Manicures with Friends

My good friends know that I have more nail polish than one woman needs. Yesterday I shared with my two friends Kathy and Winter. I painted their nails, because it's fun for me and it usually feels like a treat when someone else does your nails. They brought me lunch, in turn.

It is fun to work with someone else's nail length and shape. The differences change the entire look.

First off was Kathy. She usually wears very conservative nail polish. However, she was very open to branching out. She chose a lovely purple: OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI?

I used one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Hard as Wraps Acrylic Gel + Nylon in Sheer Pink Gloss as a base coat. Next was two coats of OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI.

I topped the purple with Orly Sec 'n' Dry Multi-Layer Quick-Dry Topcoat to smooth things out and help speed up drying time.

I asked Kathy if she wanted to add something fun, and she agreed to it. We layered one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, a versatile flakie that has looked good over every polish I have paired with it so far.

Ooh la la! I was so happy with this look, I just kept taking photos. I love the length and width of her nail beds--just right. Below you can really see the flakie highlighted. It kind of looks like one of the fancy dark opals to me. (Have you ever seen blue or black opals? Amazing!) In the end, I finished with one coat of Butter London Hardwear P.D. Quick Top Coat and brushed on some Prolana Cuticle Oil.

My next model was Winter, Kathy's niece. I am a little jealous of her elongated 'piano fingers'. She is not even an adult, yet look how elegant her fingers and nail shape are!

Winter considered her color choices very carefully, as she specifically wanted a blue that would compliment her outfits for the next few days. (She is visiting from out-of-state.) We tried stamping first, but it was a disaster. I don't have good stamping supplies yet. So, moving on...

I used the same base coat on Winter, the Sally Hansen acrylic gel with nylon. It says that it's pink, but I find it to be a cool peachy nude. I started Winter's French tips with one line of N.Y.C. Water Street Blue to create some opacity. Then we went back over the tips with the color she really wanted--Wet 'n' Wild Teal or No Teal. After those two coats dried a little, we finished with Butter London Hardwear P.D. Quick Top Coat.

A big thank you to my lovely hand models! I certainly hope to have another 'nail party' soon. :)

What do you think? Are blue and purple nail polish intimidating to you, or do you say 'bring it on'?

Purple Smoke FOTD

Makeup is fun for me. I may not be the most skilled, but nevertheless I like to play with it. It's a hobby, and I do it primarily for myself. So sometimes I put on makeup even when I'm not going anywhere and nobody will really see me, except me. The 'Purple Smoke' look was a result of one of those times.

The lighter purple eyeshadow is Satellite Dreams by MAC.

The darker part of the eyeshadow is Black Tied by MAC, a perfect shade for this purpose. I used an angled  eyeliner brush to smudge a little of the Black Tied under my lower lashes.

To blend at the top and to highlight under my brow, I used a single eyeshadow called Brulee by Wet n Wild. (I should repurchase that shade; I dropped mine and shattered it. It was fabulous for blending.)

I took a lot of photos that day because I was in love with my new mascara at the time, Benefit Bad Gal Lash. I am always trying new mascaras (again, because it's fun for me), but Benefit Bad Gal Lash is in my top 5 so far. Okay, so I haven't decided on all of my top 5 mascaras, but it's in there. Maybelline Falsies is also fabulous. Curl and length and thickness, oh, my!

I'm sorry, I didn't take note of the shade name, but the lipstick is CoverGirl Outlast (the kind you pretty much paint on and it stays there for most of the day). Above is before adding gloss, and below is after.

The funny expression on my face above was because I was laughing at some kitty's antics going on in the neighborhood that I saw in my mirror.

So many freckles...this was before I made sure that there was SPF on my face every day, typically in the form of a BB cream (kind of like foundation, but ten times better, in my opinion; especially the ones from Korea and Japan).

What do you think? Do you prefer a smokey eye to be charcoal/black/grey, or would you branch out? My favorite shades for this type of look are purple, forest-ish green, or navy blue.