Laundry On Sundaes

I got this cute little Color Club striper kit a while ago and haven’t had the chance to use it yet, so I thought I’d do a simple summer appropriate watermelon nail art.

For the base color I used Elodie from Zoya (which you’ve seen before here), and painted the design using the green, white, and black from the striper kit. It’s definitely not perfect – there are a few smudges and the “seeds” are not evenly spaced – but it was quite fun to do. Next time I would probably use some kind of dotting tool for the “seeds” instead of just using the striper brush. Also, I need to remember to brush on the top coat very gently and only once, or else it will smudge!

I’m excited to try some other nail art designs with my striper kit! Do you have any cute ideas of what I could do?

Tags: beauty, nails

The weather is going to be beautiful and springy this week in SF! I chose to do paint my nails in this pretty pastel purple – it’s perfect for spring!

The color is e.l.f.’s Lilac. This is the first time I’ve used a full-sized e.l.f. polish, since before I’ve been using their mini bottles I bought in their Christmas collection. I have to say that the formula and brush are a lot better in the full-sized version! I might just add a few more bottles next time I do an e.l.f. haul.

Tags: beauty, nails

A couple of weeks ago, I received a free sample of imPRESS Press-On Manicure from Broadway Nails with an online order of clothes. They’re basically fake nails that already comes with the glue, so you just peel off the backing and press them on like stickers. I thought the concept was interesting and decided to try them for our upcoming trip to San Diego (will blog about that soon!) so I didn’t have to worry about chipping my nails on vacation.

It’s really easy and quick to apply the nails. All you have to do is find the sizes that match your nails (the package comes with 24 nails), clean your nails with the enclosed cleaning pad, and peel and stick. The whole thing probably took me 5-10 minutes. Here they are right after I put them on.

They were way too long for my liking, but luckily you can cut and file them after 30 minutes. So I waited for a while and did just that.

Now they’re about the same length as my natural nails and they look great! So let’s take a look at the pros and cons of these nails.

Pros:
- Really simple applications.
- I loved the way they looked. The color (Tweetheart, a classic red) was beautiful and they never lost that shine during the time I wore them. And the nails were pretty thin and flexible and they look very natural, unlike some fake nails.
- They last a long time! The package says that they last up to a week, and mine lasted… 10 days! And the only reason I had to take them off was that my nails were growing out too much, leaving a gap that’s a little too big. When I took them off they were still stuck on there pretty well. I think one of the reasons why they lasted so long on me is that I did cut them down so that they were not catching on anything.
- They’re simple to remove. I had no trouble just peeling them off from my nails.

Cons:
- I had to spend some extra time cutting and filing them to the length I liked. But if you like your nails long, you don’t have to worry about that.
- They were still a little long than my natural nails when I applied them, so a little bit of the glue/sticky stuff was showing on the underside. Fibers and dirt got stuck to it and it was a little annoying to pull them off all the time. But if they were the exact same length as my nails this would not be a problem.

So the verdict? I loved them! I mean, they’re not going to replace my regular nail polish or anything, but for special occasions when you don’t want to worry about your nails, they’re a great option. They sell for around $7, which I think it’s a pretty good deal. Some people have complained that they think this is too expensive, but think about it, a salon manicure costs at least twice that much and there’s no promise of chip-free shine for a week even then. I will definite consider these again in the future, maybe for our next vacation in Mexico? I’m not sure how well they will fare in water, but if I do use them for the beach and pool I will find out!

Tags: beauty, nails

… Because I didn’t have time to do my nails yesterday. I was originally planning to do a bright sparkly orange color for this week, but then I remembered that UCSF Admit Day is this Saturday and I don’t think that would go with the required business casual dress code. So I opted for e.l.f.’s Smoky Brown instead.

It’s more of a dark taupe color than a brown, and it’s a nice darker neutral color. It came out a little darker than I had hoped, oh well. After 2 neutral colors in a row, next time I do my nails I definitely want to try a brighter color for spring!

Tags: beauty, nails

I don’t know about anyone else, but I find myself reverting back to nude nail colors once every so often, especially after a long stretch of time wearing brighter or darker colors. This week I’m sporting Frappe from Nailtini.

It’s a really pretty pale pink/nude, the perfect nude and professional color. I love how it looks with my skin tone. One downside is that the polish is pretty thin and transparent, and it took 4 coats to achieve the level of opacity that I wanted. However, I do love the result!

Tags: beauty, nails

The weather in SF has been lovely and spring-like lately, so I chose this pretty spring mani for this week. I used Zoya’s Wednesday as the base color. It’s a beautiful minty turquoise/robin’s egg blue. Then I overlaid e.l.f.’s Fair Dust on top to give it some sparkly speckles.

What do you think? What spring nail looks are you excited about this year?

Tags: beauty, nails