A (Very Late) Happy New Year Post!

Hi everyone! I didn’t mean to be away for so long, but I was at my parents’ for a lengthy, lovely Christmas break without much polish or my photo setup, and then when I got back in the new year honestly, I just wasn’t feeling inspired to even play with polish much. :/ Howeverrrrrrr, my little polish funk is over and I’m back with a bright, punchy look to kick off a new year of Fancy Finger Gun posts!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that the China Glaze Sunsational polishes are some of my favorites. Are the formulas streaky, non-leveling, and generally a pain? Yes. But the colors are also so freaking gorgeous I can’t be mad at them for long! (JK, I get super pissed when they chip after a day. Sigh.) The other frustrating thing about these beauties is that the more genuinely neon ones are super hard to photograph in the correct shade, so in the following photos my skin is going to look kinda dead, but it was the only way to show the true color of Son Of A Peach! If I tried to edit them the slightest bit so my hands didn’t look awful, SOAP would lean more orange in photos than in person – it would kind of look like China Glaze’s Sun Worshipper, very yellow-toned, when it’s a really more soft, uh…peach-y color.

Sorry, I know my cuticles are jacked. Weather changes have messed up my skin so much.

I bought Essie’s Bikini So Teeny towards the end of last year but haven’t worn it yet. I’ve mentioned before that I used to really dislike those kind of periwinkle-y, cornflower-y blues, but something happened last year and I somehow fell in love with them! I really love how pastels and neons look together, so I decided to pair these two up and I couldn’t love it more! I first did my two coats of Son Of A Peach (usually it would take three to make sure it was 100% non-streaky but I knew I’d be covering it up), let that dry, then applied a thin layer of BST and used a balled-up piece of Saran Wrap to gently sponge each nail, removing some of BST and letting SOAP show through. If I held my hand away this combo looked like a swirly cotton candy confection, and I got more than a few compliments! Below is a shitty pic taken in my car in twilight, but it was the only one I could get to show the neon-ness of SOAP.

I know this is a little late, but I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Did anyone get any particularly awesome gifts? I made out like a bandit this year, I must say! My standouts were Amy Poehler’s book, Heroine lipstick from MAC, and the Brick Lane set from Butter London!

I lived in the East End of London when I studied abroad in college and spent many nights feasting at delicious Brick Lane restaurants, so I had to have this set, and despite my BL issues, I really do like these polishes! I briefly wore Cor Blimey, a deep purple, and Dubs, a fantastic shell-pink texture polish, over the break and they wore very well! My sister tried Bric-A-Brac, a red jelly with gold shimmer, that was beautiful, as well. Right before I left (literally, the day I was flying out!), I also finally got my shipments of ILNP flakies and some Cirque Polish holos I’d ordered, so I will be playing with those in the next few weeks! I did bring Metropolis home and wore it over plain black for New Year’s Eve but I forgot to get pics. It was the perfect blingy NYE polish, though, and I want to try some fun layering combos soon! Anyway, let me know in the comments about any awesome presents you got – polish-related or otherwise! Thank you so much for reading, and I will have another post up soon, I promise! – A x

Under The Sea (And On The Beach!)

I had big plans for this month to post at least 10 fun summer-themed nail art designs but unfortunately my life has been hectic lately and I just haven’t had time to do as many looks as I wanted. I still really like all the ones I managed to do, though, and although I had a few ideas left I thought I’d end the month with a beach-y/ocean-y design.

I keep forgetting to take the sale tag off Go Deeper, whoops. Also, my poor bottle of Frisky – it’s so freaking messy from collateral damage during a previous splatter mani.

Godiva looks just like sparkly sand in the bottle, so it was a no brainer that I’d include it in this mani. It’s pretty sheer, so it took three coats to be completely opaque. I could’ve sworn I had a little golden shell charm but alas I was wrong, so I just added a little circle stud – just pretend it’s a shell and the manicure is so much cuter!

On my middle fingers I wanted to mimic the pretty shallow waters of the sea, so I did the Saran Wrap technique with Jade Hypnose over Orly’s Frisky. I kinda wish I had used China Glaze’s Aquadelic because I think the slightly more green aqua would’ve looked more like the ocean whereas Frisky looks more like pool water, but I still really like it – I think the holo particles of Hypnose really make the design look like sparkling water.

See? They basically exactly match the water of my pool!

On my pinkie I wanted to evoke the deeper ocean waters that are a bit darker but still have enough sun for a range of sparkly greens and blues. (P.S. Never Google “deep sea” – it will just bring up hundreds of terrifying monsters from the bottom of the ocean and you won’t be able to sleep tonight.) I did one coat of Shower Together and a crappy glitter gradient of Go Deeper, the inappropriately named Orly that is gorgeous with its teal holo sequins and tiny blue glitter. I had a hard time capturing GD’s sparkle but you can see how it looks in the bottle in the first photo – so fabulous!

Even though I didn’t get to do everything I wanted this month, I’m pleased with the designs I did get to do. I got to try out a bunch of new techniques and designs and ended up with some really fun looks that I loved, and I hope you guys enjoyed them, too! Thank you for reading, and see you next time for my Fourth of July look! – A x

Hello, Fall!

I really enjoyed the structure of the last month of posts, keeping my manicures within one theme. It gave me enough freedom to do a lot of different styles and combos, but keeping myself within a certain range of polishes made it a lot easier for me to actually choose what I was going to do. I’ve mentioned early on in my blog that sometimes I get weirdly overwhelmed by how many polishes I have and agonize over a decision (which I know is silly – if I don’t like it, I can just take it off the next day, it’s nail polish, but this is how my brain works), which is why narrowing the playing field was great. So! I’m going to do that again this month, with a simple theme: fall.

Generally I don’t follow any color rules regarding the seasons because a) I’m from Florida, where seasons don’t exist, b) if I want to wear neon green in January, I’mma do it. I’ve also never really liked the sort of colors associated with fall fashion – taupes and neutrals, nearly black reds and purples, copper, browns, etc. A year ago I owned one red and one nude (one was free, one was for nail art), but in the past year I’ve warmed up to so many “classic” nail colors that previously I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I still sometimes feel weird wearing them though, so I’m hoping the fall theme for November will make it so I don’t feel like some kind of poseur for wearing more “ladylike” hues. :)

China Glaze 2030, NYC Lexington Square, Butter London Wallis, a buttload of studs.

Once I’d settled on a theme, I instantly knew I wanted to use Butter London’s Wallis. It’s a gorgeous, rich golden olive, that just screamed “Fall!” to me. I decided to do the Saran Wrap manicure style with some other fall-y colors in different finishes, and mix it up with some gold square studs on a few nails. I laid down a base of Wallis on my thumb, index, and pinky, and NYC’s Lexington Square, a deep, dark burgundy, on my middle and ring fingers. Here’s a photo of just swatches before I did anything else (including cleanup :/) – Lexington Square was definitely red on the first (streaky) coat, but darkened considerably on the second.

Two coats each. My bottle of Lexington Square is getting goopy, which is why it looks lumpy. Pretty shiny, though.

Of course, once again I had no Saran Wrap, and unfortunately my replacement tool of tinfoil didn’t go as well as the first time I used it. Sigh. I dabbed on some China Glaze 2030, a cool metallic champagne (that is sooo great for stamping), then Wallis, then a tiny bit of Lexington Square. It kind of looks like an army print, right?

Hmm. Even though it didn’t turn out quite as I wanted, I still think this looks cool, and I love the subtle contrast of the burgundy creme, smooth metallic, and shimmery olive.

Macro!

I also really love the olive + gold studs. I did this kind of quickly, otherwise I would’ve tried to bend the edges of the studs a bit around a pen or something I like usually do. They really stuck out on the sides so I just sort of filled in that area with extra top coat (I can still feel the edges, though, so I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re wearing tights!).

Unfortunately, after doing this I remembered why I rarely wear my Butter Londons – they chip on me so quick. I hadn’t had this on for 24 hours before I had tip wear and a sizable chip on my pointer, which I then fixed only to turn around and discover three more chips the next day. Ughhh. I hate wearing chipped manicures but I haven’t had time to do my nails so I’ve just been touching them up only to have it chip off again. Cursessssssss! Wallis really is gorgeous, though, so if you have better luck than me with wear time on BLs, I’d suggest grabbing it as it’s a perfectly chic fall hue.

A few weeks ago the lovely Millie Muppet tagged me with some autumn beauty questions. I’m brand new to blogging so I don’t really have anyone else to tag, but I thought it would be fun to answer the questions anyway. Here goes:

What’s your favorite autumn lipstick? I like to wear bright lip colors year round, but two of my favorites for fall are new, Milani Sangria, a deep magenta that pulls super purple on me, and NYX Chaos, a red that’s a tiny bit darker and a little more orange than I usually wear. I used to be really scared of super bright or dark lipstick, but then I just decided not to care and wear them if I wanted. I still don’t wear them often, but when I do I feel kind of badass.
What’s your favorite autumn trend? Tights/thigh-high socks + boots. I love when it’s finally chilly enough to wear crazy colored tights and ankle boots, or warm thigh-high socks with glittery flats, or plain black tights with some comfy tall boots.
What’s your favorite autumn candle? Fittingly enough, it’s called “Autumn” by Bath & Bodyworks. It somehow smells exactly like leaves, apples, and a crisp autumn day and I’ve already almost burned through one of the huge $20 ones!
Do you have any autumn traditions? I decorate my apartment for Halloween on the first day of October, and I’ll usually have a chai tea a few times (it seems very fall-y to me for some reason).
What’s your favorite thing about autumn? The weather! I love the chilly/crisp air, when it rains (rarely, unfortunately), the overcast days, being able to wear a lot of comfy layers and sip hot beverages without burning up!
What’s your favorite items of clothing for autumn? Boots! Tall boots especially, I just love them and never got to wear them growing up in Florida so I wear them as often as I can here.
Favorite autumn nail polish? Hmmmm well, like my lipsticks, I tend to wear bright colors all year, but in the fall color spectrum, probably China Glaze’s Harvest Moon, a burnt orange foil, or I Love Nail Polish’s Pumpkin Spice Latte, a tiny caramel/gold/bronze colored glitter.
Favorite autumn beverage? Apple cider! And even better, apple cider with a nip of booze to be even more warming and cozy.
Favorite autumn snack? Caramel apples!
Which celebrity inspires you most in autumn? No idea, I’m terrible at following celebrity fashion. Someone who wears a lot of boots!

Thoughts on this manicure? What’s your favorite fall polish?

Thank you for reading! See you next time – A x

Champers on Baker Street

So full disclosure, I have a bit of love/hate relationship with Butter London – they chip pretty quickly on me; the price is ridiculous, especially since it’s less polish than mainstream brands like OPI and China Glaze; and the formulas on a lot of the colors I have leave a lot to be desired, which is inexcusable for the price. But some of the colors are really great and unique, I do love the bottle and brush, and obviously as an Anglophile I appreciate the names (although they do seem to be stretching a bit now – Cotton Buds?). That being said, BL’s metallics are some of my favorites because the formulas are fantastic, which is the case with Champers here.

I decided to pair two fancy polishes together – elegant Champers and my iced-out bottle of Baker Street. I got this bad boy a year or so ago when Sephora had a few select colors with this cap for $10, which is only 50 cents more than what a bottle of Nails, Inc. polish costs normally – how could I pass that up? I haven’t worn Baker Street in months, so it was definitely time to revisit!

Awkward claw hand! But look at Baker Street. SO BLUE, Y’ALL. Ooh and sorry for those chips, this is a few days old.

Closeup so you can see that despite sort of looking like crackle polish, this mani is actually really nice and smooth – crackle polishes can still have texture even after a few layers of top coat.

This was the fastest mani EVER. Baker Street dried really quickly and it’s almost opaque in one coat (I’ve definitely done one before when I was being really careful) so basically I painted one round of polish and by the time I finished it was ready for a thin second coat. Then I took a tiny piece of tin foil since I didn’t have any Saran Wrap and balled it up, dipped it into a little splotch of Champers I put on some paper, and gently dabbed it on my nails. I’ve never done this kind of manicure before, and I didn’t know if there was a trick to balling it up or if the harsh foil would mess up the base coat, but I think it worked out great! Champers dried quickly, too, and then I did a light coat of Seche and my nails were done in record time. I can’t quite decide what color Champers is – it doesn’t seem pinky/peachy enough to actually be rose gold like the website claims, yet it’s also too light to be copper – but it’s lovely and also perfect for the upcoming holiday season. I tried to get a good macro so you can see that it’s not just a straight metallic, either; there’s the tiniest green and pink shimmer to it. You can sort of see it in the blurred pic below:

It’s easier to catch in sunlight but you can kind of see the pink/green sparkles here.

Okay, can we just talk for a second about how amazeballs my cuticles look?! I’ve been using this Sephora by OPI cuticle cream that was on sale for $4.50 (I actually got two of them) and it’s AWESOME. Nice light smell; you only need a little bit at a time; it’s really hydrating but also exfoliates away excess cuticles, which is great for me because I apparently suck at the usual cuticle-removing products)…the only problem is it’s so cheap because Sephora is discontinuing that line. :( I’m pretty sad it’s being discontinued but let’s be real, I wouldn’t have even tried it at $9 a bottle (let alone $14 #cheapbitch). I should try to grab a few more bottles this weekend. It’s seriously holy-grail status for me. My cuticles are dry as hell so I do have to use it sometimes more than once a day, but it works really well as you can see, so I highly recommend it and if you can still find it in stores, at $4.50 you can’t really go wrong.

Champers was a actually birthday present from a friend – thank you so much, T! I also got a bottle of real champers to go with my polish, so I will probably be breaking into that this weekend…maybe I’ll try out a cocktail with champagne in it, I’m sure I have one somewhere on my boozy Pinterest board.

I hope you enjoyed this post! I wish all of you a lovely glass or three of champers and a fantastic weekend. See you next time! A x