Summer Splatter Nails.

I originally planned for this manicure to be a bit more complicated, but then I ended up liking the color combination so much that I left it alone when I finished doing the splatter (with a straw.)

The polishes I used were American Apparel Office, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, CG Secret Peri-winkle, Essie First Timer, and Essie Boom Boom Room.

Watercolor Floral Nails.

For today's manicure I decided to use the acetone watercolor technique for a floral design. I used all neon polishes which balanced nicely with the subtle design.

The polishes I used are Essie Boom Boom Room  (a perfect Barbie pink,) China Glaze Pink Voltage, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, and China Glaze Purple Panic.

I don't think the design ended up being quite my style, but I was happy with the results!

Green Saran Wrap Nails.

I first saw the saran wrap technique months ago and I wasn't sure that I wanted to bother giving it a shot. But eventually it grew on me, and worked its way up on my list of manicures to do. 

I decided to try it out for the first time and do a tone on tone green design. The colors I used are American Apparel Office and Essie First Timer.

I certainly appreciated the simplicity of the technique. Do your base color, let it dry, paint a coat of your second color on top and immediately mess it up with some saran wrap. As for how it turned out, I think I like it. It reminds me of a bit of a cross between this tie-dye technique and the watercolor nails. I'd have to say I prefer both of those techniques though, I don't think I'll break this one out much in the future unless I'm very pressed for time!

Summer Sunrise Nails.

I've had the idea to do a sunrise or sunset design based around a half moon manicure for a while, and after looking at pictures of pink and purple sunrises I had to give it a shot. 

This was a pretty time consuming manicure because there were different elements going on, a few of which required lots of drying time.  The first step of the manicure was painting my nails with Orly Spark, and then I used reinforcements to create the half moons. I created the gradient overtop using China Glaze Shocking Pink, OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, and China Glaze VIII. The last part of the manicure was creating the sunbeams, which I did using striping tape. This was the part that took the longest, which probably is surprising if you've done a striping tape manicure before.

I don't think the design exactly screams sunrise, but that wasn't really the purpose of the inspiration. They're just fun and bright, and something different than what I've done before.

Pizza Nails.

A reader on my facebook page recently asked if I could do a pizza design, and I thought it would be fun to try out. 

I decided I wanted a cartoonish look so I went for bright colors and simple shapes.

The base color for this manicure is OPI Sparrow Me The Drama, and the crust is OPI Don't Pretzel my Buttons. The rest of the design is done with acrylic paints.

Ombre Leopard Spot Nails.

When I was deciding on a manicure for today all I knew was that I wanted a fun summer design that incorporated my two new neon polishes, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy and Turned Up Turquoise.

I ended up deciding to do a design I've had in mind lately, a freehand leopard print where the spots create a gradient.

Flip Flop Fantasy was the base color for the design, and I did the spots using Turned Up Turquoise which I lightened and darkened with white or black polishes to create the gradient. The black polish I used to complete the leopard print was CND Oil Slick.

I love manicures that incorporate ombre or gradients, and I think this is one I'll be trying more!

Born Pretty Holographic Polish Review.

Today I have another product from Born Pretty to review for you, this time it's a silver holographic polish.

There are a bunch of fun color options available, but since a good silver holo was missing from my collection I chose the polish in effect #1. 

The polish bottle is pretty small, it holds 0.2 oz of polish. I found that the brush worked nicely. 

The polish is very sheer, but it is buildable. I was able to get it opaque (in the picture below) but I lost count of how many coats it took. I didn't let this dry, but I imagine it would be quite the time commitment because of how thick it ended up being.

The better option (pictured below) is to do a coat of a silver polish (I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep) and then a few coats of the holo polish. It's much quicker and ends up looking just as nice.

I don't know a ton about holographic polishes but I thought the holo effect was pretty strong. It looks very pretty in the light. Holos tend to look the best in the sunlight but it was still quite fun to look at inside.

Overall I'm happy to have this polish added to my collection, a bit of holographic polish is an easy way to dress up a manicure!

The polishes are available for $5.59 each and you can get an additional 10% off using my coupon code.