Nail Artist of the Month

May Nail Artist of the Month - Aggies Do It Better

9:00:00 AM

Good morning polished world!  It is May already!  Can you believe it?  I swear it was just March and I was posting St. Patrick's Day manicures.  It's just crazy.

Since it is the first post of the month, you know what that means!  It's time to introduce you all to another Nail Artist of the Month  This month I have selected the talented Jennifer from Aggies Do It Better!  I met her on Twitter and we bonded over our love of Zoya polishes.  I'm so happy to finally feature her because she has created some very unique manicures.  Some of my favorites are those that are done using the Zoya Pixie Dust polishes.  You all know how much I love Pixie Dust art.

Enough of my babbling, it's Jennifer's turn to take over!!!! 
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Hey guys! I'm Jennifer and I'm so excited Alania asked me to be her May artist of the month! I have been a fan of her for a long time! We met on twitter last fall, right around the time Zoya was doing their flash promos for the holidays. There was so many twitter direct messages about the excitement of it all! Ha ha!

For my mani today I chose one of my favorite looks, colorblocking. I was so afraid of using striping tape for so long, once I finally got some I never used it and lost it! Then I had to go get some MORE and now I love it! I love all things geometric.

I still feel pretty new in the nail world. I've been blogging for several years, but only in January of this year did I decide to change the focus of my blog to nails! I have 3 little boys so doing nails has given me an outlet for all things girly!


The polishes I used are all part of a limited edition set Zoya put out last month, called the Peter Som trio. These polishes were made for each other! To achieve this look, I started with a white base and let it dry for several hours....I usually let it dry longer than it needs to probably! Then apply strips of tape as you like and fill in the squares. I usually use a dotting tool on smaller squares and the polish brush on larger squares. Be sure to remove the tape right away, before the polish sets! And that's it!


Thanks so much! Stop by and say hi!

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What a gorgeous color block manicure!  Aren't her lines perfect?!  The colors are also amazing together.  The blue, the dark teal, and the light orange against the white, it's just awesome.

Thank you so much Jen for creating this manicure!  Make sure to follow her on her social networks (Blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BlogLovin).  You'll be sorry if you don't because you're going to miss some amazing manicures.

Don't forget to check out the previous Nail Artist's of the Month as well! 

Time to start selecting my next artist....until next time <3.

Flowers

Twinsie Tuesday - Inspired by Your Hometown

9:00:00 AM

Press Sample
Good morning polished peeps!  Going to be a fast post today because I'm writing this right now at almost 1am with a half completed manicure.  I need to get better at editing the photos then right after writing the post right after I'm done doing so.  I probably won't change and will still procrastinate until the bitter end, but what can you do?

Today is Tuesday meaning it is again Twinsie Tuesday!  Today we are creating manicures inspired by our hometown.  Now, I'm kind of a private person when it comes to this blog.   I haven't really stated where I'm from because the internet can be a kind of a huge place and I'm never sure who is reading this blog.  So for today's post, I'm kind of remaining anonymous and not sharing where I'm exactly from, other than I'm in the United States.

Where I am located, Spring is finally arriving.  The leaves on the trees are peeking out, the crocuses and daffodils have bloomed, the tulips are on their way, and the grass is turning greener by the second.  After the long Winter we had, despite this being a cold Spring, I am welcoming it with open arms.  I don't even care that it's going to rain today, it's better than snow.

For today's manicure, I decided to do something very Spring-y.  That of course, flowers with pastel colors!  I also used my newest obsession, the OPI Matte Top Coat that I used last week.  I told you I was going to go matte crazy.  

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Mary Kay - Lemon Parfait
  • OPI - You're Such a Budapest
  • Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art - Purple Violet
  • Sinful Colors - Pistache
  • Zoya - Hunter
  • OPI - Matte Top Coat
There is nothing that I love more than a floral manicure such as this one.  Roses are one of my go-to favorite floral designs.  I think I've gone rose happy in the past few months on this blog after a huge hiatus for about a year.  I don't know why I stopped, but now I just cannot get enough.

I cannot get enough of the base color for this manicure.  Lemon Parfait by Mary Kay was another polish that my friend provided me for review as she is a consultant for the brand.  I think I love this color better than Carefree Coral, and that's saying a lot since I am not a yellow person.  I just never think it looks right on my nails.  This polish is a perfect pastel lemon-y yellow which is truly a cream polish.  It kind of dries with a semi-glossy semi-matte finish.  It was a bit patchy with two coats, so I added a third to even things out.  You could get away with two coats if you did one thin followed by a thicker second coat.



While Out the Door was not used as the final top coat for this manicure, I did use it to first seal in my design before adding the matte top coat.  This tip was provided to me by some of the lovely ladies of The Beauty Buffs a few weeks ago when I was shopping around for matte polishes.  I never asked specifically why these ladies put on a glossy topper before the matte, but I think I figured out why on my own.  Do you see how smooth the design looks?  The first coat of the glossy top coat evened out any uneven bumps I had from doing the art, then the matte went over it and literally created one even surface.  My nails almost looked like I was wearing appliques.

Speaking of Beauty Buffs, this would have been the perfect yellow manicure for last weeks theme.

What do you think?  Liking the roses?  Fan of the yellow base with the purple flowers?

 As always, don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra

Well I guess I lied about the whole short post thing lol.

Until next time, <3

**Some products in this post were provided for review, please see my disclosure policy**

Animal Mani

Guest Post for Manicured Monkey

9:00:00 AM

Good morning polished peeps!  Hope you all are well!  Today I have a guest post for you all over at The Manicured Monkey!  I couldn't be more excited to post over at Kristin's blog!  Back in 2012, when I was just starting out with this little blog, she highlighted my blog and did a little interview with me.  Kristin is an awesome person who has supported me and my little blog since the beginning, and I couldn't be more grateful!


For today's guest post, I came up with a cute monkey manicure since she is the Manicured Monkey!  Please head on over to her blog see the full post with more pictures!

Until next time, <3.

Tape Mani

Striped Nail Art with Mary Kay Carefree Coral

9:00:00 AM

Sample
Hi polished world!  How are you all on this fine day?  I'm sorry that I missed yesterday's Beauty Buffs post.   I'm still bummed, but what can you do.  I sure hope that you checked out all the other lovely ladies posts.  I promise to be back in two weeks!

Today's post is one that I have been wanting to share for awhile, but Easter week kind of came and took over.  A friend of mine is a Mary Kay consultant and asked me to review the Mary Kay polishes for her.  She wants to be able to give her clients the most honest opinion regarding the product, and since she doesn't know much about polishes, she asked me!  I'm pretty sure she also asked me because she knows that I'm very honest and if I hated something, I would flat out tell her and my followers.

The first of the two polishes she gave me to review is Carefree Coral, which as you can tell from it's name is a coral polish.  After seeing this tutorial on Pinterest I fell in love with the color combo.  I figured that this would be a perfect time to re-create the look, but with a different tape design since I was kind of lazy when I went to paint.  I'll recreate that exact design eventually.

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Mary Kay - Carefree Coral
  • Orly - Gumdrop
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Such a fun color combo!  Carefree Coral is a tad brighter in person than what I could capture on my camera.  I really need to figure out what's going on with that thing.  Thank goodness Spring is here and the weather is getting better because I can start photographing outside again and burn my lightbox.

Started getting off topic there....Carefree Coral.  Love this polish.  It applied evenly in two coats, but for this manicure I used three.  While it is a cream polish, it applied very much so like a crelly (cream jelly mixture).  On it's own, it was so shiny and honestly didn't look like it needed a top coat at all.  It was really impressive.  I added a top coat of INM Out the Door to my left hand for the pictures, but on my right hand (which is my dominant hand) I did not because I wanted to test the durability of the polish.  Both hands wore exactly the same.  After 3 days I had some tip wear, and a very tiny chip on my right hand pinkie finger.  For a polish without a top coat, to me that's pretty decent, especially since I'm super rough and my job consists of a lot of typing.

The polish bottle is a tad small, so I was expecting a tiny brush.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the brush was a hybrid between the OPI and Zoya brush.  Not too big and not too little...just perfect.  I like those slightly bigger brushes because I can get my polish to apply perfectly.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Zoya brushes but they can be a tad too small.



I love the design.  Something different for me.  I'm kind of annoyed that my thumb nail black stripes were thinner than my ring finger.  Don't laugh, but my thumb kind of reminded me of a pattern you would see on underpants.  Or a cute bathing suit.  I'll go with bathing suit over underpants.

As always, I love Orly Gumdrop.  I think it paired perfectly with the coral polish.

What do you think of the design?  Have you ever used a Mary Kay polish?

If you would like to purchase a bottle for yourself, click here!  The polish is $9.50.  Anne is super nice so if you have any questions about other Mary Kay products, do not hesitate to ask her!  She will help you with whatever you need!

Until next time, <3.

**Some polishes in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy**