Essie - Under Where?

Under Where? is from Essie's resort 2013 collection. Essie is one of my favourite brands though I don't own a lot because I didn't start loving it until a few months ago, and it's around the same price as OPI here! Since OPI is my #1 favourite brand I tend to buy those more than I should, but I'm making a point to buy more Essie. 

This gorgeous purple is really light and delicate. I think the purple is a little musty (I know that describes scents but I think you get what I mean with this polish.) It's just not an in your face colour, which is nice. It doesn't pop on your nails so if you're looking for something cute yet subtle, this is a great one! The formula was also great, one reason I love Essie. I used three coats for full opacity. 

As much as I loved this colour, it's not the most flattering against my skin tone. Or maybe it is, maybe I'm just used to brighter, harsher colours. Either dark and bold or bright and loud - I like colours that really stand out.

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 11: School

I knew right away I wanted to do little pencils for today's nail art challenge. I feel like I can't do some nail art because of the shape of my nails, but these pencils were perfect for my shape! 

Here are the polishes I used: 

Orly - First Kiss, Zoya - Kylie, Sally Hansen - ,
Sinful Colours - , NOPI - Positive Energy 

For this mani I started out by painting all my nails with three coats of Orly - First Kiss. I then painted the eraser part of the pencils, as well as the yellow part. I used a dotting tool to create a little ruffle on the bottom to imitate a real pencil's ruffles. Next I used a striping nail art brush to paint a bit of a darker shade of yellow lines down the length of the pencil. I then used the same striping nail art brush to paint silver lines horizontally to imitate the piece of metal that attaches the eraser to the pencil. I finished by adding some black to the tips of my nails. 

And here's a fun shot of this mani!

I'm really pleased with how this mani turned out! I would like to fix a couple things if I ever tried it again though. I would have liked the ruffles on the pencil to be a bit bigger, a larger area of the wood (between the yellow pencil and black lead) and more evenly shaped lead tips. I really think these colours are perfect together for this mani though!

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 10: Match OOTD

Most of my clothes don't have very complicated designs so I knew right away I would match my nails to this romper for today's challenge! I don't even remember where I got this romper, but I was in love with the tribal-ish pattern and how it was strapless with the extra ruffle at the bust. It also has pockets which is something my sister and I go crazy for in rompers and dresses hahaha. 

Here are the polishes I used. I really love these colours together, they're nice and contrasting and the purple, pink and orange add just a little girliness.

China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise, China Glaze - Aquadelic, Pure Ice - Jailbait,
N.Y.C. - Pink Promenade, OPI - A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find,
Sally Hansen - Barracuda, Joe Fresh - Mocha 

In the picture of my nails above it's a little hard to see the difference between the pink and orange so here are my nails with flash.

The stripe part of this mani was easy as pie, I only struggled a bit with the tribal parts. I didn't plan for my nails to come out kind of similar - with tribal at the tops and just stripes at the free edge of my nails but that's how the pattern got divided up.

On my pointer finger the design is supposed to be white X's with a bit of pink and brown accents. I tried really hard to feather the design on my pointer, middle, and ring fingers. The problem with working with polish is that it dries so quickly that you have to get fresh polish every time it starts becoming tacky.

These nails were really fun to wear but they wouldn't be my first choice of nail art. I enjoyed replicating a pattern onto my nails but I found parts of it to be a little difficult, which is good because it got me trying a couple new designs that I wouldn't have normally tried!

XO Natasha