Nov 2012: Philip's Caution Tape "Man"icure

Hey everyone! I know it has been a few days, but don't worry! I didn't leave. I've been busy preparing a special treat for you guys. What is that, you may wonder? Well, I'm glad you asked!

Since I started doing nail art and posting it online, I thought it was funny that the word 'man' is in manicure. Is that a coincidence? I like to think not. Then I started wondering if guys actually like getting their nails done, but just don't tell anyone. I've come to the conclusion that very few do. I did, however, find out that there are a handful of guys willing to get their nails done, so long as the evidence is gone before there are any witnesses.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to my once a month special: "MAN"icures! I have rounded up a panel of 5 guys (Hard to believe 5 guys would be willing to do this, right?) who aren't related to me in any way. Now, in order to protect their pride and identities (And let's face it, their egos), I have asked them to pick out aliases. So far, only one has gotten back to me, and he's the one being featured in this post.

Say hello to Philip!!

Laser Tape Mani

Helloooo everyone! Today was such a beautiful day that I am in a fantastic mood, and since I'm in this great mood, I thought I'd share with you all my first attempt at a laser tape manicure. After I finished, I realized that it kind of like a laser rasta manicure, kind of like the picture I found below on Google. I totally wasn't going for that.

The reason why I chose the colors I did was because they're all fall-ish, minus the green. But that's the normal color of leaves, right? So that should do..

Day 7: Apple Nails

Here it is, the most well known fruit of fall! I saved this one for last on purpose. Apples are delicious (especially in pie). I should have made apple pie nails, but I'll save that for another day.

There are soo many apple nail designs online, and they're all the same. I didn't want to go with flow this time around. What's the fun in that? I figured one way to spice apples up would be to add polka dots... again! I told you I like polka dots. Haha.

My favorite part about this manicure has to be the colors. They're so bright and cheery (and delicious). I almost wish I could be wear this design when I go apple picking. That won't be for a couple weeks, though.  :(

Granny Smith apples are my favorite, so I decided to give that apple the bigger nail, aka my thumb. I really love how well it turned out. I think I did a better job on the green apple than the red apple.

For this manicure, I used China Glaze Oxygen as the base. Usually I never specify how many coats of nail polish I use. That's because I always use 2 coats, no matter which color it is. I felt like I should mention that for the China Glaze Oxygen, I had to use 3 coats because the color was so sheer. The first 2 coats I did were thin, but the last was thick because I was getting impatient. If you use this color, you may need to use 4 coats.

 For polka dots, apples, stems, and leaves, I used China Glaze High Roller, China Glaze Entourage, China Glaze Electric Pineapple, Piggy Polish Lemonade 5¢, Zoya Meg, and China Glaze Mahogany Magic.

Day 5: Peach Mango Smoothie

You're probably wondering why I named my post after 2 fruits and then called it a smoothie. Well, today I had peaches planned. I had a really cool idea to try, but I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. Gradient peaches! Well, when I finished my nails, I asked my brothers to guess what fruit I had done. They both guessed mangoes.  I was up in arms. They were peaches! There wasn't any green in them!!! Then after looking at them for a while, I realized that they could pass as both peaches AND mangoes. I guess that's cool. Then I called it a smoothie because of the way all of the colors are swirled together. Yum. :)

Peaches are my absolute favorite fruit. I can't get enough of them! That may be why I love this design so much.

When I looked on Google for inspiration, I quickly found out that no one has ever made peach (or mango) nails. What a shame! Peaches definitely deserve some time in the spotlight. Mangoes too, I guess.

You're probably wondering how I even made these peaches. I'll be honest, I took the difficult route. Instead of searching for a round sponge of some sort, I took a makeup sponge and tried to cut a shape as close to a circle as I could. That only took forever, and it wasn't even circular.

I decided that I would attempt to transfer the terrible circle shape to my nails and see where I could go from there. So I sponged it on and it looked really weird. I did another layer and tried to overlap a bunch of the colors, but it still looked pretty bad. I took one of my brushes and painted the light blue all around to make the edges sharper. That did the trick. I then added some stems and leaves and voilá! Peach mango things were born.. Haha.

 When I figure out a better way to make these nails, I will be sure to make a tutorial for them. That would be a lot of fun to do, and I certainly wouldn't mind having delicious peaches on my fingers again. And hopefully I'll be able to get better pictures of my nails. I'll admit that these pictures aren't the best. I'm trying with what I have, though. I was going to take some more pictures when I woke up, but it was dark and rainy, so hopefully next time.

The colors I used for this were:
Base
China Glaze Aquadelic

Peaches
Piggy Polish 6 Impossible Things
Piggy Polish Damsel in This Dress
Piggy Polish Lemonade 5 ¢

China Glaze Dress Me Up
China Glaze Riveting
China Glaze Long Kiss

Stem
China Glaze Mahogany Magic

Leaves
China Glaze Entourage
(I really didn't like how light the green turned out to be, so I added some
Zoya Meg right on top. It turned out perfect!)

Day 4: Orange Nails

Orange you glad I didn't do bananas today? Hahaha. Anyway....

Today's design isn't as complicated or detailed as the others have been, but I still really like it. I think the simplicity of it makes the colors pop more. I realized was I was putting my watermark on the photos that I could have added a bit more detail to the peel (like white dots for texture), but oh well. They're still nice in my opinion!

I didn't have much inspiration, so I decided to look at a few designs. I picked up a few ideas, but didn't really recreate any. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do with an orange wedge.. However, I did notice that no one had taken advantage of using the shape of the base of their nails for the wedge! I found that shocking, so I went with that.

This is my second attempt at this manicure. This first try turned out horrible, and even that is an  understatement. I decided to completely start over and it made such a difference. I really like how well it came together.

I also really like how Halloween-y the colors are. It's really a nice introduction to fall. :)

For his manicure, I used Maybelline Color Show Onyx Rush and Piggy Polish Damsel in This Dress as the base colors. Then for the rest of the orange, I used Piggy Polish Lemonade 5 ¢.

On a side note: I've been using my nail polish so much that I have almost all of the colors memorized. Haha.

Rainbow Stripes

So at 11pm on Thursday night, I decided that I HAD to change up my nail design. By that time, I was completely exhausted and wanted to go to bed, but I figured sleep could wait. I really wanted to do a design with all the colors of the rainbow. The thought of making thin and neat stripes out of the 8 colors I had in mind made me groan. Then a thought hit me. Why do I have to make my nails neat? I can paint them messily if I want to! And so I did. Here is the result..

 I think they didn't turn out too bad. The idea was to make them messy, so I kind of dig the disheveled look.

I saw my cousins today at a family reunion/ baby shower and the first thing one of them said was," Niiiice, gay pride nails!" That wasn't what I was going for, but sure, why not. Plain jane rainbows are boring anyway. ;)

The day before I did this design, I became absolutely fed up with my nail polish remover. I decided it was time to buy 100% pure acetone. It's the best product I have ever used in my life, and I would swear by it if it weren't for one small, yet obvious problem. If you take a look at my pinky finger in the picture below, you'll notice how dry and wrinkled my skin is. That is from the acetone. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until 15 minutes ago when I was putting my watermark on my pictures. Looks like I'll need to buy lots of hand lotion.

For the record, my skin is longer that dry. Thank goodness for Vaseline!

Here are all of the colors I used in order from the base of my nail to the tip:

Maybelline Color Show Onyx Rush
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
Sinful Colors Aquamarine
China Glaze Aquadelic
China Glaze Entourage
Piggy Polish Lemonade 5 ¢

Piggy Polish Damsel in This Dress
China Glaze High Roller

And for the base, I used Piggy Polish 6 Impossible Things

Whew. That was a lot of polish.