Nail Art August Day 9: Bold

I won't lie, I had a little bit of difficulty figuring out what to do for this challenge. Bold to me is anything that pops. At first I thought neon, then I thought maybe colour blocking or some sort of design, like a tape mani, that would be really drastic. But I wasn't happy with either of those ideas. Bold to me also means contrast. So, having fairly light skin I decided to go with a really dark colour. 

I recently purchased OPI - Ink and now was the perfect time to use it! I obviously couldn't do just a solid colour so I chose to add some rhinestones. I've used these triangle rhinestones before (purchased from the Born Pretty Store) on my Taylor Swift Nails. In that mani I placed the rhinestones at the base of my nails, this time I placed them at the tips for an extra claw-like look. 

You may have realized I love simple manis, and yes, I absolutely adored this one. Normally I'd put a top coat on after the rhinestones but I knew I would be taking this mani off very soon so I put the rhinestones on top of the top coat. 

Aren't those rhinestones just gorgeous?!

Ink looks a little dark in the picture above, but IRL you can really see the duochrome flakies or whatever is in that bottle. I have no idea, all I know is it's magical. Ink is very similar to another OPI polish I own, called Russian Navy. RN is also a navy blue with pink glitter. The difference is that RN is a blackened navy blue and the glitter is very slight, whereas Ink is a bit more jelly (though opaque in two coats) with significantly noticeable pink flakes/glitter. I originally had a picture holding the two bottles together but it came out blurry :( 

I'm kind of loving this hand pose lately... 

Ink sure is a beauty! 

I felt like a bit of a witch with this mani... first of all because I have pointy nails but even more so because the triangle rhinestones accent the pointy nails. I really felt like I had claws! 

XO Natasha 

Nail Art August Day 8: Ombré

As always, I try and do something a little different than the general population when it comes to these nail art challenges, so today I did a polka dot ombré. There's a lot of debate when it comes to the difference between a gradient and ombre but to me a gradient is when two colours fade together on one nail and an ombré is when the colour goes from light to dark (or vice versa) and each nail is one solid colour. 

As soon as I saw ombré, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I love silver and purple together! 

Orly - Dazzle, Pure Ice - Jailbait, Color Club - Lavendarling,
Essie - Playdate, Essie - Under Where?, Revlon - Lily

I think these colours go really well together for the ombré. If you don't have a lot of polishes it's sometimes hard to get a perfect ombré but luckily most of my purples are similar so this worked out nicely! I don't think I'd be able to do an ombré with any other colour. Blue maybe, but it would be a little rougher than the purple. 

This mani also gave me a chance to practice my polka dots. I don't do them often because I never used to like them - I'm starting to now though! I was kinda shaky the day I did this mani and I know I could have done a better job, but looking at this mani as a whole I'm really pleased with how it turned out. This was also my first time using my new silver, Orly - Dazzle. It's a foil whereas my other silver (NOPI - Positive Energy) is a metallic. 

XO Natasha 

Stiletto to Square

WAHHH. Okay so if you know me you know I'm totally obsessed with my nail shape. I used to call it almond, some people call it stiletto, but I now think it's a hybrid of oval and stiletto. Actually they're a little flatter and less pointy than I like them in the pictures below but if you look at my previous posts or follow me on instagram you can see slight variations in the shape. 

Tomorrow I'm starting a new (sort of) job at McDonald's. I worked there for two years before but it's been a year since I last worked there. The length of my nails wasn't a problem, and I'm sort of okay with the no nail polish rule. I mean it sucks of course, but I'll be making money so it was fine. I'm only allowed one piercing per ear though, and I have six on each ear. Taking out my lobe piercings, three on each ear, is easy but the others are a little more fiddly. If I'm gonna be constantly switching earrings around, it's gonna take around an hour each time with the length of my nails. SO I decided to chop them off :( They also were a little unhealthy from lack of care the past few days. 

I also needed a change. I love love love my nail shape but actually shaping them was getting a bit annoying. When I first got into nails the square shape was my favourite but it never lasted long because the "wings" always broke off. I decided to try square nubs again and then as they grow out file them round, then finally back to my original shape. 

I know my nails are going to be so much healthier like this and while it kills me that I have nubs (I think they make my hands look like man hands) I'm excited to, once again, watch them grow out. I'm also looking forward to trying some nail art that's more suited towards square nails and that would have looked odd and out of place on my original shape. 

I soaked my nails in warm water for a few minutes then used a pair of straight nail clippers to cut my nails. I cut them a bit longer so I could file the rest. When you use clippers you risk damage to your nails so I recommend cutting them longer so you can file down to the length you want. Then I used a finer file to smooth out the edges and finished by doing my cuticles. Sorry there's some cuticle messiness in the pictures above, I was too keen on taking pictures haha. 

XO Natasha