40 Great Nail Art Ideas-Teal + Fan Brush

Hi everyone!  I'm starting a new nail art challenge that will last a whole year!  I'm only "officially" committing to every other week, which uses a color plus a pattern/nail art technique, but I might also post on the alternating weeks, which uses themes for prompts (e.g. last week was "hobbies", but I didn't get a mani done).  Anyway...this first week's color is Teal and my pattern is Fan Brush.  I've never done a fan brush mani, so this was a fun new technique to try!

I started with ONE creamy coat of KBShimmer Teal It to My Heart, a perfect fall teal.

 Then I used my fan brush and KBShimmer Sarong Place, Sarong Time, KBShimmer Breaking Blues, and Finger Paints Papier Mache.

I liked the way this turned out for my first try with a fan brush!  I'll definitely be using it again!

Check out everyone else's manis below!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC: Glow In The Dark

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the absence.  My finals are over now!  Now I have a few days off, then clinical rotations start Monday!  I'm excited, but I do kind of wish I had a little more time in between to relax.  Oh, well, I guess I'll never get a break in the "real world"!

Here is my NPC from last Friday, "Glow In The Dark":

I started with a base of Elevation's "El Cap" and covered a couple accent nails with Ozotic 902.

 "El Cap" is a beautiful bluish purple with pinky-purple shimmer.  Unfortunately, the original formula is not available anymore.  There are two versions of "El Cap II", each more blue than the last.  They are great too, of course, but I loooove the original.  Ozotic 902 is a purple shimmer with a bit of blue duochrome effect.  This is part of the "Sugar" collection, and I love them all.  They look great no matter what you put them over.

For the glow in the dark effect I added Contrary Polish "West Bottoms".  This adds just the smallest amount of green with some glass fleck shimmer.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to show up in the dark!  I don't know if I needed more coats or what, but here is the best I could do.  You can see the bottle glowing at least!

This next picture is in the dark with flash, which okay, doesn't show off the GITD effect, but I really liked the way it turned out!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Mean Girls 10th Anniversary

Hey girls!  Today, April 30th is the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls premiering in theaters (and I checked IMDB, it actually was April 30, 2004), and it just happens to be a Wednesday, so a bunch of nail bloggers are wearing pink manis today in celebration!  I certainly have plenty of pink polishes, but one sprung right into my mind when I read about this.  Interestingly, this polish is from a collection based on another cult classic, The Princess Bride.  Here is Dollish Polish, "Wuv, Twu Wuv":

 "Wuv, Twu Wuv" is a pepto pink jelly (it looks a little orange here, but it's bright pink IRL!) with pink and red shimmer, hex glitter, and square glitter, and there are even some red circles, though I didn't manage to get any on my nails.

I got this polish in a mystery grab bag and it's nothing I would have picked out myself, but I'm loving it today!  It's so bright and happy!

Are any of you wearing pink today?  Feel free to fill my comments section with Mean Girls quotes!  It'll be so fetch!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 7: Drugstore

Hey girls!  Not too much to say tonight; I am tired.  My allergies have started acting up, so I think that might be why.

Anyway, today's NPC prompt is "Drugstore".  I tried three different manis before I did one I liked enough to share.  So here is a new polish from Revlon, "Mayan Riviera":

"Mayan Riviera" is from the brand-new Haute Rocks Pebbled Texture collection.  I hadn't heard of these, but I saw a display at Walgreens and loooved the glitter, so I picked up a few.

"Mayan Riviera" is a milky-white base with green, gold, pink, blue, and silver glitter.  There's a little bit of everything in there!  This is 2-3 coats.  The glitter payoff was pretty great, but a few nails had some bald spots after two coats, so I added a third.

This is meant to be a textured polish, but I added a coat of Nail Pattern Boldness "Glitter Food" to smooth it out, and then sealed it all with Seche Vite.

 Bottle shot to see all the glittery goodness!

I'm so excited to see a drugstore brand branching out a bit more into fun glitters and textures!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 4: Frost

Hi girls! Today's NPC called for "Frost". I knew I probably had a couple frosts, but I actually had to open my polish spreadsheet and ctrl+F to find them. The first one I found was totally dried out, boohoo. But I did find two other frosts in my Julep collection. Here is "Piper":

"Piper" is a sort of minty-sort of Robin's-egg blue frost.  The formula was really good as far as frosts go.  It didn't show brushstrokes, but did show every imperfection on the nail, as you can see on my index and middle fingers!  These next two pics show off the frostiness more.

I'm sort of conflicted about this one!  I like the color and I think it works with my skin tone, but the frostiness turns me off a bit.

I went to the Botanical garden for a health fair the day I did this mani, so I decided to add some flowers with my other frost, Julep "Sandra", and used Julep "Lexie" for the centers:

"Sandra" is a pink frost, although you can't tell in these pictures.  I can definitely see myself wearing this on my toes this summer!

What do you girls think of frost polishes?

Here is a bonus daffodil picture from the garden!

Thanks for reading!

An InLinkz Link-up

NPC Day 2: Pastel

Hi girls!  Happy Wednesday!  I hope you've been having a good week!

Today's NPC called for "Pastel".  I have plenty of untried pastels, but I knew exactly which one I wanted to use today!

Check out what polishes I used after the jump!

piCture pOlish "Wisteria"

Hi ladies!  How has your weekend been?  I'm off work today and tomorrow, so I have some time to relax!  I do have a test on Monday that I should be studying for though...Shhhh!

Today I have for you a truly beautiful purple cream, piCture pOlish "Wisteria":

This post is a little picture heavy since I love this mani so much, so I'm going to put the rest under the jump!

OPI "Peace, Love, & OPI"

Hi girls!  How was your weekend?  It finally started to feel like spring here, but I don't know how long it's going to last...We're supposed to have storms the next few days, and then I think it's supposed to get a bit cooler again.

Today I have for you "Peace, Love & OPI" from the fall 2013 San Francisco collection.

"Peace, Love, & OPI" is a silver duochrome with a purple and green shift.  This is two nice and easy coats.

My ring finger looks kind of brush stroke-y here, but you can't see that in real life.

I think this photo really shows off the pinky-purple duochrome.

So, what do you guys think?  I love colors like this, and I have everything that's even sort of similar.  If I get a chance, I'll do a comparison post!

Thanks for reading!

Nail Pattern Boldness "Covetous"

Hi ladies!  How was your week?  I managed to have a relaxing and super-productive Spring Break.  I'm not sure that's ever happened before!  Unfortunately, none of my productivity had to do with school, so I need to get back in the swing of studying!

Tonight I have another chevron manicure.  This is a "negative space" mani with Nail Pattern Boldness "Covetous".

I can't quite decide how I feel about this.  I LOOOOVE the glitter (more on that in a second!) and I like pictures of negative space manicures on other people, but this just isn't doing it for me.  I think it might have been better if I had used skinnier chevrons, so there was more polish on my nails.

Anyway, "Covetous" is a dark navy glitter with some yellow-gold and pink glitters thrown in. This is such a fun, unique glitter!  And it can definitely be built to opacity on its own.  I did two coats here, and if they had been full-nail coats, it would have covered perfectly!  I'm definitely going to have to use this one again on its own!

Nail Pattern Boldness can be found at Llarowe.com.  They have a bunch of fun glitters.  I add one or two more to my wishlist each time I look at their collection.

Hope you guys have a good weekend!  Don't forget to check out my new Etsy shop!
Thanks for reading!

Orchids on "Orchids" for the Orchid Show

Yesterday Gosia and I went to the Orchid Show at the botanical garden in town.  The Missouri Botanical Garden is pretty much my favorite place in St. Louis.  I'm sure I'll do more flower-themed manis as everything starts blooming!

Since we were going to the orchid show, I decided to wear one of my new Colors By Llarowe pretties, "Orchids Are Better Than Roses Any Day" AKA "OABTRAD".

"OABTRAD" is the perfect representation of the Pantone Color of the Year for 2014, Radiant Orchid.  It's a warm orchid with almost golden undertones.  The holographic finish absolutely makes it radiant!

This is two coats of CBL's usual perfect formula.

I decided to try some stamping too!  I didn't have anything with orchids on it, but I thought these flowers from MoYou Pro Plate 06 were close:

I stamped using Julep "Harley", which left me pleasantly surprised!  I wasn't sure if silver would stamp very well, but "Harley" was nice and opaque and my images transferred perfectly!

Colors By Llarowe can be found at Llarowe.com and Julep can be found at Julep.com

Here are some pictures of the orchids from the show:

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Mani part 5: WTF Camera!?!

Just a real quick post today because I wanted to post the last of the KBShimmer Valentine's trio, but I could NOT get my camera to capture this color-accurately at all!

Just two, horribly inaccurate photos:

This is Julep "Carrie" with RBL "Mismas" and KBShimmer "U Rock My <3 accent="" nail.="" nbsp="" on="" p="" the="">
Carrie is not the weird putty color it looks here; it's actually a bright bubblegum pink.  I was surprised at how much I liked it, since I'm not usually into "classic" pinks.

Mismas is a darkened purple--it is fairly accurate in these photos.

And lastly, U Rock My <3 a="" and="" black="" different="" glitters="" hearts.="" hex="" hot="" is="" matte="" mix="" of="" p="" pink="" sizes="" star="">
Julep can be found at Julep.com
Rescue Beauty Lounge can be found at RescueBeauty.com
And KBShimmer can be found at KBShimmer.com.  Christy Rose also makes great bath and body products.  I buy one of her bath bombs every time I place a polish order!

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Mani part 4: Glitter Overload

Hi Ladies,

Today I have another polish from KBShimmer's Valentine's Trio, "Falling for Hue"

 Check out more pictures and a bonus kittykat pic after the jump!

Valentine's Mani Part 2: All You Need is Love

And by Love I mean Julep's "Love" that went out to all subscribers this month!

 "Love" is a super-shimmery gold with pink undertones and loads of red microglitter.  It almost has a gold to pink duochrome effect.  I tried to catch the pink flash in the next couple pictures:

 

To add to the Valentine's-y-ness, I added a pink heart rhinestone from a pack from Sally Beauty.  Rhinestones are totally easy to use.  You just place them on your nail while your polish is still wet, let it dry for a couple minutes, then seal it on with a thick coat of top coat!

  I love "Love" so much!  I hope Julep puts out more colors with this finish.  The formula was a little thick though.  I didn't have any problems with application, but I might add a bit of thinner next time.

Julep can be found at Julep.com.  Julep's Maven program is a boutique nail polish subscription box.  I'll let you read more about it here.  If you want to become Maven, you can sign up through my link and use the code "FREEBOX" to get your first box free!

Valentine's Mani Part 1

I love Valentine's Day, but not for the right reasons.  I think it's silly that we turned a day dedicated to a martyr into a day celebrating love, and I think it's silly to have one day a year dedicated to celebrating love.  We should celebrate love all year round!  But I do love the combination of red, pink, purple, and white, hearts, glitter, and chocolate!

I've ended up with quite a few Valentine's-themed polishes this year, so I decided to dedicate February to Valentine's manis!  Til the 14th at least.  And maybe longer if I have more polishes to use!

So here is my first Valentine's mani of the month:

Find out which polishes I used after the jump!

piCture pOlish "Ultra Violence"

Hi girlies!

I did the second day of Insanity yesterday, and then had to take a break today!  I'm achy all over.  Hopefully I'll start back up tomorrow.

To reward my "insanity" I tried piCture pOlish "Ultra Violence", another polish lent to me by Gosia.

 Hey look!  My pictures are getting better!  I've found that the best lighting is actually in my bathroom!

As always, there are more pictures and info after the jump!

Formula X "10 Below"

Hi Girls!

I've been a little under the weather, so I haven't been exercising everyday like I wanted to, but I'm feeling better today so I decided to give the first day of Insanity a try!  Holy crap!  I'm amazed I was able to finish it all!  I actually felt really good when I finished it; like I had accomplished something!  We'll see if I can actually keep up with it.  I'm guessing it will take me more than 60 days!

After my workout, I decided to try a special polish:  "10 Below", a limited edition "Foil Look" set from Formula X, containing a polish (10 Below) and a special base coat.

 More pictures and my review after the jump!

New Year, New Blog, New Goals!

Hi!  Welcome to RxNails!  I made the jump to Blogger so people can leave comments on my blog, so comment away!

Let's get started!

I've decided I'm going to tie my nail habit to some new health goals of mine.  While this will primarily be a nail blog, I thought I'd talk about my goals for my first post.

I recently had some routine blood work done, and it turns out my cholesterol levels were just a little high.  Not too high to need medication, but high enough to be a sort-of "wake-up call".  So I'm going to try and cut down on my saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol intake, and increase my fiber intake.  I have specific numerical goals that I can get into if anyone's really interested.  I thought this wouldn't be too hard.  Looking at nutrition labels, there are a lot of foods with no cholesterol and little saturated fat.  Then I decided to have a boiled egg with my lunch (healthy! all that protein!) and realized that one egg contained my total daily cholesterol limit.  So looks like it's egg whites for me from now on!

My next goal is to get a total of 150 minutes of exercise per week.  I'm really bad about exercising.  I like exercising outside, but right now it's literally freezing (below freezing actually), and I hate being out in the cold.  But I have been using our elliptical the past couple days, so hopefully I can make a habit of it.

This next goal may seem kind of silly, but I'm aiming to take at least one bath per week.  Pharmacy school is incredibly stressful, and stress definitely has negative health impacts.  It's easy to say "you need to decrease your stress level", but much harder to actually do it.  Since there's not really a way for me to lessen the stress of school, I need to be able to cope with it better.  Long hot baths are extremely relaxing to me.  We have this nice big tub, and I don't use it enough, so that's a new goal for me!

Lastly, I want to make a blog post at least once a week.  Hopefully more, but once a week is my starting goal.

Now, if you managed to read all of that, I'm sure you're thinking "What does this have to do with nail polish?"  I'm going to use nail polish to reward myself for reaching my goals!  Everyday that I get at least 30 minutes of exercise means I can change my mani.  And I can only buy NEW nail polish if I meet my weekly goals.  I'm thinking...one polish per goal met.  For my nutrition goals, that means I have to meet my goals more days than I don't.  Hopefully this will inspire me to be healthier!

At last, what you came here for:  Here is my reward mani for last night's time on the elliptical:

This is NfuOh 64.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's going to take me a while to figure this thing out.  64 was a gift from the wonderful Gosia of Colorful Crack.  It's a pale pink holo that absolutely cannot be captured with a camera.  Like all of the NfuOh holos, you need to use their Aqua Base with this.  I had no problems with application using Aqua Base.  These pictures are two coats, but one would have actually been fine!

NfuOh, including Aqua Base, is available at the Nfu Oh website and FabulouStreet, which is where I bought my aqua base.

Thanks for reading my first post!  I promise from now on, my posts won't be as long and won't be about health and fitness!