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!