Throwback Thursday: St. Patrick’s Day 2016

For the holiday, let’s take a look at some festive nails I did last year!

My mom loves having sheer sparkly nails, so I did two coats of ASP “Shimmer Top Coat” as a base. I then removed the tacky layer and added some shamrock stickers, and a couple kitties she really liked. These stickers are nice and thin so you couldn’t even really tell they were there under the topcoat.

I went a little bit more bold with my nails:

Used the same stickers over LeChat Mood Changing “Limelight”. I am obsessed with these gel polishes because they change color depending on how hot or cold your fingers are. This color turns a dark green, and I love the subtle gold shimmer.

Gel Polish Used:

LeChat “Limelight”
ASP “Shimmer Top Coat”

Heart’s Desire

Another throwback to July, here’s another one of LeChat’s Mood Changing gel polish line. I definitely need to get more colors of these!

 

Perfect Cute, Short Nails

If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook or Nailpolis you’ll remember these nails from a few months ago. They’re done using LeChat Mood Changing gel polish, which I’ve posted about before. I love using these mood changing polishes, I swear they’re endlessly amusing.

This mani is done on my friend Katie, who already had beautiful, clean cuticles I barely had to do anything to. Only two coats of this polish gives great coverage, and it applies thinly without running.

ASP “Rendezvous in Red”

A simple summer no chip done with ASP “Rendezvous in Red”. This gel polish is super smooth to apply and doesn’t run easily despite feeling thin. It’s great because it doesn’t make the nails look thick, but even though it feels thin it is very pigmented and only requires two coats.

Finger Paints “Main Art-Traction”

Practicing my no chips while I was on a mini vacation to Woodsmoke-

Here we’ve got Finger Paints gel polish in “Main Art-Traction”. It’s a nice neon fuschia/purple that’s very creamy and completely opaque in two coats. My client wanted an accent nail of ASP “Studio 54” and some bling, and told me to do whatever I want which I always love hearing!

 

Lechat “Dream Chaser”

Another one of the the LeChat Mood Changing gel polishes- this one is “Dream Chaser”. I never had any problems with the other colors that I’ve tried from this brand, but this color was really thick and hard to keep from running. It also turned out really thick looking like I had done three or more coats when I one did two.

I also don’t pass up pretty much any opportunity to do an accent of Color Club Halo Hues “Harp On It” which is that gorgeous holographic silver on my ring finger.

Gel Polishes Used:

Color Club “Harp On It”
LeChat “Dream Chaser”

Hello again team iPhone!

I had the Samsung Note 4 for years, but it was time to move on. For many reasons, I decided to go back to having an iPhone again. I’m pretty glad I did, and one of the main reasons is that camera is so, SO much better than the Note’s was!

Can you tell how much nicer this photo is from the ones in my last post? The old photos look so much more yellow, and this one also looks crisper. Super happy about this. Here I’ve got another no chip french manicure, using OPI “Alpine Snow” but switching it up for the pink and using “Bubblebath” instead of “Passion”. There’s only a tiny difference between the two, but “Bubblebath” is much more pink where as “Passion” is more of a peachy toned pink. Both are very transparent. The smile line is completely hand painted, and I didn’t even use any brushes to clean them up.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the names of these gel polishes were, but they were both from Essie. How gorgeous is this color combo though??

Now OPI’s “Are We There Yet?” is a borderline nude color, which if I haven’t confessed before I kind of loathe nude nails, but this color is peachy enough that I like it. It also has the most subtle goldish shimmer to it which takes it from kind of boring to classy.

 Seeing as I follow a billion nail artists on Instagram I’ve noticed this mirror effect chrome powder trend going around. How could I pass this up?! I almost immediately ordered some to try out. I talked about it at school and all my teachers were just as excited to see how it worked so I brought it in for a demonstration once it arrived. Like it was meant to be, one of my teachers was already wearing a plain white no chip so she was my hand model.

I wasn’t sure if it would work since the mani was a couple days old, so I applied one thin layer of clear top coat, cured, and wiped the tacky layer off. Using the eyeshadow brush that came with the chrome powders I buffed the silver onto the nail. I tried to blow off the excess, but beware this stuff is kinda messy! Lots of hand washing involved after but totally worth it. Applied one more layer of clear top coat to seal the chrome in and finished off like any other gel polish mani. Make sure you use a top coat you don’t mind messing up, as it will leave some tiny little silver flakes in the topcoat that will transfer to every other color you use this topcoat on.

But I mean, mirror silver nails. How cool is that? I’ll have a dedicated chrome top coat to have mega-shiny nails!

Sinful Colors “Tempest”

The color quality on this picture isn’t the greatest, but it’s pretty accurate to the color of the polish in real life. It’s a very pretty springy cream lilac.

Don’t mind my cuticles, this was before I was in school and knew how to tame them! Sinful Colors is one of my go to colors since it’s cheap and has a quality formula. They’re always coming out with cute new colors that I can’t resist passing up whenever I’m in Walgreens or somewhere and spot the new collection displays.

Evelyn came to visit!

We’re encouraged to bring people in to school to practice on when we have our student salon days, and my best friend since kindergarten came to support me!

This fine lady right here to the left of me, from a hiking trip a couple years ago.

I’ve been doing her nails at home for years now, but it meant so much to me that she travelled downtown to see me at school. She picked a beautiful coral color, and I always enjoy painting her nails because she has such nice naturally long nail beds that look long even if her nails are actually short.

OPI “My Chihuahua Bites!”

My other client for the day chose a rich bronze called “Brisbane Bronze” by OPI.

I apologize for the poor quality of this picture, I must have touched the lens with my lotion-y hand and not cleaned it well enough. I love this color though, it would be great in the fall. It’s very metallic and looks like it would have some texture but is completely smooth.

The next day my first client chose IBD “Cashmere Cutie”. This color would be great for Easter or really anytime in the spring. It’s a very pigmented, creamy pastel pink with a tinge of purple that applies nicely with two coats.

My second client that day chose OPI “Samoan Sands”, which in all of the pictures I can find online does not look as transparent as these nails turned out even after three coats. I’m not sure if the bottle was just old and down to it’s last bits or what was wrong. This client didn’t want her nails cut down at all either, so excuse all the different lengths.

You guessed it- more no chip clients

Another day, another no-chip!

I absolutely LOVE this tealish blue beauty by CND called “Hotsky to Tschotsky”. I was wearing it on my nails when I did these, the client was deciding between this and another similar color but seeing it on my nails already convinced her which color she wanted. How cool is that giant eyeball ring too??

OPI “Alpine Snow”

After I was done with my first client, one of my classmates wanted to change her nails. She filed off her previous polish so her acrylics wouldn’t be damaged, then I did a quick no-chip for her. She wanted all white since it was the weekend before the fourth of July (yes, I’m kinda behind on blogging about school! Sorry!).