Color Blocked Nails Inspired by the New York Fashion Week featuring Essie Butler Please

I'm very excited to share with you my latest creation! I feel so fashion forward! :D I cannot tell you how distracted I am... There's something about this design that makes my fingers look so long and slender. It's a cool illusion for those who have shorter than the average fingers and nails, like me. :)

This design is first inspired by @susieq1980 's tape mani. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to use the tape properly, so I ended up doing a freehand for my version.

It's also inspired by @martawarmuz 's #skittlette trend. Marta, from ChitChat Nails, defines this as a manicure consisting of two, or three, different accent nails on each hand; as opposed to skittle nails, wherein each nail should have a unique design. I love me some Marta's skittlettes! :*) Here are my favorites!

I've also been dying to use my new favorite blue, Essie's Butler Please from the 2012 Winter collection. Isn't it sooo pretty? Just look at how bright that blue is! I don't understand why there's so much hate around the formula or application. It dries matte, fine, any topcoat can fix that. It's not streaky or uneven. It's a solid two-coater and I'm glad that I took a chance on this. I love it!

I've also seen so many new trends from the New York Fashion Week Fall 2013 runway shows, that I can't help but do something new and creative! :) It helps to be surrounded by so many talented people with overflowing creative juices! Hooray for Instagram! Some trends that I incorporated into this look: milky white polish, dark shades, diagonal color blocking, and gem accents, in place of a glitter gradient.

Here are some links to the 2013 nail polish trends, straight from the runway:
Harper's Bazaar
Glamour
StyleList

I used the following polishes: Dazzle Dry base coat, Dazzle Dry top coat, Essie Waltz (an elegant sheer white),  Essie Butler Please (an indulgent bright blue), and Orly Liquid Vinyl (black). Then I used Swarovski crystals for the gem accents.

I went through 4 iterations. Haha! From upper left, clockwise: 1) freehand mani, 2) with OPI Crown Me Already glitter gradient, 3) with rhinestones and sponged tips, and 4) with rhinestones only. Which one of the four do you like the best? I knew I wanted to add something to spice it up. If only I had silver metal studs, I think they would have been perfect!

Lastly, I thought I'd just pose with my favorite "cuticle cream", Jack Black's Industrial Strength Hand Healer. It's the exact same color. Hehe!

It feels good to be back! Happy reading! :)
 

Karen & Erica's 2012 Birthday Party

September 15, 2012

This year, it was a sit down Surf and Turf dinner + Hello Kitty + Tonic Bags and Shoes + Polished Inthecity Nail Art PARTY!!!!

I'm still on a high over it! Jor-el bought 18 pieces of 14-16 oz. steaks for all of us to feast on!!! If you've seen them in real life, you'd be flabbergasted! :-O

Thank you Chef Jor-el Soyangco for our plated surf and turf grilled steak and prawns with a siding of mashed potatoes and our smoked salmon with kesong puti salad in blueberry vinaigrette!

Thank you Chef Nicco Santos for our watercress and spinach soup, mushroom and truffle cream sauce pasta, and our late night salpicao!

We even hired a waiter to serve and bus out our plates! How cool is that?! :)

It was so sad we didn't have pictures of the food though!! All I have is this picture of the leftovers with the boys. :(

I got Erica black Lydias from Tonic Bags and Shoes for her birthday! I wore my platinum ones, while Anne wore her gold ones. All thanks to the ever-talented Kim Chupeco!! We love your work!!! <3

Our friends, Kali and Rach, got us these really cool Hello Kitty glasses! Now, I have 4 in my collection!!

Took this the day after the party, with my new Hello Kitty glasses! :)

The night progressed with the girls doing their nails for each other. :) It was so much fun!!! Look at the smiles on our faces! After trying it out themselves, my friends realized how easy it was to do! The night was shortlived and I'm still hoping that I can invite them over to the house for another round!

Nail Art #1: Kate Spade Dippin' Dots for Kali

with China Glaze Peachy Keen, China Glaze For Audrey, and Orly Pixy Stix

Nail Art #2: Fun Nerds Dots for Shirley

with Orly Spark, Orly Rage, Orly Pixy Stix, China Glaze Peachy Keen, and China Glaze For Audrey

Nail Art #3: Silver Accents over Pink for Elaine
with some Orly pink polish and Wet 'n' Wild Wizard

Nail Art #4: Sponged tips for Erica
with Orly Rage layered on Essie Sand Tropez

Nail Art #5: Aztec Nails for Kacy
with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, L'Oreal Electric Pink Creme, and Sassy Nail Art in black

Nail Art #6: Paul Smith Stripes for Kim Lee

with Sassy Nail Art in black, red, and Orange striped over OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

Nail Art #7: Black Swan sponged tips over silver foil for Jeelai
with Wet 'n' Wild in Creme Noir over some silver polish

The last 3 to leave, with yours truly. You can see the full post about my cupcake nails here. :)

Can you believe it?!?! 7 nail art designs all in one day! Phew! Perhaps I can retire at this point! Haha Who am I kidding?!?!

But before I end this post, I'd like to share with you my favorite picture of them all! It was an honor to have our first ZESh baby, Kirk, attend his first ZESh party!!! I'm a proud Auntie!! :) Isn't he just adorable? <3 Calling Kirb and Vince, please bring Kirk more often! Anne and Hans, bring Ethan next time too, okay? :)

Celebrating love and friendship on our 28th! Of course, a little bit of nail polish and Hello Kitty wouldn't hurt too! :)

Have a great Wednesday to all of you!!

 

Cupcake Nails

My best nail art to date. Cupcake nails!!!

I learned how to do this by following cutepolish's "Cute Cupcake Nail Art" tutorial in youtube. Try it yourself! With the right tools, it's not so hard to do!

As you can see, I did some tweaks and made it my own!! :D You can play around with different color combinations too! There are a lot of cupcake nail art inspirations in Google. Some people even make chocolate cupcakes using brown instead of white! Yum!! And you can definitely make the candy sprinkles more interesting with actual beads or hex glitter, you name it!



I like my nails sparkly, so I used a white silver glitter base color. I played around with Caronia's Crystal Frosted and was happy with it.

Next, I was able to easily create the vertical stripes for the cupcake base, thanks to these new found gems! I got these Sassy Nail Art bottles from Watson's for Php 30+ (USD $0.70) each! You can apply the polish using the tip at the top, which more or less works like liquid paper. Or, you can twist and remove the top to use the thin striper brush inside. I used the latter for my stripes.

After, I used a large dotting tool to apply the fluffy cupcake in OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, my go-to white polish. I think this was the hardest step to do. But I realized that it doesn't have to be perfect. Cupcakes aren't baked all equal. Some may be fluffier than others or some may even be lopsided. It doesn't matter if they aren't even, as long as they come out still looking like cupcakes! :D At this point, the design might look bulky, but don't you worry. Keep on working on the next steps, and the top coat will even it all out.

I applied the hearts on top using Essie Coral Reef. I just followed how cutepolish did it. Thebeautydepartment.com showed how to do this trick too. It was a bit tricky, but I managed. All it takes is a little bit of practice and you can try doing it on a piece of paper first.

To decorate the cupcake with candy sprinkles, I used Sassy in pink (same as the stripes) and China Glaze For Audrey. I just made the dots randomly in no particular order.

To top it all off, I put on one coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat. It flattened the design and made it look professionally done!

I think that the colors I used blended well together and made the design pop out more. I'm very pleased with this. It's my favorite nail art and I actually drew something out of it. :) True enough, it was very popular with family and friends. :D

I did it to all 10 fingers! Aren't they soooo cute?!?! Nom nom nom!

 I wanted to take more pictures so I posed with my matching pink and purple loofas. Heehee :*)

And then, I found the perfect accessory to my nails!! A GIANT CUPCAKE!!! In complimentary colors too! :D

Fun fun fun!! I hope you can try this yourself! You won't regret it!! :)



Thanks for reading!
 

Braided Nails Inspired by cutepolish

A First Successful Attempt at Nail Art

Disclaimer: This is one of my longer entries. Please indulge me in taking you through my journey, my new found love, for nail art.

My Inner Struggle: Nail Art Fears

My sister-in-law sent me a link to a video one day on how to do this new nail art design called braided nails. The video was a tutorial done by cutepolish. You can watch it here.

It got me excited to see a new design, but at the same time disheartened because I knew I would never be able to pull it off.

You have to understand that I've never done any nail art before. Maybe I have "tried" by just using my normal polish brush and putting on dots or stripes on my nails, but they were all messy and never came up nice. All my attempts had failed, so I just stopped trying.

I also had this notion that I would never get into nail art because I just didn't have time nor the patience to sit down and wait for my nails to dry before I do the next step. I usually just put on nail polish as it comes in the bottle. Plain and simple. When I get bored with it after a few days, I would layer it with some effects like glitters or a matte top coat to update the look. When i have a good color combo or effect that I wanted to play with, I would do some accent nails on my ring finger and my thumb. Other times, when I'm totally indecisive and I couldn't pick a color to use (it has happened a few times), I just put on all 5 colors. One color for every finger. The style for putting different colors together on one hand is called "Skittle Nails". If you're brave enough, it's really fun to try and wear around! But I digress.

What I’m trying to say is that I've never succeeded in doing nail art and I didn't have a strong inclination to actually try it out again until this video came along. At first, I was skeptic. I was only tempted because cutepolish made it seem so easy to do! What's more is that you don't need any tools (which I don't have) to do this design! There was nothing that prevented me from trying it out. I had hope.

Taking the Plunge: Attempting Nail Art

So I checked my collection in search for the 3 colors that looked closest to the ones cutepolish used on her video. I ended up with Orly Rage for my metallic, Essie Coral Reef for my neon (it’s not a neon, but I think it’s bright enough to pass), and Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Funky Frost for my pearlescent color. You can mix and match any 3 colors you like, but luckily I had 3 similar colors and didn't have to be creative to come up with my own.

Aren't they gorgeous? Not a bad first attempt, if i could say so myself!

The process turned out as easy as how it appeared on the video. I had to go back and look at the video from time to time though, just to check if I was doing the color order correctly. When I got the hang of it, it was just really like braiding your hair except you're braiding your polish (hence the name of the design, braided nails! Duh! Slap on the head.) The hardest thing about it, I guess, is having to keep a steady hand. But that's more or less a requirement for putting on nail polish yourself right? So if you can do your own nails, then you should be able to do this too! If you can dream it, you can do it! Lol! Just a little "Blades of Glory" humor there. :)

I also really like the fact that there is no waiting time needed. Well, maybe there is, but i just didn't bother and it worked out for me. And thank goodness for Seche Vite, which works best by directly applying it onto wet polish. Right after I did my last stroke/braid, all I had to do was to put on the wonder top coat and wait for the magic to afix itself on my nails! :)

In direct sunlight

With flash

Tips and Tricks

• Keep your nails long for this design. It will allow you to produce more braids. But as cutepolish said in her tutorial, “Three stripes from each side of the nail looks best. Too little or too many can ruin the effect.” If you're curious to see what this design looks like with shorter nails, check out the pictures below and compare for yourself. I ended up filing my nails short after a few days because I just couldn't stand long nails. Hehe!

 

• As much as possible, use polish that is opaque in 1 if not 2 coats. Better use something that dries relatively quick too to avoid smudging.
• Avoid using polish with the pro-wide brush (e.g. OPI or some Sally Hansen polishes), they are harder to maneuver for this design and are too thick with the strokes. But if you have longer nails, then I guess you have more space to work with and could use thicker strokes.
• Use thin coats. Too thick will take longer to dry and will make your nail look clumpy. And it's more prone to smudging.
• When doing the braided strokes, keep your polish brush steady and instead, roll your finger or nail from left to right or vice versa. This will help produce even results.
• Don't worry if it looks messy at first. You can clean it up afterwards.
• Wrap your tips properly. Else you will end up with multi-colored ones.
• Do each step to all of your nails to give it more drying time in between coats. I tried doing this design on my ring finger and my middle finger first because I thought it would be too hard to do all but it didn't look right and came out much better when I did all my nails. Perhaps it's the color combination that I used.

 Lastly, have fun and don’t give up!

My Thanks

All my thanks to my sisters-in-law, Raissa and Mac, who found this video. And most especially to cutepolish for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of nail art! Nail art is now a new undertaking yet to be explored! The possibilities are endless! I have renewed enthusiasm to try new designs, and to try out the tips and tricks and DIY's I've only read about. It is no longer a fantasy, it's a reality!

Thanks also to one of my favorite online bloggers, Marta, of  chitchat nails for continuing to inspire me and for keeping me up at night. Haha ;) The picture below is a tribute to her. Her pictures are always divine! Go check out her website. You'll know what I'm talking about. I got this idea of posing with accessories from her. It's a fun way to personalize your photos. I think she's a great role model and I can only aspire to make nail art and take pictures as well as her. :)

Have you tried this design? What other color trios do you think would work with it? For those who have tried this, I'd love to see what you came up with! Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.

Watch out for more attempts at nail art next time! Thanks for reading!