Hi!

I completely forgot how much I loved the color gray until this week... 

These are a recreation of a design by the fabulous @prettylittlenails (she also has a blog), but I had to change the colors up a little, cause to be honest all the Valentine's manicures were making me a lil' sick. I mean, I like pink and Valentine's day! But in the past few weeks there has been so much Valentine's stuff that I needed a bit of a break. Have you guys felt the same?

Polishes Used:
Deborah Lippmann Flowers In Her Hair (mint green), Deborah Lippmann Harem Silks from Bombay (base for flowers), JINsoon French Lilac (flower details), Deborah Lippmann Planet Rock (gray) and studs from Claire's

I think this is one of the best manicures I've done in awhile, mostly because of Planet Rock. It's a super-pigmented warm gray -- I can't believe I've only used it once before! Maybe cause it's a mini-size bottle and I don't like the mini bottles... I don't know. 

Flowers In Her Hair (part of the 2014 spring collection) is another great shade, I think the two match together quite well :)

(I took a lot of photos of these, eheheh)

And just for fun, here's one last photo before I added the studs!

I hope the studs/beads don't start coming off soon, I want these nails to stay on for awhile!

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

Green Rose Skittlette

Hi!

Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day! Mine was spent at home -- we had a "massive" snowstorm (by southern standards) so school was canceled and nobody could really go out. It was relaxing, at least!

Polishes Used:
Index | Sephora by OPI Read My Palm, Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street, Deborah Lippmann Flowers In Her Hair
Middle | Sephora by OPI Read My Palm, stud from Claire's
Ring | Deborah Lippmann Pseudo Silk Kimono, Nails Inc Chelsea Bridge Road for the stamping
Pinky | same as index

This design is kind of Valentine's-y, but it's not really supposed to be (the stamped design on my ring finger is a rose, in case you couldn't tell -- it doesn't show up well at all in the pictures!). 

On my index and pinky I used the sandwich bag marble technique (Chanfie from Indian Ocean Polish has a great tutorial, I just used random blobs of color instead of stripes like she did).

I wish I had chosen a less white-gold polish to stamp the rose with, Chelsea Bridge Road blends into the white a little too much! My topcoat was super shiny, so it shows up even less in these photos >:(

I wouldn't really call these a nail fail, exactly, but I feel like something just didn't click (like with the last green nails I did). I don't know what it is about green polish, it just never seems to work out for me! It's definitely my least favorite color of polish to wear. Do you like green? Not counting pastel green, it seems to be one of the least-used colors for nail art...

Anyways, I hope you guys had a great weekend, and I'll have some nail art I'm happier with later this week!

Thanks for reading!
Lucy xx

My Nail Care Routine

Hi guys!

Today I have a sort of unusual post for you all: a nail care post!

I love reading these sorts of posts, and I've been meaning to write one for myself for awhile, but it just never seemed to come together -- until now! Yay!

(Oh, and for removing old polish I use some sort of protein enhancing non-acetone nail polish remover -- not pure acetone. But I think you could use either, I used to use acetone and switching to non-acetone didn't make a difference)

First, I file. I use these glass files from Amazon -- until recently I was using one of the cheap emery boards, but these are so much better. The tips of my nails feel more smooth and are less prone to splitting since I switched. Also, you don't have to keep running out to buy emery boards every couple of weeks: glass files pretty much last forever! 

I use a 200-220 grit file; you can read more about file grits in Nails by Kayla Shevonne's post here.

The next step: get rid of those gross cuticles! I don't do this every week, usually two times every three weeks or so; basically whenever I feel like my cuticles are getting kind of gross. I use Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover and then push them back with an orangewood stick.

I'm not entirely happy with my cuticles now, though; there's always a line of thick, dried looking skin at the base of my nail no matter how much I push/scrape/moisturize! Do you guys have any tips on that?

Now it's time to make your hands happy! I use either Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream or RGB cuticle oil; the RGB oil works better, but it's pretty oily (surprise, right?) so when I need to not leave oily fingerprints everywhere I use Burt's Bees.

I'm also thinking about trying Essie's apricot cuticle oil -- have any of you guys tried it? Would you recommend it, or should I spend my $8 elsewhere?

It's almost time to start painting! But first, I take a Q-tip dipped in acetone and swipe it over the nail to prep the surface. 

And finally, base coat time. I use Deborah Lippmann's Turn Back Time base coat, but I'm not really happy with how my nails are right now -- they keep chipping and peeling so I keep having to file them down :(

I have a bottle of Nail Envy coming in the mail though! Eeep, so excited to have long nails again!

So that's what I do every time I paint my nails! Hope you guys enjoyed :) I'm thinking about doing a sort of mini-post on how I take/edit photos, would you be interested in that?

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx

I'm Back! (with Valentine's Nails!)

Hi!

I haven't posted on here in over a week -- oops! School has gotten really busy. We had a couple of snow days two weeks ago, which were relaxing, but the teachers had to do a lot of catching up last week due to the days we missed! Which meant no time for nail art :(

But I'm back now! And I brought some Valentine's Day nails!

Polishes Used:
Index | Wet n Wild Black Creme and beads from Claire's
Middle | Zoya Jacqueline and Deborah Lippmann Break 4 Love
Ring | Zoya Jacqueline, RGB Rose Gold, and Deborah Lippmann Break 4 Love
Pinky | Wet n Wild Black Creme and Nails Inc Trafalgar Crescent

This was a fun design to do, especially the lips!

I hope you guys have a great day on the 14th :-)

Thanks for reading!

Lucy xx