Syrup & Succulents

Those of us entrenched in the nail world tend to know where we fall when it comes to nail art: Lovers, Haters, and Lack of Skill to Execute. I am decidedly in the last category; I love nail art, even the delightfully tacky over-the-top Japanese falsies encrusted with pearls and bows (although the functionality of said falsies means that I'll have to hold off until I can afford to hire a full-time maid).

I'm not much for attempting nail art myself, since any artistic talent I may have does not translate at all to nail polish. I bought a dotting tool set once upon a time and used it once. Luckily these "syrup nails" are easy to do, even for a nail art dummy like me.

 "Syrup nails" are basically a type of gradient manicure that uses a sheer jelly. In my humble opinion it works best with a polish that is very sheer--I feel it gives a smoother looking gradient this way. I did mine with ORLY Beverly Hills Plum, which is a beautiful translucent coral. This is 7 coats of Beverly Hills Plum at its darkest, plus 2 coats of Seche Vite and 1 coat of NYC Grand Central Station. One of my favorite things about wearing this manicure is that all the layers of lacquer gave them the super-glossy gel nails look, which I love. A commented that it looked like I had dipped my nails in blood, which the macabre in me also loved.

Unrelated to my nails, I bought four tiny little potted succulents, and I plan on doing the Blogger-y thing and re-pot them into tiny handmade pots. That's for next week :)

Lavender Dots

This is a mani from the vault today, because I've been testing out a new topcoat and as it turns out it has the constitution of a particularly moody teenager. Zoya Caitlin, Love & Beauty Lavender, Sally Hansen White Veil nail art. I've been playing around with my dotting tools lately, it's quite fun.

A note about Zoya Caitlin: this is one of those colors that seem to have a huge variation among swatches. Scrangie describes it as a "medium grey creme with purple tones" and notes that her photo is not color-accurate, but on me it's more of a dusty lavender than a grey; in many blogger's swatches it looks grey, but looking at my mani in person, it is definitely purple and looks more or less exactly like my photo here. It's also a shade darker and purpler on the nail than it is in the bottle...who knows why? q O - O p Must be a skintones thing. Ah, so mysterious...Either way though I'm a fan! This is my second-ever Caitlin mani, and given how large my stash has grown for a polish to be used more than once within the same year is quite an achievement.

I really ought to do a manicure more prominently featuring White Veil, though, it's one of the more unique drugstore glitters I've come across. In fact Sally Hansen has a pretty good track record of hitting it out of the the park with originality (Glass Slipper, anyone?)...a little recognition please? Sally may be one of the more underrated polish brands out there.