monster plate bm14.  This went really well with my black dress.  And of course I finished with Seche Vite.  I hope y'all enjoyed getting a glimpse at my prom, and I hope you got an idea for your prom too! I hope you have a terrific Tuesday!
~ Mary Elizabeth

Stamping Reviews

Hey y'all!
So today I want to talk about a few new products that I have bought lately.  I used both of them in this nail look.

So for this look I started with OPI base coat.  Then I used OPI Midnight in Moscow.  This is my ALL TIME FAVORITE POLISH!!  Then I used Bundle Monster stamping plate bm21 with Sally Hansen Color Quick in Sand Shimmer.  It only gives a sheer, subtle color when used for stamping, but that might not be the case for all of the colors.  This is the only one I've used, so I don't really know.  As far I using the Color Quicks for regular nail polish, I don't recommend them.  They are super streaky.  Now, I want to talk about the Bundle Monster plates. I got mine on amazon.com.  I love the variety of patterns.  The only problem I have with them is the size of the full patterns.  They are a little too small for my nails.  That won't keep me from using them, though! I am definitely glad I bought them! I hope you liked this post, and I hope you have a marvelous Monday!
~ Mary Elizabeth