Tag Archives: neon nails

Lot of Summer Nails

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Happy late summer!  Since it my neck of the world it’s still blisteringly hot, it’s not too late to sport cute summer nails!  I really haven’t done anything lately that seemed earth shattering or tutorial worthy, so I thought I would just highlight a bunch of the looks I’ve IMG_8158worn over the past few months.

These are pretty cute, right?  Every summer I end up doing some sort of neon citrus mani.  This is like a pink limeade look or something. This look is so cute with any combination of neon pink, orange, green, or yellow.  The trickiest part is painting the little white lines on the citrus.  I use my tiniest brush and acrylic paint for that part.  These nails just make me happy.

IMG_7674 I really liked these nails too.  The base is Funky Fingers – Mattely in Luv and the polish I used for stamping was Funky Fingers – Sandy Toes.  Sandy Toes is a really interesting color.  In the bottle it looks like a bright, but not neon red polish that leans a little pink.  When you us it for stamping, however, it turns out to be a neon coral color.  And this polish, even in the bottle glows under my black light, so I guess it is neon, even though it doesn’t actually look neon.  In my head, that’s the test if something is neon or not:  whether it glows under a black light.

These nails are pretty loud, right?   I’m pretty sure that I had some jumpers or scrunchies IMG_8015or something that looked like this in the late ’80s. I used the homemade decal method to do these, which turned out to be an error in judgement, so they look a little  messy.  If I do these again, I would paint my nails white and add a top coat.  Then I would use painters tape to block of the section of the nail that I wanted to be neon.  Next I would stamp the black pattern over the nail and quickly peel the painter’s tape off.  Then I would add the neon polish.

I went through a little spell this summer where I was into reverse stamping.  It’s pretty IMG_7941time- consuming, so I pretty much just stuck to doing accent nails. The effect is pretty cute, though!  This also gave me a chance to use IMG_7966some of my colored glitter polishes that don’t always get enough love. Ooo, I’m looking at that pretty  deep yellow polish and I think I might need to pull that one out again before summer is over.  I’ve got a fair complexion (sounds so much nicer than pale) and it’s hard for me to pull off yellow clothing.  Nail polish is a great way to wear a color that is a little trickier for you to pull off..  IMG_8999

What’s more summery than beach nails?  For these, I started with a coat of white polish and then I did a blue-to-white-to-khaki gradient with a damp makeup sponge.  To get the white swirls,  I used the same technique that I wrote about in detail here.  Really easy and such a cool effect!  These look so much more complicated than they actually are.   IMG_8163

I also wore some cute dry brush nails.  I enjoy dry brushing so much!  It’s seriously the easiest nail art ever.  It can barely be called art, it’s that easy.  Neon colors over a white base.  So cute, so easy, so summery.

IMG_8228And these nails…. I’m not really sure what I was going for here.  I think I saw a picture on pinterest.  They can’t all be winners, am I right?  The neon glitter polish on my middle finger Bitzy – Sweetie Pie.  Bitzy is a new makeup line that is exclusive to Sally Beauty Supply.  They are only $1.59 per bottle, and they have lots of fun polishes.  They are a great way to expand your collection without breaking the bank.  FullSizeRender

These are fun, right?  I have  a neon red polish that is just so darn bright that it actually makes me self-conscious to wear it.  I love it in small doses, though.  This was the perfect way to get just a little pop of neon into an otherwise classy manicure.  It’s a bit tricky to paint the underside of your nails, especially where your nail is connected to your finger, but I loved the effect!  I think there are so many fun combinations that you could do.  In October I might try deep purple nails with a neon orange underside.

These nails are kind of classy, I think.  This is just some gold stamping over purple nails.  Nothing fancy but they’re just pretty.   I’ve IMG_9055been doing a lot of nail stamping lately.  I realize that it’s sort of the lazy person’s nail art, but it’s just so fast and easy!  I still love doing the IMG_9070occasional freehand design, but right now, I’m definitely in a stamping groove.

Here’s another easy look thanks to nail stamping.  This is just a metallic teal polish stamped over a nude polish.  Metalic polishes tend to stamp really well.

IMG_8976And here’s one final mani.  If you’re not into freehand designs, and you don’t have any nail stamping stuff, you can always get a really fun look with a glitter topper.  Bitzy has a lot of really fun glitter toppers and so does Funky Fingers at Five Below.  (Yes, you are allowed to shop in there even if you’re over the age of 14.)  I think polish combinations like this look really fun with a matte top coat.

So those are the nails I’ve been wearing for the past few months.  If you have any questions about any of these, please ask!  Thanks so much for reading!

Just a Bunch of Summer Nails

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And the award for Most Infrequent Posting goes to…. ME!  I apologize for my absence.  I’m sure it’s left a gaping hole in your summer.  I’m here and I’m fine and I’m still painting my nails.  I’ve just been busy.  It’s summer, so I can be outside doing stuff.  In a few months it will be cold and miserable and I’m sure I’ll be posting much more regularly then.

I thought I’d just highlight a few manicures that I’ve sported over the past month or so.  Here we go…

IMG_4983Turquoise and red with white polka-dots.  Aren’t these cute?  I really liked them.  I didn’t know until I did them how retro-looking they would be.  And they were so shiny!  These were super easy, too.  You only need a dotting tool.  This is such a fun way to try out different color combinations.  I wish I had a dress that looked like these nails.

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Glittery plaid print.  No picture could do these proper justice.  The base polish was Funky Fingers – Sand & Stilettos which is a crazy sparkly holographic micro glitter.  It’s like camping… It’s in tents.  (Intense.  Get it?)  The pink and blue polishes were both jellies,so the glitter was still visible.  So, so sparkly.

IMG_5019 Dry brush tie-dye.  I started with a white base and then just did a little dry brushing, starting with the yellow at my cuticles.  I just made sure that each of the colors overlapped a little.  The dry brush technique is super easy, by the way.  You just wipe almost all of the polish off the brush on the neck of the bottle and then drag the “dry” brush over your nails.  No tools or artistic skill required!

IMG_5031Neon orange citrus nails.  I should call these neon orange orange nails.  The base color was Orly – Tropical Pop and the darker orange was a Sally Girl polish from Sally Beauty Supply.  To pull off orange polish, I always have to wait until I get a little bit of a “tan”. I don’t really tan.  According to my foundation, I go from “fair” to “light”.  These were so bright, but you know how it is to photograph neons.  IMG_5040

Oh, I also took a picture of these nails while riding the Sky View at Hersheypark.  I really, really liked these nails!  By the way, Hersheypark is where I spent a significant amount of time in June.  It’s an awesome place to go before the crowds get really heavy in July and August.

IMG_5045Metallic butterfly nails.  I’m not sure who came up with butterfly wing nails originally, but ever since I first saw them a year or so ago, I’ve wanted to try them.  I finally got around to it.  These were a little time-consuming, but not really too bad.  I was going to use a pink/purple/blue neon gradient for the base, but I opted for a softer, more realistic green/purple gradient instead.  I also went with a matte top coat to make it a little more true to actual butterfly wings, also.

IMG_4955 Wavy teal nails.  These nails just sort of happened.  I thought they might look like lace of maybe fish scales, but they ended up looking more like waves.   I pretty much just used a doting tool to make rows of dots that touched each other.  I started at my cuticle, and then just picked a contrasting color and overlapped the next row of dots.  I didn’t love these at first, but they sort of grew on me.  IMG_4963

Jaunty Juli recreation.  I can take no credit for this design.  Jaunty Juli came up with it, and lots of people have recreated them.  I had to jump on the bandwagon. Super cute, right?  That Jaunty Juli is so creative!

IMG_4940Matte pastel with gold glitter.  These are pretty much a recreation of some nails that I did last summer and really liked.  I just love how gold glitter looks under a matte top coat.  Its just so frosty and beautiful!  This is another fun way to play with color combinations that requires pretty much no artistic skill either.

So, Those are a bunch of my summer nails!  Between fancy manicures, I love wearing obnoxiously bright neon polishes.  Someday I’ll be too old and they will be out of style, so I’m going to carpe diem.

Thanks for reading, following, liking, commenting, sharing, and whatnot!

Mannequin Hands… And Then I Added Stuff.

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I while back, I went on a quest to find my perfect “mannequin hands” polish.  By that I mean a polish that was as close to a perfect match to my skin as I could find.  I had heard that Deborah Lippmann had a polish called Naked that was a good match for a lot of people who are fair like me, so I checked it out at Sephora.  Yep, it’s a great nude shade that was a really close match to my skin, but you know what?  Deborah Lippmann polishes cost $20 and I absolutely refuse to spend $20 on a single polish.  Nope, I’m never going to do it.  I can’t imagine any possible scenario in which I would spend $20 on a single polish.  If I’m spending $20 on polish, you’d better believe that I’m going to be getting like, 10 bottles for that price.  Okay, let me get back on track…

So, this one time I was at Kmart and I spotted a color that I had never noticed before from NCY from the In A New York Minute line called Fashion Safari.  I did that thing that you’re not supposed to do (even though everyone does it) and opened up the bottle in the store.  I had polish on my nails already, so I just brushed a tiny bit of the polish onto the back of my hand and it blended right in!  best of all, it cost under $2!  I feel bad for the suckers who buy Deborah Lippmann Naked when there’s NYC Fashion Safari in the world.  Anyway, here it is with a matte top coat:

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Fun, right?  My hand really almost looks like a mannequin’s, right?  By the way, this is the color I used for the sand colored nails in my Beach Inspired Nail Art. In that tutorial, I actually painted my sister’s nails and her skin is definitely a shade or two darker than mine.  It’s a little hard to tell in the picture, but in person, you could definitely see that Fashion Safari was lighter than my sister’s skin.  I also used it in my Real Seashell Nails with a pearly color shifting polish over top.

Well, my mannequin hands fascinated me for about 24 hours, and then I decided that I needed to add something to them.  I opted for some of the chunky glitter that is Funky Fingers Pep Rally and I ended up with this look:

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I didn’t actually just brush the glitter onto my nails.  I used a little dotting tool to pick the individual pieces of glitter off the brush and placed them where I wanted them.  It’s a little time consuming, but not very hard.  I also opted to top them with Sech Vite, since it’s thick enough to smooth out this really chunky glitter. 

That’s it for today!  As always, thank you for liking, following, and sharing!  Come find me on instagram and facebook!

Splotchy Neon Nails

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Splotchy Neon Nails is what I’m calling these, because I can’t think of a better name, although I’m sure there is one:

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Again, these are my sister’s nails.  She felt she needed something cute and beach-appropriate for her trip to Cancun.  Here’s how we got this look…

First, I started with two coats of white polish.  Specifically, I used Sinful Colors – Snow Me White.  Then I put tape around the nails to make clean up easier at the end. 

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I’m hoping you can see the tape that is over the top of the nail, and around the finger at the base of the cuticle. 

I used these four polishes for the colored part:

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L-R: Nina – Blue Blaze, Fresh Paint – Guava, Funky Fingers – Glow Stick, Sinful Colors – Dream On. 

From here on out, the technique was pretty much exactly the same as it was for the white polish for my Beach Inspired Nail Art.  (Check it out for a more detailed description of this technique).  Basically, I took a disposable plastic container, filled it with room-temperature filtered water, dropped nail polish on the surface of the water, and sprayed it with some alcohol-based body spray to get the polish to break up.  Then I had my sister dunk her fingers in the water, which allowed the polish that’s floating on the surface to adhere to her nails.  While her fingers were still in the water, I used a Q-tip to pull the remaining polish off the surface of the water.  It’s hard to do more than about 2 fingers at a time, so you will need to repeat this process quite a few times.  There is a bit of a learning curve, but it’s really not too hard, just a little time-consuming.

We did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers. 

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Then we repeated the steps with Blue Blaze over the Guava nails, and Dream On over the Glow Stick nails.

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Then, one more time we did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers, just to make sure that those lighter colors were showing up well enough on the nail. 

At this point, it was a little hard to appreciate the designs on her nails since there was so much polish all over her fingers.  My sister was an enthusiastic finger dunker so she had polish pretty far up her fingers. 

From here we took off the tape and topped the nails with Seche Vite, a quick dry top coat.  Then using a Q-tip dipped in acetone as well as a little brush dipped in acetone, I cleaned up all of the excess polish.  

Here’s our end result!

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Fun and cute, right?  If you give this look a try, I’d love to see your recreations on either facebook or instagram.  Just make sure you tag Polish Me Snazzy or use the hashtag #polishmesnazzy so that I can see it.  Thanks for reading!