My BFF's Skirt--On My Nails!

Hi everyone!  Today I want to show you a mani I did a couple weeks ago for The Polish Well's fashion inspired nail art contest.  I, unfortunately, kept dragging my feet when it came to getting this done.  My BFF and I had planned to do several different manicures together to choose from, all inspired by her fabulous closet full of all kinds of vintage treasures.  Well, we tend to get sidetracked and I mucked up a few different ones...  I finally sat down, got to work and settled on this one.

I was kind of in a pickle when I picked this particular article of clothing.  I packed up only about a third of my collection to take with me to California this summer and I...well, I didn't bring any red nail polish.  I know, I know, definitely a foolish move on my part!  The only red I had was Nubar's Unfaithful Red.  I figured I would give it a shot before I went to borrow something from my BFF and it actually turned out beautifully!

Here's the shot of her skirt that I took for reference on my phone while we were planning!  Gorgeous, right? I actually have this picture set as the background on my phone now, that's how obsessed I am with her skirt.

I think the manicure would have looked good with the same bright red as the skirt itself, but the added spark from Unfaithful Red really turned out better than I had hoped.

The stripes were done freehand with a striping brush and then the dots were added with a dotting tool.  I used China Glaze Liquid Leather as for the black.  It was really quite simple to do!

Thanks for reading!

Nubar Reclaim and Orly Sec 'n Dry

Good day, everyone!  I hope you all had a nice weekend.  I had a great one with the hubby because I very expertly conned him into adopting a hamster with me.  She's a gray dwarf and is currently sleeping, but her name is Prudence and she's pretty laid-back and used to having a hand stuck in her cage already, so we're hoping she'll be tame soon enough!  She likes to bite my nails though, just little nips of curiosity I think so far, so I'm going to have to offer her my right hand and not my left one!  She got to run around in her ball for about ten minutes last night and chased my little chicken dog around the house already.  D'awwww.

As much as I'm sure you love to hear about my pets, I do have some nail polish to talk about.  =)

I'm really excited to show you this weekend manicure for two reasons: Green Holo [!!!] and these pictures were taken today, as in, this afternoon, on its third day.

This is the third Nubar polish that I got for my birthday last month and probably the one that I wanted most of all.  I have Glitter Gal's Lizard Belly, which is a dark green holographic polish, but Reclaim is much lighter and more affordable.  Reclaim is also a linear holo, which you can see in the pictures.  The rainbow effect is really fine and just gorgeous.

These pictures show three coats, though I could have stopped at two, but I went with three because I wanted to see if the holo effect would intensify with a third coat.  It didn't, so just two coats next time.  The formula on this polish is so good, it's creamy and smooth and very easy to apply.  They also have one coat of Orly's Sec 'n Dry, which I was testing in my search for a toluene free top coat that works for me.

And well, Orly definitely worked!  As I previously mentioned, I wore this all weekend and come Monday, I have a manicure that is still looking almost perfect.  I noticed in a few pictures, though not in real life, that there's a tiny bit of tip wear starting.  I didn't bother to wrap my tips this time either, because I actually counted on having time to repaint on Saturday or Sunday.  However, no wear on such a fascinating color made me put it off both days.

I'm actually kind of debating whether or not I want to repaint them tonight or not.  I do want to show you some swatches of my custom blended polishes and Butter London's Disco Biscuit, but this is just so pretty!  It's the weirdest feeling in the world, NOT wanting to repaint my nails.  I think maybe I'm ill...

Thanks for reading!