Category: Nicole by OPI

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A Peek into my Stash — Part One.

Warning: this post is going to be VERY picture heavy.

So I’ve been thinking for a while of going through my polishes, and actually documenting what I own. With it all packed away in it’s storage unit, something I forget what polishes I actually have. When I saw Confession of a Nail Polish Addict‘s pictures of her own stash, I was inspired to take the work to document my own. I’m going to be breaking it up into a couple posts, just because it would take a crazy long time to take pictures of everything, and then put them in all one post (that would be a lot of pictures!) So instead I’m going by my drawers — today we have the bottom two drawers of my storage uni.

So without further ado, here is part one of my stash post. =)

Continue reading “A Peek into my Stash — Part One.”

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Waterfall nails.

As I teased yesterday, I wanted to create some fun nail art using Peek a Blue as my base color. Last Summer, I remember seeing waterfall nail art everywhere. I haven’t done a waterfall nail in a while, so I decided Peek a Blue would be the perfect base color for my nail art.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors Be Happy & Icing Peek a Blue — my base color.
  • ACO by Ardene Blue Tide.
  • Nicole by OPI What’s the Mitch-uation.
  • The Color Workshop unnamed shimmery blue.
  • ACO by Ardene Midnight Stars.
  • QUO by Orly unknown mini blue polish.
  • Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat.
  • Icing’s It’s a Matte World matte top coat.

I feel like it turned out pretty well, even though it’s far from perfect. Next time I would definitely paint my waterfall lines slightly longer. Also I don’t know what I was thinking adding Midnight Stars–I totally forgot it’s a clear base with glitter so it looks a little misplace on the nail. But besides those little problems, I do love them. And the adding Matte top coat just pulled everything so perfectly together. I love the smooth finish it gives the whole look. =)

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So what do you think of this attempt at Waterfall nails? I know the trend was super popular last year, and it’s not featured as much on nail blogs as it once was, but I’m still a big fan.

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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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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 13: Animal Print?

I went in a different direction for the animal print prompt of this challenge. I’ve already done leopard print, and I wasn’t feeling zebra print, so I tried to think of something I could do that would be different. I’ve been wanting to do feather nails for a while. I’m a huge bird lover, and so I thought why not try doing feather nails. Okay, it’s not technically an animal print, but it’s pretty close!

 

I was trying to figure out how I want to do about doing feather nails. I considered doing a real feather manicure, but in the end decided to try out some new polishes I picked up, and draw on my own feathers. These didn’t end up exactly how I pictured them in my head. I think my main problem was that the colors I chose for my feathers were too close to the base color I used.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Color Club’s Silver Lake (from the Girl About Town collection) — the base color on my nails.
  • Nicole by OPI’s My Jay or The Highway — the brown outline of the feathers, and accent dots on the feathers.
  • Art Club Nail Art Duo in Baby Blue — Light blue strokes in the feathers.
  • Revlon’s Minted — Mint colored strokes in the feathers (which kind of got hidden within the other colors.)
  • Nicole by OPI’s Oy Oy Oyster — Sheer shimmer layered over feathers (which didn’t show up in the pictures I took, but are much more visible in person.)

This is not my favorite–nor best–nail art. I’m actually pretty disappointed with how these turned out, if only because I imagined them looking a little different in my head when I started. I was especially disappointed when the boyfriend told me they looked more like branches than feathers. However, I’m still showing them off because if anything, it just means more practice will make perfect. I think a different color combination would make a world of difference. I’m definitely going to try these again now that I know what I needed to avoid–and that, to me, is the whole point of this challenge! To try new things, and work at improving my nail art skills.

 

What do you think of these “animal print” nails? What tips would you suggest for better feather nails next time?

 

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31 Day Nail Art Challenge — Day 1: Red Nails.

I’ve been thinking about doing the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge for a while now, and towards the end of last month I decided there was no time like the present to do so. If anything, I figured it would help break my nail art block–those nights when I couldn’t figure out anything to do with my nails! And I was right!

The first prompt for the challenge was red nails. I didn’t want to do just basic red nails (even though there was a period in time with I was 17-18 that I wore nothing but red nails), so I went a little fancy with a leopard print. When I was first starting my nail art adventure, right after I bought my first dotting tool–leopard print was always my go-to design. It was nice to go revisit a classic.

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The polishes I used were:

  • Nicole by OPI Scarlett (from the Selena Gomez collection) — my base.
  • Nicole by OPI Basking in Gloria (from the Modern Family collection) — the inner part of my leopard print.
  • Stripe Rite striping brush in black — the outer part of my leopard print.

I finished everything with my trusty Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat, and Icing’s It’s a Matte World matte top coat.