Category: Aco by Ardene

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Pretty in Pink gradient.

Sometimes I like my manicures complicated, and sometimes I just want something simple on my nails. These would definitely fall on the more simple end of the spectrum. After a couple days of super bright and colorful nails, I really wanted to rock a somewhat softer manicure. After browsing pinterest for an hour or so, I decided on a gradient as I haven’t done a (successful) one in a while. With my nails so short right now, I find it a lot harder to create gradient, if only because I don’t have the room to move around on my nails. But even though these are a very, very subtle gradient, I do love how they turned out. With my best friend’s wedding come up shortly, I’m going to need to figure out something to do–as I’m guessing super bright and colorful neon nails won’t work with her wedding plans haha.

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For this manicure the polishes I used were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Bridezilla — pale ivorny//off white base color.
  • Essence Love Letters Collection Rosy in Love — pales pink of the gradient.
  • ACO by Ardene in Kiss by a Rose — darkest pink of the gradient.
  • QUO by Orly in Sugar Cookie — pale glitter on each nail.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

Oh man, I wish you could see the beauty that is Sugar Cookie, but sadly my camera just didn’t want to capture it. It was part of the Quo by Orly holiday mini-collection that my boyfriend got me for Christmas, and I’ve yet to find a manicure to pair it with. It’s really sheer, so it’s unfortunately impossible to wear on it’s own (it would take about 15 coats to get it opaque), but I love the look of it. So pretty!

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Bright and Colorful nails!

I have a fun manicure to share with you today.

With the Summer quickly approaching, I’ve been feeling the bright colorful polishes lately, and I really wanted to do a color blocking manicure. I came up with this random pattern while I was painting my nails–I started with the triangles, and then went from there. I’m not sure what to actually call this pattern, but they’re bright and colorful which was what I wanted.

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For this manicure the polishes I used were:

  • Essence I’ve Got a Crush on Blue! (from their love letters collection) — blue grey base color.
  • Revlon Siren — orange triangles.
  • ACO by Ardene Lollipop Queen — Pink stripes.
  • ACO by Ardene Lagoon — blue polka dots.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in back
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in white

Even though I had no plan going in with this manicure, I love how they turned out. Sometimes it’s nice to just start something, without knowing what you’re doing, and have them turn into something neat. Also I managed to create those triangles with just my regular polish brush (before I added the black stripe outline). Sure, they’re not exactly perfect but they ARE triangles, so I couldn’t be happier! =)

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Stripes make your nails look longer, right?

With my new short stubs, I wasn’t feeling very inspired for nail art. =( But I wanted to do something, as I just can’t deal with naked nails. They make me even sadder than short nails. I tried doing a bright gradient but it just didn’t work the way I wanted. I haven’t played much with my striping polishes lately, excluding my unlucky outline nails, so I decided to pull a bunch of them out and do some stripes. (Truthfully I was hoping maybe the stripes would give me the optical illusion of longer nails.)

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Sugar Champagne.
  • Art Club striping polish in Paisley Paradise.
  • Art Club Nail Art Duo in Baby Blue.
  • Stripe Rite striping polish in black.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat.

I always rely on my striping polish for creating lines. I’m not very good when it comes to striping tape… I’ve used it a couple times but I much prefer drawing the lines myself. I find that with most manicures it’s much easier, and saves on time because I don’t have to wait for my base color to dry completely before creating my stripes.

Also I must share my excitement over how my lines are becoming much smoother and steadier. When I got my first striping polishes a couple years ago, my freehand lines definitely did not look like that! Now if only I could find a way for my nails to never break. =(

Oh, I created a little before-and-after comparison just to show the difference. =( Stupid table.

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“You’re the boss, applesauce.” Andy Warhol inspired nails.

I’ve been all about the floral lately. I found these Andy Warhol inspired nails on Pinterest, and knew I had to recreate them. A few years ago, I was completely obsessed with everything Warhol related–I even had a pair of Levi’s from their Warhol collection. So I knew I had to create my own version of those flower nails.

Surprisingly, they were really easy to create.

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First, I painted my nails with a base color of green. I used Sinful Colors Strapped. It’s a dark Forrest green, which dries to a Matte finish.

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Next, I created my “grass” using the dry brush technique with a collection of other green colors: ACO by Ardene in Sour Apple, ACO by Ardene in Green Peace and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Kiwi Bikini.

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After my grass was complete, I created my floral using a medium sized dotting tool and my four colors: Essence Love Letter’s collection in Rosy in Love (light pink flowers), China Glaze in Metro Pollen-tin (yellow flowers), ACO by Ardene in Lollipop Queen (purple flowers), and Revlon in Siren (orange flowers).

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Finally, I finished off with a layer of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash (yey! I finally have a new bottle and am so happy) and tada! Andy Warhol inspired floral nail art.

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And in the sunshine. =)

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So what do you think of these Andy Warhol nails? Did I do justice to my original inspiration?

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Simple Nails: purple & gold.

Sometimes I just don’t have time to get complicated with my manicures, for whatever reason. After rocking my Spiderman nails for two days, I needed to paint something new, but I was feeling under the weather so I had to come up with something quick, but still pretty.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Sea of Beauty — my gorgeous base color.
  • Layla in Golden Touch (from the soft touch collection) — golden shimmer.
  • Essence Gel-look Top Coat.

Oh man, I love the combination of these two together! Sea of Beauty is just the most perfect blue ever. And Golden Touch is one of my favorite polishes to layer over other polishes. It just jazzes up a manicure, and adds a nice shimmer. Love!

Also, you can see from my ring finger, I’m still having trouble with my Essence top coat–even though I applied the quick dry drops over the top coat, it obviously didn’t dry soon enough for me not to nick my nails. It makes me sad, because the top coat has excellent lasting potential–a good two days with no chipping, which for me is awesome since I work in retail and use my hands for 8 hours a day. =(