4th Of July Texture Swirl Nail Art

Hi everyone and happy Independence Day to all my American readers! I finally have my 4th of July mani here to post, I've been super busy but I managed to get some nail art in haha! My independence day nails are these cool textured swirly designs, keep reading for more!

Flower Frame Nails

Hey hey happy Tuesday! How are we all feeling about US and Portugal :((( That last 30 seconds goal totally bummed me out, but I'm looking forward to a really exciting game against Germany on Thursday! 

My nail art today are these cute blue and pink flower frame nails. These were inspired by the talented nailsbydaniellet on instagram. She's amazing! Keep on reading for more!

Glitter Nails With OPI- Suzi's Hungry Again

Hey hey happy Sunday afternoon i hope you're all doing well. My VERY LAST EXAM is tomorrow morning (math) and I haven't been as busy so I've been able to get some nail-ing done. But the next month's nail art schedule will have to work around the World Cup. I'm kind of watching France vs Honduras right now. Instead of studying. 

I did these pink and glittery nails yesterday. Keep reading to see more!

Zoya Pixiedust Polishes

Hey hey hey! What's up everybody? Weekend plans anyone? I have absolutely NOTHING it's gonna be great! Just a couple days for some physics work, some quality bonding time with Netflix, and of course nail polish! 
I have an awesome post for today. Zoya had their awesome Earth day exchange a couple weeks ago and my 6 new Zoya polishes finally showed up! I took the chance and bought 6 of their pixiedust polishes. I've heard great things about them, and they have fantastic colors, they're so great! I've been a little slow to the texture trend, I'm only really just getting into them now. I think these pixiedusts are really going to help!
I have all 6 Zoya's swatched today, keep reading!

Navy & Gold Swirl Nail Art

Hey everyone happy Friday finally! I feel like this week has been sooo long, is it just me? Anyway is anyone doing anything fun. I mean, I'm writing this sitting in bed watching Futurama, so this seems to be shaping up to be a fun weekend! I haven't done real nail art in a while, so it'll be fun to finally have enough time this weekend to do something. 

So the nail art today is this blue and gold swirl nail art. You all know I love navy and gold together! Keep reading to see more!

Circles Mani With Ombre Background

Hi everyone happy Monday! Did everyone have a nice weekend? Mine was quite nice, I did LOT'S of cleaning! Little early for spring cleaning I guess, but I just sorta "got in the mood" if you know what I mean. I managed to totally rearrange my room, and I also got rid of a huge box that's been taking up room in the basement for AGES. Mission accomplished haha!
So today's nail art for you all today is this nice concentric circle design. Take a look!

Colorful Flowers With Sinful Colors-Hottie

Hi everyone! How are you all? I hope everyone's doing good! So we're smack in the middle of the winter, but I was seriously feeling some spring, so I was like "I think I'll do some flowers with sparkles on my nails" so yeah that happened. 

Nail Art Feb Challenge-Simple

Hello and welcome to the second to last post of the Nail Art Feb challenge! This nail look is based off the theme Simple. This was kind of ambiguous, but since 2 of my favorite things are ombre and glitter, so I just went with that!

Zoya Magical Pixiedust Trio

Hey all happy Saturday! Does anyone have fun plans for the weekend? The temperature in New Jersey is actually over 30 degrees this week! So I'm going out today, doing some shopping in town, should be fun! I have a great post planned for today, I got a free mini trio of the Zoya magical pixiedust polishes with my last Zoya purchase, so I have them all swatched for you today! These are textured polishes with really cool holographic sparkles mixed in and they also have pieces of chunkier larger holographic glitter. And guys, they. are. awesome

Zoya Nail Mail & Swatches

Hey guys! So do you all know what the best thing EVER is? When you get nail mail A DAY EARLY! I ordered 4 new Zoya polishes the other day, and they were supposed to arrive tomorrow, but I got them today! I also got a mini trio of the Zoya Magical Pixiedusts, I'll have some swatches of those later!

China Glaze-For Audrey Nail Art

Hello everybody! I hope you've all been enjoying your weekends! I had a long weekend this week (4 days!) and I really don't want to go back to school tomorrow :( But oh well to make things better I've got some nail polish and nail art to share with you guys! My awesome friend recently gave me some new nail polish for my bday, and I got to use one of them today! Here is my mani:

My new polish is, of course, China Glaze-For Audrey. I feel like this polish was really popular in the whole nail community, but I couldn't get my hands on it until now. And I'm so happy because it's such a nice color!

It went on really easily in 2 coats. It looks a little lumpy in these pics but it really wasn't in real life. Now the design I had in mind was sort of a roses look. I'm not really sure how well that came out...

I just used a dotting tool and dark blue polish to create the design. For the glitter gradients, I used Sephora Formula X-Light Me Up Edison. It's a really fun holographic gold glitter. 

So yeah that's all I've got on my nails this week. Here are the awesome polishes my friend got me:

From left to right, it's China Glaze-Fairy Dust, Prism, and For Audrey. Yay I'm going to call this birthday haul #2!
Thanks for reading this guys and enjoy your week!
~Nova

Ombre Chevrons

Sigh.

Why do I do this for you guys? I mean, I've got 3 tests this week, and an essay rough draft due on Thursday, plus marching band practice for 3 hours after school, 40 minutes of flute practice a day, and a season of Lost that needs finishing, and yet I still take valuable time out of my weekend to paint my nails and blog about them.

Answer:

Because I love doing it 

What other reason do I need? 

Case in point, let's look at this week's nails, shall we?

So uhm I know I said I love doing this...but dear God by the time I finished these I was so happy, because these nails were a PAIN. 

But they look great. so whatever 

And I promise that these look so much better in person. In person it's harder to see the places where I screwed up. 

:P

So the pretty gold base here is China Glaze-Blonde Bombshelll, which is this awesome yellow gold glittery base. You all know how much I ADORE blue and gold together!

The blues in order, from light to dark, are Essie-Lilacism, Orly-Snowcone, a blue polish from China, and Butter London-Royal Navy. That polish is my love. I have never found a blue that I love as much as Royal Navy. Apologies to the 30+ blues in my stash. 

But seriously like if I could marry a bottle of nail polish, it would be Royal Navy. 

I used striping tape to block out the lines, then painstakingly went in with the polish brush and did my best to paint between the freaking lines. I failed and spazzed a couple times. 

I did a reverse ombre on my ring fingers and thumbs as an accent nail.

So yeah it was kinda a bad idea for me to have painted every single one of my nails like this, because each nail took like 10 minutes to do, something that I did not realize until I started my left hand. 

I really wanted to not do anything on my left hand and just leave it gold, but you know how I'm like really OCD about this sort of thing. Of course they had to match!

So don't get me wrong, I really like these nails alot. I think they're pretty and they stand out and they're overall awesomeness. Let me just tell you that a lot of people think I wear fake nails or appliques or something. I think I need a shirt or something that says "I paint my own nails" on it. I dunno. That'd be cool.

I'm just saying that I'm probably not going to do a design this time consuming for a while. You're all just lucky that I had practically no homework this weekend. 

So yeah 2 coats of topcoat made them smooth and shiny and ready to wear! Yay! 

Now my hands are really cold and I have to pee.

And here's my cat

Just because he was being really cute today. 

Ok that's all guys and thanks for reading as always!

~Nova

Sunday Nail Art-The Resistance

Hi everyone! Gosh I'm SO excited to share my nails with you guys today! So if any of you know me, or even if this is your first time on this blog you can just check out the pics on the sidebar, you might see that I'm kind of a fan of the band Muse. 
Correction: Muse is my ALL TIME favorite band. Of all time. *Ever*
So first a little background, in case you've never heard of them. Muse is a UK band that formed in 1994, and consists of 3 members. They have released 6 studio albums, Showbiz, Origins of Symmetry, Absolution, Black Holes & Revelations, The Resistance, and The 2nd Law. Just saying...I own all 6. They have been nominated for 5 Grammy awards, and their 5th studio album, The Resistance, was their first album to win a grammy, for best rock album.
Ok so...nails:
Also I was totally listening to Muse on my ipod while doing these so :P

This manicure was inspired by the album art of The Resistance. Yayy! Glitter!
Let me just apologize now because I took like 50 pictures. These nails were just so sparkly and awesome I couldn't help it.

So the base here is Julep-Michelle. It's this awesome dark grey blue that's sorta almost black, but it's not, it's blue. God I just have such a love for navy/dark blue polishes! I must have at least like 5 navy polishes that are all basically the same color.

Michelle is a really great color and it's got a nice formula this is 1-2 coats, only some nails really needed the second. 
After that I applied a coat of Orly-Etoile to give it a nice silver shimmer. It's supposed to replicate the stars from the album cover. I sorta forgot to photograph this part :/

And after that came the glitter! Yayy! I picked this glitter up from Michaels. so technically it's "craft" glitter, but I was like wtf craft glitter=nail glitter, so voila. 

Basically the second I saw the awesome large hex glitter I knew I wanted to do nail art based on The Resistance. 

The design on the album has like a lot of gaps and holes in this honeycomb like pattern, so I tried to leave gaps between the glitters on my nails. My camera sort of fails at picking up sparkly stuff, but in person the design is definitely more visible. I tried not to get too glitter happy :)

On the thumbs I sorta wanted to do like the center of the album, where the Earth is in the middle of everything, but like I said, I GOT GLITTER HAPPY :0 I had like no room left to put the Earth. Oops. I did it a little better on my left hand:

I was able to leave more room in the middle of the nail. But still no earth :(
I used both large and small hex glitter in this design, cuz you can see on the album the hexagons get smaller and smaller. 

After I placed all the glitter I used a toothpick and white polish to make larger stars. 

I finished this design with THREE coats of top coat (!) cuz I really wanted the surface of the nail to be smooth and I didn't want the glitter sticking up or falling off. That's the only thing with large glitter, it tends to stick up in places. Other than that it's AWESOME. 

Overall I LOVE these nails! And the great thing is, even if you don't know what in the world Muse is (although you should!! They Rock! Literally!!) this design still looks really cool! I don't ever wanna take these off, they're like the coolest thing I've ever done.

Whew modesty be daaaamned.

 I guess I should also say that The Resistance really isn't my favorite Muse album at all...I just looove the album cover. clearly. My fave album by Muse has to be Absolution. I mean really, somebody go and listen to that album right now because I love it and it is fantastic.

So is anyone else here a Muse fan? Or is it just me...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Muse_melbourne28012010.jpg

Yay Muse!

Anyway I hope you all liked this post and found it......ready for this....amusing 

:D

I know I know...I'm pathetic and I suck

I should just not be allowed to say words

Ok bye guys

~Nova

Orly-Snowcone

Hello readers! How's everyone's week been goin so far. I've been havin a swell time up in New Hampshire but I am leaving today :( It's been so nice up here, yesterday I went hiking with my mom, and it was actually a lot of fun! Tomorrow Imma be goin back to camp...back to all that normal life stuff. Ugh.

So today's featured polish is Orly-Snowcone. It's a nice dusty shade of light blue, it's not quite as bright as it appears in these pictures. This is just such a gorgeous color, especially on me and my skin tone. Greyed out dusty colors just look good on me! Don't make my hands looks all red or ghosty or anything. Yay!

The formula on this was EXCELLENT!!! It was one coat, smooth and perfect and awesome. The only thing is that it got a little streaky you can see on my ring finger and I probably should have smoothed that out with another coat. But other than that blip it's like the most awesome formula ever. The application is smooth and not runny and opaque and ugh I'm pretty sure this polish dropped out of nail polish heaven!

That's all I've got today guys! I should have some nail art for y'all towards the end of the week if I get the chance. I've been thinking about doing nail art more often, you know not just once a week. Lately I tend to get sick of a design if I've been wearing it for more than like 2 days. I have some real fun designs planned/stored up in my dusty old brain, so should be fun!
Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you all next time!
~Nova

Essie-Lilacism

Hi everybody! How was everyone's Tuesday? My summer camp started yesterday. It's pretty fun, it's an art summer program and there are only 2 other girls in the class! Which may sound awkward but I LOVE small classes. Plus the teacher's nice. Plus I can stop in down town and buy nail polish on the way home. Which is the best part :P I actually did this same program last year and did a still life oil painting of some of my nail polish bottles. But that will never be shown...because I hate it :0
Today's nail polish color is kinda an oldie, at least for my collection, Essie-Lilacism. It's a very pretty sorta dusty light blue. The pictures are making it look WAY brighter than it really is! My camera can never capture these dusty colors properly. If you want a better idea of what Lilacism actually looks like you can check out my flower outline nails here. 

The picture below is probably the more color accurate of the two, though it's still a tad brighter than the real shade. but just a tad ;)
It's funny because in my opinion, this color isn't lilac at all! It is DEFINITELY a light blue! I've seen other pictures of this shade and all of them lean more purple, but for some odd reason mine is just totally blue. Not that I'm complaining; it's a super pretty blue :)

The formula on this was kinda sheer and it was pretty streaky on the first 2 coats. You can still see a little bit of streakyness in the pictures. I'm wearing 3 coats here, a couple of the nails needed a fourth, but I think you can get away with just 3.
Essie is available in most drug stores like CVS or Walgreens, and also in Target and retail for about $7-8.
Overall I REALLY love this color even if it's not really a lilac. I prefer this color to a lilac polish anyway. That's all for today guys thanks for reading!

Julep-Eloise

Hello everyone! Happy first day of summer! Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather! Today's post will be a short one cuz I gotta run to a birthday party after this. The polish I'll be showing you all today is Julep-Eloise. This is a nice blue-grey creme. It's a very soft looking shade, but dark at the same time. I love colors like this.

These photos are showing the color a little darker than in real life. While the polish does apply a little darker than bottle color, it's not as dark as these pictures. It's hard to see the grey undertones in these pictures, but it's definitely there!

 The formula on this was a little streakier than expected, but not too bad. I used 2 coats for these pictures. For most polishes I wouldn't be upset about having to use 2 coats, but seeing as Julep bottles are FREAKING TINY(see picture below) and are als FREAKING EXPENSIVE, I kinda hoped it would only require one coat. I was sort of hesitant about swatching my Juleps, because I didn't want to waste them! They dry pretty fast, and also nice and shiny. These pictures do not have top coat.

The bottle color in this picture is closer to what the polish looks like on the nail. It's really pretty! I love smoky grey looking colors.
Julep costs $14 (!!) each(!!!!!) for a bottle that only has .27 fl oz, which is about half of a normal bottle (!!!!!) I did get all my Juleps on a sale though, when I first signed up on their website. It's kind of complicated, but I got 4 bottles for about $10 (!) and then 2 more later. But I'm not going back to that site and paying $14 for a teeny tiny bottle. 
You can find Juleps on their website, and at places like Sephora.
That's it for today's post have a good rest of the day!

Urban Outfitters-Pluto

Hi everyone happy Monday! Today's polish is a pretty glitter, Urban Outfitters-Pluto. My town recently got an Urban Outfitters in down town, and since the only thing I can afford in that store is the nail polish, I've recently acquired several of their polishes! Pluto is a beautiful navy/purple-y jelly base (I LOVE navy!!) with super pretty iridescent glitter. I think this is a really unique color/polish in general, so kudos to Urban for doing something so original!

In the bottle the base looks darker and more blue, but on the nail there is definitely some purple in there. And look at that amazing glitter sparkle! These pictures all have a coat of Seche Vite on top to smooth out the glitter. 

Here's a close-up of my finger. I love how the pretty jelly base sort of hides the glitter from the previous coats. And the top glitter is so much sparklier in real life it's just like outer space BAM on my nails!

Now let's talk formula. Just from looking at this polish you can expect the polish to be pretty goopy, but I had no idea just how bad it would be. When I first started painting I had no idea how goopy it would be and stupidly plopped a giant thick drop onto my pinkie. That was a HUGE mistake! The polish sort of runs around depending on how you're tilting your hand. It was a pain. My advice with this polish is to apply several VERY thin coats. It's also a good idea to let the previous coat dry before applying the next coat, or else the polish will sort of drag off and be all patchy. My pinkie has 2 gloppy lumpy coats, and the other fingers all have 3 thinner coats. It definitely is easier to manage with 3 coats, and I think it's totally worth it seeing as the color is so gorgeous! 
This polish cost $5 at Urban Outfitters, but they have a 2 for $8 sale, so I think I got this for $4 with another polish.
That's it for today see you all next time!

L'Oreal Now You Sea Me

Hello happy Friday everyone! Anyone doing stuff for Memorial Day weekend? I'm in the marching band so I get to march in my town's Memorial Day parade on Monday yay! My weekend's probably going to be me watching a billion episodes of Firefly, Buffy, Sherlock, and all the other shows I am geeking about these days.
Today's polish is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me and it's a sort of greyish dusty blue. The polish is darker in real like than in the pictures. It's dustier and more teal-y.  Kind of like the sea. Imma take a stab and say that's what L'Oreal was goin for

And the formula on this was kind of horrible. Streaky and sheer and kind of uneven. This is 3 coats and it doesn't look too bad, but below maybe you can see it better, how the polish sort of has ridges and isn't smooth especially on my ring finger and pinky. Usually if a polish isn't good by 3 coats (maybe 4 if the color is really nice:P) then I just give up on it. I'm really impatient.