ANOTHER Attempt at French Nails!

I'm going to make it happen. I really am. I'm so determined to get French nails right that I'm going to do it if it's the last thing I do.

You may all remember my first try with Zoya Tanzy for my tips. It turned out alright enough, but I thought I could do better.

Well, then my mani with Zoya Natty and Kristen happened, and I'll admit - I was pretty discouraged. I went awhile thinking that French manicures were unattainable. Impossible.

And then this week, the new Taylor Swift album came out! And lo and behold, track 15 tells me not to dream impossible dreams. (It's a wonderful, amazing, beautiful, outstanding, sparkling song!)

And since "Starlight" is from the wonderful, amazing, beautiful, outstanding, sparkling album RED, I thought I'd try to fulfill my not-impossible dream with a red-tipped French manicure!

I promise there are a bunch of almost-pretty pictures coming. But I really have to tell this story.

I spent at least forever on my left hand, doing one coat of the red I was using on my tips. It was definitely messy. And then I tried to move on to my right hand, and that was essentially a tragedy - picture a goopy mess of nail polish that won't dry but won't go where it SHOULD go - and I almost gave up. Definitely thought it was the last time I'd ever try to do fancy nails...

(For your information, "The Last Time" is definitely my favorite track from the new album. Get it. Now.)

But I said to myself, No, Natalie! You can do this! So I went back to my left hand, managed to fix all my mistakes, did my right hand without it looking borderline awful, and got up to show my sister (who, by the way, did not even care). Of course, on the way back, I ran into my desk and messed up one of my nails...

After painstakingly removing the messed up nail polish without messing up any of my OTHER nails (okay, admittedly a few of my nails have particles of cotton ball stuck to them), I moved on to my favorite step of every manicure - topcoat.

FAVORITE STEP NO LONGER. Stupid topcoat smudged up a couple of my nails...

Whatever.

Anyway, I think it's a major improvement over last time, albeit multiple failures throughout the entire manicure process. And a few gross smears of red from my topcoat. 

It's not TOO bad, is it? I'll get there. It definitely looks better than my last attempt, at least...

My sheer base was Essie Hi Maintenance, and the red tips were China Glaze Ruby Pumps (which is currently in a battle with Zoya Elisa for my favorite red nail polish). 

What color combo should I try for my NEXT French combo? Have you mastered the art of French tip manicures?

Stay happy!

Zoya Megan

Does it make you really excited when you find things that have your name? 'Cause I just get so pumped. I'm literally so excited to find another object in the universe named Natalie, because it just makes me feel super special...

Unfortunately, I don't have a nail polish named Natalie. I do, however, have one that stole my sister's name: Zoya Megan! (Except my sister spells it Meagan, with an extra A. In case you really wanted to know.)

Megan is from Zoya's "Feel" collection (Winter 2011-2012, I think) and is an almost white, purple-grey color. Or, because obviously I can't describe colors very well myself, "a full coverage, taupe gray cream", as stated by the Zoya website. I'd tell you how accurate that description of color was...if I knew what taupe was.

But anyway, you don't want to read about my vocabulary (or lack thereof). Here's Megan:

Zoya Megan

Even though not all of these pictures are the greatest, I picked them because they clearly show one of Megan's major color qualities: she changes colors like CRAZY. Sometimes she looks straight up gray, sometimes she's almost white, and then sometimes a little bit of purple sneaks in. It's confusing.

Whatever. Megan is a perfect winter color! She's a little bit streaky, so I'd say unless you're careful, you need three coats of her. And she might look a little funky with my skin tone...but, as I'm starting to notice, a LOT of things look funky with my skin tone. I like Megan anyways.

Are you ready for winter colors? Still enjoying the fall ones? Or are you like me - always stuck in summer nail polish mode?

Stay happy!

nails inc. Whitehall

I LOVE MAGNETIC NAIL POLISH!

Considering this is at least my third post about magnetic nails, I thought I should make sure anyone who still didn't know that...knew.

Anyway, today's magical magnetic color is nails inc. Whitehall, a GORGEOUS teal! Here's Whitehall, before the magnetic effect:

nails inc. Whitehall, no magnet

The top picture is more color accurate...but isn't Whitehall super pretty even without the magnetic-ify-ing?! Now here's Whitehall after the magnet:

nails inc. Whitehall, magnetized

ISN'T IT COOL! Out of all the magnetics I've used, Whitehall is probably my favorite color. I don't think I've seen a brand with this exact teal, either (there's SO many silvers and purples and blues now...). It reminds me of peacocks! I don't know about you, but if I can get my nails to look like peacocks...I'm happy.

As per the usual with the nails inc. polishes, Whitehall had perfect formula and was perfectly opaque in the one coat that's shown above. The magnetic nail polishes have a wider brush than the regular nails inc. ones - I think it's to make fast application easier so that the magnet can be applied sooner - which I LOVE.

STILL on the fence about the whole magnetic nail thing? Or if you've already tried them out, have you found any more creative ways to use the magnetic nail polishes? Let me know!

Stay happy :)

Essie Ole Caliente

Today was the first day that I've felt really cold in awhile. So, naturally, I needed my nails to be a warm color - and what better color than Essie Ole Caliente!

Ole Caliente (I've been trying to figure out how to get the accent over the "e" in "Ole", but I just can't seem to get it!) is a very red-toned coral that almost has a little orange in some lights. I've been a little addicted to coral lately (kind of shifting to my beloved orange's less dramatic and more match-able cousin...) and I've been trying to get into red-ish polishes...this color fit the bill! I can't wait for summer to come back so I can wear it everywhere...

Formula wise, Ole Caliente was slightly disappointing. It was on the thinner side and needed 3 coats for opacity. Additionally, it took forever to dry, even with a fast-dry topcoat! I accidentally ran into a door like twenty minutes after doing my nails and dented half of my right hand...

On the bright side, Ole Caliente stayed on my nails really well - made it through three swim practices with only one major chip! I'm thinking I'm going to start a new way of measuring nail polish staying power by how many practices it survives...

Whatever. I like the color anyway.

Stay happy!

...Julep?! (With swatches of Caroline!)

You might have noticed that I've been on a Zoya kick lately. I love Zoya. I really do. But I think I've found a new brand to fall in love with...

Julep.

Haven't heard of Julep? They're the kinda tiny, long, rectangular bottles of nail polish that you stay away from at Sephora because...well, they're kinda tiny. And they're fourteen bucks each.

(HEADS UP!! THERE'S A DISCOUNT CODE AT THE END OF THIS POST!)

But I've heard so many great things about Julep formula (from all of my time, well, essentially stalking other nail polish blogs) that I HAD to try it out. And when I saw an ad for an AMAZING sale that was going on...well, how could I say no?

I can't begin to describe my excitement when this came in the mail today. (Well, really, I'm this excited every time I get new nail polish. It's almost sad, really.)

What is this "Maven" thing? Well. It's Julep's special membership program. Every month, they put together a special Maven Box that gets sent out to all of their...Mavens (I guess that's what they're called). Each box contains two polishes that match the current season and either another polish or one of their other beauty products! The boxes are $19.99 per month, which, if you think about it, is a great deal - I mean, just the two nail polishes alone would regularly be $28.

Anyway, for my first box I didn't get one of their regular monthly boxes - somehow the discount code that I found online got me a box of five polishes for something like six bucks!

Do you recognize the bottles now? Yeah - they're always hiding next to the other really high-end nail polishes, so you may have overlooked them in the past. I'm still trying to figure out what's with the side of their bottle - it looks like it's supposed to be black with a streak of the nail polish running down it or something like that, but I just can't tell for sure.

With their monthly boxes, you can also do add-ons - other products at REALLY reduced prices! I added another polish, Caroline, for only $4.99! She actually came a day before all the others did, and, naturally, I couldn't wait to try out the supposedly amazing Julep formula, so Caroline's my first Julep swatch for you.

Julep Caroline

Caroline is a dark reddish brown, with a metallic almost-shimmer. Ahem. Sorry about that description - I'm pretty sure I must have been sick that week in second grade when they taught how to properly use good adjectives.

 

I don't usually use brown nail polish because, in my mind, brown is kind of a "yuck" color. But Caroline, rather than remind me of "yuck" in general, makes me think of chocolate or coffee - she's a really nice, rich color that way.

When I was putting Caroline on, I almost didn't believe how perfect the formula was. Really. Perfect thickness, perfectly smooth, perfect coverage. There's something about the brush - which really doesn't SEEM all too special - that makes application super easy. And get this: Caroline was almost perfectly opaque in one coat. I did two for a little extra depth...but I'm pretty sure I could have gotten away with just one.

But wait! There's more!

 "But they look exactly the same!"

...exactly. This is after a day and a half, including a swim practice. Any swimmers out there know that the pool absolutely KILLS nails, but Caroline got out of the water completely unscathed! I've only had her on for two days, but I'm pretty sure she'd have some pretty rockin' staying power if I ever left nail polish on for more than a couple days.

Unfortunately, my camera didn't get the reddish-duochromey-ness that Caroline has. It shows up a little better with flash:

You might not be able to tell, but you'll have to take my word for it: Caroline is GORGEOUS.

Interested in trying Julep? You can! And with literally no risk - unless you consider a penny a risk. Just visit the Julep website, go to "Style Profiles" under the "Become a Maven" tab, and pick one of their five style profiles. Add that month's Maven box to your bag, and when prompted, enter "PENNY" into the discount/promo code box. Your bag total should change from $19.99 to $0.01! (Not gonna lie...it's really exciting just to see $19.98 taken off your order...)

(As a side note, the Julep rewards program is AMAZING! That said, when you're visiting the Julep site to get your first Maven box for only a penny, it would be great if you could use this link.)

If you like your box and you'd like to keep getting your Julep Maven boxes on a monthly basis, just keep your account and every month you'll get an email with a preview of your new box! You can then choose to have that box sent to you, select a different style profile's box, send your box to a friend, or skip that month's box. If you don't like your box and don't want to pay twenty bucks a month for over forty bucks worth of nail product, just cancel your Maven subscription and that'll be the end of that!

I love Julep already! From the pictures above, which would you like to see next? Let me know if you end up trying the Julep Maven program yourself!

Stay happy :)

Zoya Phoebe

"Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you...smelly cat, smelly cat, it's not your fa-a-ault!"

That's what the name Phoebe will always remind me of (sorry if you're named Phoebe...but really, it's a great memory). Friends was just about done before I really got into TV, but, much like everyone else in the world, I eventually fell in love with the show anyways - particularly Phoebe's great singning.

I laugh a little too hard every time her background singers pop out of the dumpster...

And on that note, today I have Zoya Phoebe! Phoebe is the bright blue from their Mod Mattes collection from...spring awhile ago, I want to say. Yeah. I'm known for my ability to be really specific. Anyway, here she is:

Zoya Phoebe

She's a really pretty color, but I don't really go for the whole matte look. I need my nails to be shiny. NEED. So here's Phoebe with a coat of Poshe topcoat added:

Phoebe is SO PRETTY with topcoat! I was hoping you'd be able to see the slight shimmer in the third-to-last picture, but I'm not sure if it came out exactly the way I wanted.

How do you like Phoebe? Do you prefer the matte finish or the shiny finish?

Stay happy!

"My nails look like the UNIVERSE!"

Apparently it's not a normal thing to say at 5 in the morning, that your nails look like the universe, but I said it anyway when I got to the pool for morning practice. I never do nail art, so when I do, it's a pretty big deal. It's an even bigger deal when they actually look good. So, naturally, it's the biggest deal of all when they're a good-lookin' entire universe on my nails.

I actually really liked this blurry picture because...well...MY NAILS LOOK LIKE THE UNIVERSE, and even more so all blurred up like this. At least I think so...

If you're wondering, the colors I used are:

Wet 'n Wild Wild Shine Black (I don't know the actual name)

Zoya Purity, Zoya Trinity, Essie Aruba Blue

OPI Designer...de Better!, NYC Starry Silver Glitter

If you're curious as to how I did my universe nails (I think that sounds SO much better than "galaxy nails"), let me know in the comments and I'll do a tutorial later this week! It's a lot simpler than it looks, and it wasn't as time-consuming as a lot of other really pretty manicures might take.

Still need an incentive to try out universe/galaxy nails on your own? Don't worry. The pictures below are sure to sway you.

Another blurry one that looks particularly celestial!

I really just couldn't decide on which pictures to actually use....so I used them all. The first two, as you can probably see, are before any cleanup at all, and even with the weird patterns of white and blue around my cuticles, I think my nails looked alright!

Have you tried the universe nail trend? Again, let me know in the comments if you'd like a tutorial!

Stay happy!