Ooohs and Ahhh's accepted.

Every once and a while, you do a nail art design that you just really REALLY love.  You can't stop staring at them and showing them off and hoping that people will run up to you on the street saying OMG THOSE ARE MAGNIFICENT! Well, this happened to me the past few weeks,  Come on along with me, let me share :)

The first design I'm showing you is an experiment with Julep Nora and my Essence Gold nail studs.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my boyfriend is in a band.

Now, its not that I'm picky about music, I listen to a bunch of different genres, but I really REALLY don't like those screamy metal bands where its really just angry people groaning over loud music.  I'm sure there are people that think thats an artform, but I am not one of them.  Anyway, whenever I talk about my boyfriends band, I always say that it is 'surprisingly listenable'.  He plays guitar and sings for Lucky 33 (check them out! Like their page!), and they're a punk band here in my hometown, Syracuse NY.  Its not so much 'Punk' like Rancid or the Ramones, but more like Taking Back Sunday or Brand New.  There are melodies, choruses and pogo-jumps ;)   Anyway, one of the bars that the boys usually play at closed down, and they played the final show that was hosted at that bar.  It was an all-around good time.  Lots of drinks and good music.  ANYWHOOOOO these were the nails that I sported to the show.  I thought that the matte polish was very reminiscent of my punk age where I would color my nails with a sharpie and wear dark eyeliner.  The metal studs added that final touch of rock&roll.

After these nails came off, I decided to get some inspiration from good ol Pinterest, and I found these adorable nails:

How cute and perfect are these???  I absolutely love the colors and the glitter and the stripes and stars! 

Well, I don't know if my recreation of them was just wrong because of the colors I used or that my lines weren't perfect but they were not so great.

As you can see below, I switched up the pink for some minty green and went to town.  I decided to only do one star on my thumb as well, but I generally feel like the look wasn't as magical as the one to my right.  The colors I used in my own look were as follows: Zoya Jacqueline (cream polish), Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Golden-I & Sally Hansen Complete Salon Makeover Green Tea.

I think I just realized what the problem is.  The Golden-I polish makes my nails look like gold teeth and it creeps me out. 

  

I was just too ambivalent about these nails, so I took a trip to Ulta with my bestie and had a little haul (swatches to come later for the other polishes).  When we went there, Ulta brand polishes were $2.  TWO DOLLARS? How can you turn that down?  I had been in the market for a perfect coral polish and Ulta's Showgirl just really caught my eye.  So much so that it was immediately put on my nails when I got home.  I knew I needed something to spice it up and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out DreamCatcher nails! Take a look!

I can honestly say that I haven't loved a nail design as much as these in a very long time.  The color is outstanding, and even though these kind of colors don't usually look good on me, I think that this shade is perfect for my skintone.  The formula was perfect and although I used 3 coats,  I could have gotten away with two. 

For the dreamcatcher itself I had stolen some of my bestie's polishes.  While I have you all here, I should mention her blog.  She is incredibly funny and super talented so check her out!

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, the black is Sally Hansen BlackOUT, the Yellow is Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, the feathers are Ulta On Taupe of the world brushed lightly with China Glaze Swing Baby, the purple is OPI Planks Alot, and the bluey green is Julep Daphne.

What do you guys think???

Long time no post, so SPAMMER TIME!

It has been weeks since I've posted.  I am aware of this, but the problem was this:

See this guy over here? This is my baby.  My pride and joy for the past 7 years, Shaggy the American Saddlebred.  Now, I have been riding and competing with horses for 11 years now, so I'm pretty seasoned when it comes to the whole horse show business.  One thing that I always have to prepare for is finger blisters (pictured below)...

 I never seem to be able to avoid getting these bad boys.  Opening plastic bags of shavings with your bare hands over and over again is always going to do some damage.  Despite my nasty looking blisters, I wasn't walking around all nakey-nails.  I rocked some killer new polishes during competition.  To the left is Orly's Boho Bonnet topped with OPI'S The Golden Age.  These were my competition nails channeling blue ribbons and gold medals.  We didn't win, but 6th place was a great pull for us!  To the left is Julep's Nora.  I got this in Julep's Warehouse sale and was so happy because I had been drooling over it for months!  Its a gorgeous Matte Suede polish that looks like a purple grey granite rock!

The day after the horse show ended I made my way to my Grandmother and Grandfather's 65th Anniversary party!
It was a garden party so these nails were my tribute:

I used Zoya's Jacqueline topped with Orly Boho Bonnet, Essie Lilacism for the flowers.

A few short days passed and it was my favorite day of the year, MY BIRTHDAY!

Birthdays are always super special to me.  It's the one day where you can be a princess and use the excuse "BECAUSE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!"  The first step of being a birthday princess in my book is getting a swagger new dress and match the nails to it.  I got a wonderful dress from Old Navy on clearance for $13, and swung by Ulta and grabbed two of their polishes to create this look along with Essie Bobbing for Baubles.  Ulta's Bam-Blue-Zled as the base with a Indigo-Go-Girl as my glittery fasion nail and Bobbing for Baubles creating the pattern.  I really liked the way these turned out and adored the dress.  It was a fabulous birthday.

Of course birthdays mean birthday presents, and for me that meant that I had to swatch all of my new babies for you!

WHO'S READY FOR SOME SPAM SWATCHES!!!!

First up is OPI My Private Jet. 

 

 

This is a polish that I had been wanting for a while that stemmed from my long-term need to own OPI Holiday Glow.  I found this online and thought that one of the versions was very similar to Holiday Glow, and set out on an epic mission to get My Private Jet!  Now I'm still not really sure which version I have...I'm fairly sure I have the 'Ick Black'.  But either way I wasn't wowed.  It reminds me of Zoya Storm, but with less holo, and it doesn't remind me at all of my beautiful Holiday Glow.  I'm just gonna have to suck it up and buy it off ebay *sigh*

Next, OPI Number One Nemesis

This is a polish that I was acutally pleasantly surprised by.  My boyfriend picked this out for me because its such a unique color in the bottle.  It does remind me a lot of Zoya Fei Fei, but it has a lot more green color to it. It is most definitely going to be a go-to fall color for me.

How about some LIPPMANN FOR YA!!!

 

 

If you don't know what this polish is, you don't know anything about nail polish.  This is my first Deborah Lippmann polish, and one that I have been drooling over for a very long time.  Across the Universe is a deep blue jelly with beautiful blues and green glitters mixed into it.  It is just, simply, a perfect polish.  

 

BUTTER UP! for some Butter London!

This little beauty is, of course, No More Waity Katie.  I was so excited to get my mitts on this (and get this on my mitts)!  Its the most stunning lavender polish with bright purple sparkly polish mixed in.

Next up, more OPI! 

 

 

My Bestie has bought me the majority of these polishes, and she knows that I have been struggling to find THE perfect nude, and she absolutely found it! Don't Pretzle My Buttons (which I keep wanting to say "Don't Wetzle my Pretzle" for whatever reason) is absolutely perfect for my skintone.  Its the best nude I've ever worn, and I'm stoked to have it in my collection now! The blue underneath is another color that Bestie got for me.  One day, while sitting in her bedroom, I complained that I don't have a good blue to do turquoise stone nails with.  PROBLEM SOLVED! I can't wait to try our Can't Find My Czekbook out with some gold and black crackled on it!

 

....and now some PIXIE DUST!

Let me be the first to say that I am on the fence about this polish.  I absolutely love the color of this polish and I think it looks fantastic with my skintone, but I really can't get over the whole texture of it.  The first time I tried a liquid sand polish was What Wizardry is This? From OPI's Great and Powerful Oz collection.  I saw it in the grocery store and said 'HEY this looks like Holiday Glow' and I did a one-stroke swatch on my pinky.  I hated it.  It was a scratchy poop-brown color and I think it really just put me off of textured polishes.  I just like feeling soft shiney nails!  But anyway I promised myself that I would give this a few wears to see how I could handle it.  I'll keep ya posted ;)

 

 

Last but not least, Essie!

This is Naughty Nautical, probably one of my favorite polishes from the birthday haul.  I just love the color and how its got just a hint of shimmer to it.  The application was amazing and the formula was nice and opaque.  Nothing more you could possibly ask for in a polish.  Plus, fun fact, it matches my bathroom walls:

Pretty great right?

 

 

So thats all I've got for this post.  I've got some more nail art designs that I'm going to post later today.  Lemme know what you think!

All Aboard for Nautical Nails!

It's finally starting to feel like summer, and it couldn't have come quickly enough!  I love the summer, and not just because I'm always cold, and the summer is the only time I feel like I'm warm.  Summer means my birthday is right around the corner, which means fireworks will be going off, bonfires happening, fishing trips and grilling delicious food (amongst other things).

When I was a kid, we spent every weekend (and sometimes full weeks!) up at my camp in the Adirondack mountains.  The camp was right on the Raquette River, literally.  The boathouse was directly under the living room, so you would always hear the water rocking underneath you.

What I loved most about the camp was being out on our boat and exploring the river.  There were so many islands full of driftwood and little toads and wild berries that it seemed silly to be staying on the main land.

Fishing was also a big deal.  My dad only likes two things: hunting and fishing.  This meant that I would be woken up at the buttcrack of dawn all summer and be thrown into a life jacket, tossed on a boat and expected to wait there patiently for 6-8 hours while he fished.  Don't get me wrong, I love fishing and I like fishing in a boat a lot, but I do not like not being able to pee.

Between the long fishing trips, explorations, cruises, waterski adventures or just rides on the boat, I spent the majority of my childhood summers rocking on a river from the bow of a boat.  This is why it only seemed natural for me to theme my 'start of summer' nails nautically!
Now, I know that you guys are sick of hearing me talk about Zoya Jacqueline, but I can't get over how useful it's been!  It's featured here as the base to all of my nails.  The blue is Orly's Boho Bonnet, and the gold is from my SoEasy Stripe Rite striper.

Altogether this look was fairly simple, but there were a few issues that came up.  Orly's Boho Bonnet is a gorgeous color, but its quite sheer.  This meant that I had to do two coats of the color for the stripes across Jacqueline so that they didn't look 'sunwashed'.  This, in turn, caused it to look a little lumpy on some nails (pointer finger, for example).

The other issue was that the gold was sometimes too shiny to see the anchor and the wheel, as pictured above.  This is most likely the fault of Seche Vite making things so shiny, but still.  Thats my only beef.

So what do you guys think?  What's your summer nail inspiration?

I am not a mermaid.

I just wanted to post this to clear up some confusion that some of you might have had.  I am not a mermaid, and I could never be a mermaid.  Here are a few reasons why.

First of all, I cannot hold my breath for very long at all.  This would make it impossible for me to attend all of the deep-sea mermaid galas that happen, I assume every day.

Right before he pounced at the camera...

Secondly, I do not look good wet.  As soon as I hit the water, my makeup runs and my hair turns into a ratty snarly mess that clings to my face making my big head look even bigger.  I would constantly have to be borrowing dinglehoppers to get my hair untangled, it wouldn't be pretty.

I love his little baby face.

Being a mermaid would also make it impossible for me to be a crazy cat lady, which I am.  Featured in the photos to the left and right, you will see my one true love, Einstein the cat.  Einstein was a stray that I adopted just over a year ago when he was just a little kitten.  When I adopted him, he was so utterly covered in fleas that it took 5 hours to get rid of them all.  He was too little to give flea medicine so we had to bathe him and pick each individual flea off of his little baby body.  When he hit the water he turned pink from all the blood and scabs that he had from the flea bites.  He was the most pathetic little munchkin and when we were finally done washing him and cleaning him, all we saw were this HUGE ears and fluff.  He looked like a moistened Albert Einstein, and thus he has been named.  

Right after his flea bath on
the day I adopted him.

Anyway, if I were a mermaid, I couldn't have my cats!  Einstein hasn't hit the water since his original flea-bath and I'm not entirely sure that he wouldn't try to gnaw on my fishy fins.

Lastly, I don't feel like I'm as glamorous as the mermaids I see.  I usually try to look pulled together and fancy but I end up all over the place.  My 'mermaid nails' are a tribute to this side of my "If I Were A Mermaid-ness".  My base is Essie's Bobbing for Baubles, one of my absolute favorite blue colors that I own.  I feathered Zoya FeiFei on the tips giving it a blue semi-holographic shine and then sponged some Essie Shine of the Times, Sephora by OPI The Golden Age and Sally Hansen Green Tea on them for accents.  I used a So Easy Stripe Rite (gold) to do my mermaid scales and filled some in with my gold glitter.   I really enjoyed these nails because they were very mermaid scaley, yet they weren't the typical mermaid nail. They're like a mix between mermaid and firework nails!

So in conclusion, although I may not be a mermaid, I do have mermaids nails.

Sincerely

Pleasantly Surprised by Zoya's Jacqueline.

As an experienced Mani-ac, I have been through the trials and tribulations of a disappointing color.  After a certain point in time, colors of a certain variety will automatically induce pessimism for an experienced polish-aholic.  That's because many times you see a color that you love in the bottle, but it looks atrocious on your nails.  It doesn't go with your skintone, it has a bad formula and never applies right, it's too sheer and gives vnl, or simply isn't as impressive as it is in the bottle.
For me, I was extremely skeptical when I picked up Zoya's Jacqueline.

The first thing that I said when I picked this bottle up was "Well this is going to be streaky VNL city".  I reluctantly swatched it on my pinky nail and was pleasantly surprised.  Instead of a sheer milky coating on my nail, there was a thick and mostly-opaque layer of a beautiful buttercream polish.  

Photo courtesy of Oh My Gosh! Polish who has the same
Blogger layout as I do!

I quickly snatched it up and went home to execute a nail art design that I had been swooning over.    Now, as a disclosure here, I'm not the biggest fan of white-based nail art.  I've done a few designs with a white base and I felt that it was too bright and strange to have it on my own nails.  This design made it really hard for me to be against the white base.  I knew that it needed to be my next project, and now with a magnolia-nude color to use for it that wouldn't be so intensely WHITE, I knew I was ready to give this a try.

I decided that I wasn't going to do all of my nails with the design as pictured above.  Instead, I would do one 'fashion nail' on my index finger imitating the original.  I also used Essie Lilacism for my stripe color.  I've always been more of a purple person than a pink one.  Personal preference, ya dig?  Below you will see my supplies for creating this design:

Pictured: Nails Inc GOOEY, Zoya Jacqueline, Essie Lilacism,
Its SoEasy Stripe Rite Black and Seche Vite Top Coat.

I did two coats of Zoya Jacqueline for my base, striped using a fine watercolor brush with Essie Lilacism and then used my Stripe Rite for the black bows.  I topped it all off with 1 coat of Seche Vite and VOILA!

I was very pleased with the outcome of these nails as well as being very happy with my new polish color.  I hope you all give this awesome shade a try!

First 'mail-order' polish

It is a very important step in a mani-ac's life when you bridge the gap between store-bought nail polish and mail-order nail polish.  The first time you actually order a polish, whether it be from a rare polish distributor like Llarowe and Harlow & co, or its from a beauty box like Julep, you feel like you are officially initiated into the Nail Snob academy.

You start using phrases like "Well you can't just find this in your average drug store" and "Its out of your price range" and "NO YOU CAN'T BORROW IT! DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT IS?!"

And you know what, I don't hate it.

My first step into the Nail Snob Academy was with a Julep Maven box.

The Julep Maven box fills all of my needs.  It picks out items for me, based on a short style quiz. If I don't like what was picked out I can browse other styles and items I want to order.  It comes to my door looking cute and its like an Easter basket when you open the box.  I was so happy to open mine and find my nail polishes, mascara and SURPRISE! a nail file and polish-remover pad!

2 coats of Petra, 1 coat of Yumi,
Topped with Seche Vite

My two favorite parts of the beauty box are the price and the fact that I don't have to go to the store to get it.  For the price of $19.99 every month (first box is FREE!), I get two high quality polishes as well as some extra beauty swagger and I don't have to deal with anyone other than the mailman! I'm sold!

My style profile for the month of May was a Bombshell.  To be honest I've taken the quiz a few times and I end up in different profiles depending on my mood, but I think Bombshell was the right choice because the polishes were incredible.  
To the right you'll find a swatch of Petra (Cranberry magenta with silver shimmer) with a glitter gradient using Yumi (Pink, silver and holographic glitter). I truly loved both of these colors.  Petra fits my skin-tone very well, and is quickly becoming a go-to polish.  Yumi is SO full of color.  To the left is a shot that is slightly blurred to attempt to show how much it really shines (doesn't do it any justice though). It's listed as a full-coverage glitter, and I agree that it could fill up a nail pretty quickly.  It is very dense and would be opaque after two coats.

My Maven box also included an 'American Beauty Volumizing Mascara'.  The cool thing about the mascara was that it has lash-growth ingredients AND extra lash fibers in it, giving the appearance of longer and thicker lashes and making them longer over time.  At first I was pretty skeptical about it.  I've seen some blog posts about microfiber lengthening mascaras and I haven't been too impressed, however over time I've fallen in love with this mascara.  It's hard to show the reults of the mascara, however below you'll find 2 pictures of it in use.  My only real 'beef' that I have with it is that I prefer a big, fat brush for applying my mascara because usually it gets better coverage.  With Julep's, I felt like I spent at least 2 minutes per eye coating the lashes with mascara.  I think that this could have been helped with a fatter brush, but hey, it still works fantastically.

So that's my Maven box review session.  Stay tuned for next month's box coming in a few weeks, and more postings of fabulous nail polishes!

Time to confess...

I will admit that the statements of this blog are true, and that these confessions are from me, Courtney Jenne, the mani-ac.

I paint my nails all the time, much more than most.  Even when I've finished painting my nails sometimes I want to take it off and paint them again!  And if I'm not painting my nails, I'm thinking about the polishes that I need in my life.  It's an obsession, I can admit to that. 

It all started when I was very young.  I collected nail polish in a makeup bag but it was never enough.  I started mixing nail polishes to come up with more new and exciting colors.  I numbered all of my polishes and swatched them, but it was never enough.

It will never be enough.

Signed...