Don't Have A Cow

Have cow nails instead! This is a nail design that's been on my to-do list for quite a while.

I started these babies out with two coats of OPI Alpine Snow.

For the pattern I just dabbed Pure Ice Black Out on using the polish's brush. Easy as pie!

My thumb nail required a little more work (barely). For the nose I used Stripe Rite Pink. 

A dotting tool was used for my cow's eyes and nostrils.

For some reason, I felt like this design was going to be harder to do than it was. That's probably why I put off doing it for so long.

I have off from school this week but am going on vacation (kind of) so I'll probably be doing lots of nails (and hopefully posting them!).

Have a lovely, relaxing Sunday!

Nutra Nail Gel Perfect Review

We get a lot of nail related gifts from my teacher (why, I still don't know) and one thing she gave me was Nutra Nail Gel Perfect.

It comes in a package like this. With the three following things:

From left to right you have the Brush Cleaner, Gel Color (mine was Peony), and the Gel Activator.

They recommend opening all the bottles before beginning so I did. Then you apply a thick coat of Activator on one hand (enough so that your nails appear shiny, as per their instructions). The Activator smelled like nail glue to me, and honestly I think that's all that it was.

Moving quickly, then apply a thin coat of the gel polish to your nails. After you've done so, wipe off the brush of the polish and then put it into the Brush Cleaner.

Repeat these steps on your other hand.

Then move on to the second coat. To apply the second coat, you must also apply the Activator again. Then apply the Gel Color. Finish it off with another coat of Activator and seal the free edge.

This is what it looks like in the end. I wasn't a big fan of the color (I'm not big on shimmery colors) and it didn't really look like gel.

After only a few hours my nails looked like this:

And the next day they were even worse:

Overall, I was not at all satisfied with this polish. The polish was thin, ungel-like and chipped super easily. You'd be better off using regular polish rather than this. 

I soaked the remaining polish off with acetone. I don't think I'll ever be using this again, applying it was a major waste of time for the results I received! I'm just glad I didn't actually purchase this product.

GLovin'

As I said before, my teacher fills gloves up with rice and we glue nail tips onto them for practice.

I've done four sets of gloves so far and today I'm going to show you two sets of them.

I started these out with two coats of OPI Dulce De Leche. Then using a make up sponge, OPI La Paz-itively Hot and OPI Grand Canyon Sunset I did the pink gradient. 

I grabbed a dotting tool and added the dots with OPI Alpine Snow.

This is the right hand to my first hand (Also two coats of OPI Dulce De Leche as the base).

The pink for the chevron and the cheetah print is Sinful Colors Rose in Your Nose. The white for the cheetah print is Sinful Colors Bad Chick. And the gold for the chevron is Milani Art of Gold.

Meet Handsel! As you can see, my acrylics have gotten a lot better! You can hardly even tell Handsel has acrylics.

I started her out with two coats of OPI La Paz-itively Hot. I honestly don't know what (OPI) red I used for the roses because it was from school but the detailing was done with Sinful Colors Bad Check and Stripe Rite Green.

These are by far my favorite rose nails that I've done so far. I think the colors go very well together!

Happy almost Friday!

Pineapple Nails

My brother brought his lovely girlfriend down for a visit 2 weeks ago so I took advantage of her strong, beautiful nails and gave 'em some polishing.

I was peeping Wah Nails's Instagram and saw some lovely palm tree and pineapple nails and Jenny (the girlfriend) decided she wanted a pineapple accent nail. I happily obliged.

For the base I used two coats of L'Oreal Tangerine Crush. In my opinion, the perfect summer color!

For the pineapples I used Sinful Colors Morning Breath (grossest name), Julep Boris & Nicole, and Stripe Right Green. 

I was really happy with how they turned out!

I had to re-do the pineapple 3 times on Jenny's right hand and it still smeared off! What a bummer.

I definitely want to do more fruit manicures, I feel like they're so summery! Now I just need more friends who'll let me give them manis.

All About the Cheetah Print

I haven't been doing so well on keeping up with my posting! I have however been doing lots and lots of nails, both in school and out of school.

I pretty much eat, sleep, and breath nails and I love it! One of my signature nail arts for clients has become cheetah print, so I wanted to show you all some cheetahlicious nails that I've done.

These nails were done on a cosmo student at my school over her acrylics (not done by me!).

I love the way these nails turned out and so did my client. They are fierce.

My client for these was a sweet 12 year old girl who had just started her summer vacation! After I did her nails, her 7 year old sister came to me and asked for a design too. I gave her zebra print but didn't get a chance to snap a picture of it.

I did these lavender and cheetah nails for my friend Emilie. She's got tiny little nails, but like I've said before, little nails need love too!

It's nearly impossible for me to keep track of all the polishes I use on all my clients, so I'm sorry about the lack of polish names my blog's going to be having for the next 4 weeks. 

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start :)

Paisley Print

These nails were done for a contest at my school that I got 3rd place in. They were done on a mannequin hand.

I learned how to do paisley from One Nail To Rule Them All's Paisley Print Tutorial.

I didn't have a gel pen on hand so I just used a regular pen which made for some inconsistencies with the darkness of lines but overall, it's not too noticeable!

For the base coat I used Essie In the Cab-Ana, a gorgeous color that I'm planning on posting swatches of soon.

My teacher told me that she thinks I would've placed higher in the competition but everyone thought my paisley print was actually stickers. Then I felt really proud of it!

I definitely want to do paisley print nails again, they turned out so cute.

3D Cat Polymer Clay Nail Art

I've been wanting to try polymer clay nail art for a while and my teacher brought some sticks to class and cut us off some different shapes! I got lots of fruits, flowers, and, drum roll, CATS.

For this manicure I used two coats of China Glaze Immortal as the base. I did the French tip with Sinful Colors Rose in Your Nose.

I used a dab of nail glue to put on the cats.

I really love the little pink cats! 3D Polymer Clay Nail art is so cute and so easy. Definitely gonna use it in a mani again. Maybe even a pedi.

Happy Friday, enjoy the weekend!

Planet Nails

Polish Days is here once again! The theme this time was To Boldly Go. I decided to boldly go to the planets!

I started out my manicure with two coats of OPI Russian Navy.

Excuse my mess, I didn't clean up this mani until I had applied top coat!

 I drool over this color, definitely one of my favorites and (I thought) it was perfect for depicting outer space.

With my perfect background, I drew on various planets. (Don't ask me which planets they're supposed to be though!)

I did use a clipart of the actual planets to inspire me, but they're a loose interpretation, so don't yell at me if I have the coloring/size wrong!

This manicure was done at 11:30 last night when I remembered today was Polish Days so I honestly don't remember all the colors I used on the planets. I was exhausted.

Make sure to check out all the other talented nail bloggers who participated in Polish Days as well:

Starfish or Flower?

I did these nails with the intention of them being flowers, but they kind of turned out more like starfish.

You be the judge.

I'm not really sure if I like these nails. They're a little out there. My teacher praised me for doing "different nails". I wasn't sure if I should take that as a compliment! 

I started out with two coats of OPI Dulce De Leche.

The other polishes I used to make my starfish/flower were Stripe Rite Pink, Milani Awesome Orange, Sinful Colors Rose in Your Nose, and OPI Grand Canyon Sunset.

I have lots of other manis I want to show you all, I just have to find the time to sit down and write some posts! Maybe with all this rain headed my way, I'll actually do it.

Hope everyone's having a good week so far!

What I've Been Up to

I know, I'm awful at blogging!  Nail school has got me so so busy. I don't have time to write about nails anymore, only time to do them.

So I decided to show you all a couple of the manicures I've done so far.

The base of this manicure is two coats of OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest. One of my favorite parts of nail school is having access to OPI polishes, they're all so gorgeous!

The accent nail was done using Sinful Colors Bad Chick.

This is a basic french manicure I did for my mom. I have no idea what the base was but the white was done with Bad Chick.

A little cheetah print accent nail! I believe the base of this manicure is Revlon Beach. The leopard print was done with Sinful Colors Rose in Your Nose and Bad Chick.

I've also been doing MANicures which is a new experience for me! I've been learning so much in such a short amount of time, it's crazy.

Thanks for sticking with me even though I'm horrid about posting. I'll try to do better, promise :)