Edible Nails!?

As part of a partnership with a local dairy, If Nails Make You Happy has started to produce ice-cream flavored nail polishes! Below is the beta test of a mint chip flavored polish:

 Okay, you got me...they're definitely not edible. But this is a new polish that I'm working on for the If Nails Make You Happy polish line! How do we feel about it?

For some reason, these were the only pictures that came out anywhere near color-accurate. Even with a little bit of editing, the color's still a little off...I'd say in real life the polish is a little greener. Well, mintier looking. I don't know.

ETSY SHOP UPDATE: My Etsy store is currently experiencing some technical difficulties! Right now, the store's site is inaccessible - and I don't know why! As soon as the issues are resolved, though, you'll be the first to know!

Any guesses as to what else is coming in the INMYH Spring/Summer 2013 Collections?

Stay happy!

Psychedelic, dude...?

I won't lie and try to say I have any authority regarding what "psychedelic" entails - that was way before my time - but when I first took a step back and checked out the nails I'd just done, I must admit it was one of the first words that came to mind. Right after "trippy". 

Anyways, I'm not too sure what exactly makes my nails look so...interesting? But I had a blast doing them with an INCREDIBLY simple technique, which I'll include some time in a later post - I'll let you try to guess what I used for now! But here's the mani:

...or not too psychedelic. Whatever.

The colors I used were Zoya Jancyn and Zoya Wednesday...again, I'm going to leave the technique up to you to guess!

Additionally, I'd like your help now - if you read this blog regularly, you might have noticed some changes lately! First the theme change...then the picture sizes...then the watermark...then the picture sizes again...anyway,  I'd love to hear your feedback on anything I've done with the blog recently! 

Stay happy!

Giveaway - KB Shimmer!

If you're looking for something to do today, head over to the KB Shimmer website and participate in their scavenger hunt-giveaway-contest-thing! Their instructions, as on Facebook, are as follows: 

Is the luck of the Irish with you? If you feel lucky, head over tohttp://www.KBShimmer.com/ and start the hunt! Be the luckiest in the land and win your choice of 10 bottles of KBShimmer Nail Polish.

There are 5 hidden clovers, and 1 Lucky Leprechaun hidden on the site. 

When you find one, head over to http://bit.ly/ZAqtSM and use the Rafflecopter widget to enter the link of the page where the item was found. Each clover is worth 2 points. The Lucky Leprechaun is worth 5 point.

But don’t share your answers, this Leprechaun is a tricky one, and the clovers will move.

You can also gain an entry for being a Facebook Fan, sharing this contest, or following KBShimmer on Instagram.

FOR US RESIDENTS ONLY!

I've already done my hunting - now do yours!

Stay happy!

DNA Nails!

If you actually take the time to read many of my posts, you'll probably have realized by now that I'm actually kind of incredibly nerdy. So, for the nerd in me and all the other nerds out there, I've got a special treat today: DNA nails!

I started with a base of Zoya Yummy and then used a nail art brush to draw in the double helices with Zoya Song...I did briefly consider actually making the adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine different colors, but hey...maybe I'll be overcome by another surge of science nerd soon and I'll do a more accurate model on my nails. Complete with some helicases and phosphate groups and the actual deoxyribose! Or...not.

In other news, this is my 60th post on this blog! Yayyyy!! To celebrate, use the coupon code HAPPY60 to get a 10% discount on your entire order from my Etsy shop (use the link at the top of this page!). Woohoo!

Stay happy!

Glue Basecoat...is...MAGIC!?

If you follow the nail bloggers of the world, you've already gotten the memo: glue makes a rockin' awesome basecoat for glitter manicures. If you haven't heard the news yet, I'm here to let you know that it's true - using regular white school glue makes life at least a billion times easier when it comes to glitter nail polish removal!

Literally ALL you do is fill an empty nail polish bottle with school glue. If it's too thick for your liking when you try to apply it, just thin it with a little bit of water. Check out how well it worked with an unnamed Forever21 glitter nail polish...

Yes, it's a little bit creepy. But for all of the time and pain and agony of glitter removal that this technique saves me, I think I can live with a little creepy. 

If you're wondering how to make this work yourself, it's simple! Literally...

1. Fill empty nail polish bottle with liquid school glue.
2. Brush THICK coat onto nail. Let dry completely - glue will dry to a matte finish; that's how you know it's done.
3. Apply your glitter nail polish like you usually would over a normal basecoat! Follow with topcoat, or whatever you normally do.
4. Once you're tired of looking at your gorgeous glitter nails, simply peel your nail polish off! If it's been a day or so, the nail polish will be completely hard and come off in full pieces like in the above picture; if it's only been a few hours, the nail polish will get kinda smushy (yeah, that's a word...at least it is now!) and tacky, but it'll still come off cleanly with a little effort.
5. Spend a couple seconds gawking at how weird it looks to literally have nail-shaped pieces of dried nail polish in front of you. Then throw them away before you get completely weirded out.

So there you have it! If you don't have your own empty bottles of nail polish...or school glue?...contact me and I'll try to work something out so you can try out this magical technique yourself! It'll probably be available as a custom-order item on my Etsy shop (the link is at the top of my blog!) for around $2 a mini bottle or $5 for a full sized. Let me know if you're interested!

Have you tried any other crazy magical glitter-removal techniques that work?

Stay happy!

Impulse Buys...

...will be the death of me. I literally cannot go anywhere without "accidentally" buying something I never, ever intended to buy...and the impulsive buying disease struck me again at Forever21 last weekend. The mall in my area had just opened up a new one, and all the nice lights and the new layout and the loud music...well come on, let's be honest...who hasn't fallen prey to all the cheap little things that stores surround their checkout lines with?

Anyways, today I have for you guys a Forever21 nail polish...yeah, I can't believe I actually bought their nail polish either. Its label says "Polish/Shimmer Baby Blue/Hot Pink" which, in my opinion, is a wildly boring name. If you're going to make super cheap polish, the least you can do is give it a fun name, right? Especially for a fun polish...

This polish (we're just going to call it "F21" from now on in this post) is a light blue creme-jelly with silver holographic hex glitters, magenta hexes, and small dark purple...somethings (they're not dots, but they don't look like squares or hexes either). The silver holographic hex glitters kind of turn white when more coats of F21 are layered over them, which is why none of the glitters actually look silver. Or holographic.

Doesn't F21 look fun?? Unfortunately, applying it wasn't. The F21 formula was really, really thin and runny and took five (FIVE!) coats for full opacity. The smaller dark purple glitters came out easily, but the larger glitters were a little more difficult to spread evenly.

I really, really wish F21 had better formula (but, I suppose, what was I to expect from a polish that was only $2.80?), because it looks really nice once built up to full opacity on the nail! I can't see myself buying another Forever21 nail polish any time in the near future, but if I do, I'll be sure to let you all know if there's any better luck with formula.

Stay happy!!

Stripes with Zoya Aurora!

Short post today - I've been crazy busy, hence the recent dearth of posts (did I use "dearth" right? It's been a long-time goal to start using smarter-sounding words...so much for that!).

But today I've got Zoya Aurora over generic black creme in racing stripes! Yayy!

Sorry for the tipwear - I went through a day and a swim practice with these nails, and I'd say they held up better than I'd usually expect! Aurora isn't completely opaque in one coat, so I had to do really thick coats of her when I was painting over the tape I used.

Another bummer - Aurora is absolutely GORGEOUS in the sun, when all her holographic glitter sparkles every color of the rainbow...unfortunately, today was virtually the only day of this week that wasn't sunny!

How do you like the racing stripes look?

Stay happy!