Category: Aco by Ardene

Posted on

Outline Gradient Nails.

I’m kind of a little obsessed with gradients lately.

It’s only been the last little while that I’ve actually been able to get them right–after many fail nail manicures. After the gradients I did for my Bestie Twin Tropical Nails turned out so well, I really wanted to give a full gradient manicure another try.

outlinegradient3

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls — white base color.
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral.
  • ACO by Ardene Forever Young.
  • LA Colors In A Flash.
  • Cherimoya Black.
  • Essie Go to Go Top Coat.

outlinegradient2 outlinegradient4

outlinegradient5

This manicure reminds me of something, but I can’t quite figure it out. I ended up creating a black outline around the nails as I didn’t quite get my sponging of the different colors to the ends of the nails, so there was some white edges. This seemed like the perfect solution for hiding that. =)

Posted on

Pretty, purple, & polka dots.

Quick post on a quick bit of nail art.

I love purple. It’s one of my favorite colors, so I own quite a few polishes in the purple family. Today’s manicure puts to work a few of these polishes, in a cute combination. My co-worker and I decided for her last ever shift, we would do matching nails (again) and came up with this combination. This was my first time doing a freehand bow, and it turned out not too bad. I know what I would do differently next time.

purple purple2 purple3

Polishes used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene Forever Young — light purple.
  • Sinful Colors Easy Going — off white.
  • Essence Baby Baby Ooh — dark purple.
  • Essie Good To Go top coat.

I’m trying to inspire myself to do more nail art. I’ve been lacking a little in the idea department. I really need to get back to stalking pinterest to find some new ideas for fun Summer nails!

 

Posted on

Bestie Twin Summer Nails.

I’ve always wanted the chance to do Best Twin Nails with someone before, so I was excited that my coworker and favorite nail art buddy agreed to do twin nails with me, especially since she’s leaving us later this week.

palmtress

Since it’s finally officially Summer, I suggested something tropical. We decided to go with a gradient on the accent fingers, with palm trees. I really wanted to get a picture of our nails together, but we totally forgot to!  Thankfully though, she sent me this picture with the caption “for your blog!” so I could share with everyone our cute bestie nails.

palmtress3 palmtress4

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • ACO by Ardene Purple Rain — thumb & gradient (purple) .
  • Essie We’re in this Together — pointer (pink).
  • ACO by Ardene Lights, Camera, Action — pointer (glitter).
  • ACO by Ardene Sea of Beauty — gradient (blue).
  • LA Colors Color Craze Palm Tree — gradient (green)
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin — gradient (yellow)
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral — pinky & gradient (coral).
  • Cherimoya Black — palm tree.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

I thought this was a super cute design for the second day of Summer. It was really fun to have matching nails with my favorite nail art buddy. I’m really going to miss her when she leaves us, and I hope she’ll still have nail art chats with me, and we can do bestie twin nails again.  =)

 

palmtress5 palmtress6

So what do you think of these summery nails?

Have you ever done Bestie Twin nails with anyone?

Posted on

ACO by Ardene Sugar Rush.

First, I want to apologize for the lack of nail art lately. I’ve been a little busy at work with the Summer rush starting, so by the time I get home I’m exhausted and creating something complex is a little daunting. I’m going to try and get back into the swing of things though.

Today, I have another swatch for you.

sugarrush

This is Sugar Rush by ACO by Ardene, a “sugar effect” nail polish that was released as part of their new collection of nail polish. When they were first released, I was super excited because I’m kind of in love with textured nail polish–I bought almost all the colors immediately. This was the last of the collection I needed to buy to complete my collection.

Sugar Rush is a cornflower blue polish, with tiny white matte micro glitters scattered through out. Unfortunately, of all the sugar effect polishes I have from Ardene (all four) this one dried the least textured. I ended up applying top coat over it (as you can see above) because it just looked uneven and bad when it dried. I’m not sure if it was the bottle I got, since all the other ACO sugar effect polishes have tried immaculately.

sugarrush4

sugarrush2

sugarrush3

My camera was not having photographing this polish, as you can see–it created almost a glow around the polish. Regardless of the fact it was being a pain, I love this color so much. And I have a cute summer dress that it would go with so perfectly.

I hope I’m not the only one who buys certain colors because of how well they match certain outfits?

ACO by Ardene polishes retail for $3.50 at stores–although they usually are on promotion for 3/$10. As you probably saw from my stash, I own a lot of their polishes (perk of working there haha.) If you have a chance to check their polishes out, you definitely should.

Posted on

True Blue and Chevrons.

I’ve got some simple nail art to share with you today. I meant to post these yesterday, but by the time I got home from work I was pretty much a zombie.

For this NOTD, I was trying to recreate the pattern of my favorite mug. I don’t it’s perfect yet, but for something I did real quick before bed I do really like how they turned out. Plus all my lines were straight which yey!

trueblue2 trueblue

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene True Blue — the blue/teal base color.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in White — white chevron pattern.
  • Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat.

This polish was very frustrating to try and capture a picture of. On my nail, it’s a deep teal color but the second I started photographing it appeared much more blue than it actually is in person. Didn’t matter if it was inside or outside. These pictures are the closest I could get to the actual color, but still come across more blue than the polish truly is.

trueblue5 trueblue4 trueblue3