My official Valentine's Day manicure

I had this idea in my head for a while, so I decided to finally try it as it was perfectly suited for Valentine's Day:


But it didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped! This is a base of Essie French Affair with the new Art Club Nail Glam full nail decal design Hearts of Gold on the ring finger. I originally wanted to put the designs on every finger, but I'm really glad I started with my ring finger. Now I know what you guys were saying about these. They're... not so great. They're extremely stiff and don't conform to the natural curve of the nail, so you end up with weird lumps and wrinkles like you see on mine. And they say to seal them with topcoat, but the decal covers the whole nail so it's really not sealing it to the nail, it's just coating it with topcoat, which means... it peels. Gah, what a disappointment. I loved the design so much, too. I wish I could have made it work.

The Essie polish was exactly the color I was thinking of for the base of the mani, so that worked out well!

But yeah, too bad about the Art Club Glam decals. I had really high hopes for them. *sigh*

So, how was your Valentine's day? So what if it's a Hallmark holiday! That does not negate the awesomeness of heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting! And sprinkles! Any holiday that advocates the liberal use of sprinkles is a winner in my book.

New Drugstore Nail Appliques- Broadway, Art Club and Sally Hansen

I was out scouring the drugstores this week looking for new 2011 beauty products and came across a bunch of nail art items that seem really awesome.

You might be familiar with nail appliques like Incoco or Inque (I'll be reviewing Inque appliques soon), and these are pretty much the same idea. I haven't tried any of them on yet- I have a lot of polish to swatch and I don't want to waste them because they're so cool! I'm so excited about these. I have a feeling we'll be seeing even more designs this year, too.

Here are the ones I grabbed:

Art Club Glam

Art Club Glam in Diamond Studded, Hearts of Gold and Vivid Zebra. These ones seem more like plastic full-nail sized decals more than stretchy vinyl-like or polish-like strips like the others. These had the best designs out of all of them- there were a bunch but I only grabbed these for now.

Diamond Studded. A clear base with black diagonal and chevron french tips and black leopard spots accented by pink hologram foil.

Hearts of Gold. A clear base with gold hologram foil in concentric rings, dots and hearts.


Vivid Zebra. Clear base with black and rainbow foil zebra stripes.

Gotta love Art Club!


Broadway Nail Dress

The Broadway Nail Dress ones were a little more expensive and came in only four designs. Two animal print styles and a silver fishnet style, nothing you couldn't do with Konad. These are the most intricate ones. They don't seem to have a name, just a number. This is what's inside the box:

Two sheets of stickers and a little emery board.


There's also a booklet of $1.00 off coupons on the display, so make sure to grab one!



Sally Hansen Salon Effects

The Sally Hansen Salon Effects had the biggest display but the least intricate designs. Half of them were just plain creme finish polish colors, a few were some decent glitters and the rest were nail art designs like this, but some of them could be duplicated with Konad. I almost got the Denim-print ones, but at $8.50 the Salon Effects appliques the least cost effective of the three brands. I don't understand why I'd pay $8.50- the price of a bottle of OPI at retail- for one manicure with a normal pink or blue polish like some of these Salon Effects... I would consider paying that much for the nail art ones as long as they were complicated enough designs. Anyway, this Laced Up style stood out to me, very sexy.

It comes just like the Incoco sets do; an emery board/buffer, a manicure stick, instruction sheer and sealed foil packets with nail polish strips.

Isn't this design pretty?

I can't wait to try these out on my nails. I think the Art Club Hearts of Gold might end up as my Valentine's Day mani this year.

Christmas Eve Mani

I really like how this one turned out. Very appropriate seeing that it just started snowing as I type this :)


This was:
Two coats of China Glaze Frosty
Konad m59 in Light Blue Konad Special Polish
Color Club / Art Club silver gems from the holiday gem wheel
INM Out The Door Northern Lights in Silver, fully shaken

I originally tried to do holo silver snowflakes but they didn't show up at all! So then I tried to do gold snowflakes (you can see it on my pinkie) but it looked to warm and un-snowlike. Finally settled on the baby blue Konad polish and it was perfect. Not much contrast, which I like for this design. Added the gems because it didn't look icy and sparkly enough for me and then the Northern Lights because it still wasn't sparkly enough.

I did fewer gems on the left hand just to see how it looked:

I think I like more gems better.

So, I guess it's not specifically Christmassy... More like a winter-themed nail art. Ooh, it would even make a great Hanukkah mani, too.

I'm thinking I want to do something with a green base on Christmas Day. Maybe start with China Glaze Jolly Holly, then do something with gold and red and jewels? Hm. Better start brainstorming.

Since I probably won't get a chance to post tomorrow, I want to wish you all a merry Christmas! ♥