Zen Pool Nail Art

This week I decided to finally try out my nail art brush set with some "real" nail art! Jen's Nail Files is hosting a nail art contest (which ends tonight!) where participants create an interpretation of one of Darling Diva's polish names. I chose one of my favorite Darling Diva Polishes, the beautiful Zen Pool.

Samurai Glow

A little bit ago I decided to try a bit of nail art. I saw a fantastic look done by Marta of ChitChatNails and attempted to replicate it with a little twist!

Sinful Colors Zeus, Diamond Cosmetics Oh Tiff!, and Sonnetarium Samurai Princess & Never Glow Up

Adjusting some attitude (with a hint of mint!)

While patiently waiting for my Lynnderella wishlist to go through, I thought I would see if I couldn't recreate one that I was really lusting after, Attitude Adjust-Mint. This awesome polish is a mix of iridescent & green large glitters, all different shapes and sizes, plus an amazing green microshimmer, as well as many other awesome little treasures all jammed into one. Well, mine isn't exactly like that, but here's what I came up with.

Diamond Cosmetics Oh Tiff! + Hard Candy Breakup + Love & Beauty Light Green (aka L.A. Girl Crowd Surfing) + Pure Ice Heartbreaker

I was really lucky to come across a dusty bottle of HC's Breakup at Wally's; it has such amazing iridescent glitter that shifts from orange-gold to green to lavender in the shade.

While I was very pleased with this layering combo, it's definitely no dupe for Lynnderella's. And having recently acquired my own bottle (yaaayyy!) I can see there is a lot more going on in Attitude Adjust-Mint, and I absolutely love it. Here are a couple of bottle pic swatches (in direct light & shade):

Soo mesmerizing right?! I'm actually wearing it right now, so I'll be posting pictures of it soon to compare.

Spring Colors

Thus far I haven't really tried much in the way of nail art. I've made attempts at dotting, some taping, and a few glitter gradients that looked pretty decent. So I thought I'd try some free-hand design, and I think it turned out rather well!

Bottom to Top: Wet N' Wild All in the Cut, Zoya Rica, Love & Beauty Aqua Blue + Zoya Rica & Reece and Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away, Zoya Reece + L&B Aqua Blue

I'd still love to get my hands on some Konad stamping plates for more intricate designs, but simple flowers and dots were really pretty easy.

I mainly photographed my right hand because of the ultra-fail on my left (as seen above), which is rather sad considering I'm right-handed. >.>;; But the problem is that I didn't wait long enough for the flowers to dry and ended up smearing my design, very boo!

My inspiration for this mani was from the upcoming colors for Cult Nails Divas & Drama Collection, here's a sneak-peek that Maria posted. Can't wait for that flakie!

Time to go Green!

Diamond Cosmetics Oh, Tiff! + L.A. Girl Nostalgic + NYX Enchanted Forest

Lately I have been really into green manis, so I thought this would be good time to share some ideas for St. Patrick's Day!

Honestly I don't really do all that much for St. Patrick's Day. My family has some Irish heritage so every year my mother would cook us corned beef and cabbage, but now that I'm older if I want to get in the Irish spirit I can just drink! (Kidding, mostly.) However I do like to wear something green, if just to keep strangers from touching me.

With this mani I wanted to recreate one of my favorite glitter polishes from indie brand Nostalgic Lacquer, Duckie. She restocks often and has quite a few great colors, so definitely check out her store!

Diamond Mine

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm, a wonderful charcoal linear holo. And you know what they say-- if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls! Okay only Effie says that. But yes, this polish is simply beauteous. Excellent formula, and (in my opinion) comparable to the HTF My Private Jet, and for a fraction of the price. Also I've been trying out a more vintage-y look to my photos, you know, to give them character and stuff. Charming? Annoyingly hipster? Let's look:

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm (Artificial light)

(Sunlight)

(Indoors)

Unless you are outdoors, where this color is absolutely stunning, it has the appearance of a relatively plain sparkly grey polish, with the occasional flash of holo. It's available for purchase online at Diamond Cosmetics and for only $2.50 is well worth it. They have a great selection of other colors as well, a few of which I'll be posting sometime in the future.