October Manicures

Since we're coming up to the end of the month and I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that this manicure stays good until the 31st, I thought I'd do a recap of my manicures this month. I love how I went from having basically no fingernails this spring to now doing practically weekly manicures. I love how my boyfriend is a gigantic nag and made that possible.

However, I hate that he continues to nag whenever I put my fingers near my mouth.

First off, I did my nails for Thanksgiving under Tim's suggestion to do something fall-like. I know he meant 'Paint them brown or some other solid colour' because my crazy nail art makes him shake his head. I did try this, starting out with a base coat of Maybelline Color Show's new Auburn Ablaze. But then I thought it was boring and wound up with this:

The red centre stripe is a thin coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Red Carpet, and then the tip is done in Sephora by OPI's Caliente Coral. 

Last weekend I had Lindsay and Cory's wedding and could not decide what to wear. But I saw a tutorial for galaxy nails on Beautylish's website (go here) and wanted to at least try it out. They turned out AMAZING!!

This manicure is a bit of a labour of love. I always use two coats of OPI's Nail Envy base coat on my nails before anything else. Originally I started doing this to keep dark polishes from staining my nails, and then fell in LOVE with this product. My nails are super hard now, and I really do think it's entirely this product. It has a nice matte finish if you want to wear it on it's own. When I'm leaving my nails bare (doesn't happen often), I usually put on a top coat just to add some shine to it. Over that I layered a coat of the black, it's Elm Line's Candy. Weird name for a black polish. Then it starts getting complicated, although the colour coats are all super thin and dry easily. The tutorial uses a sponge, but I don't own any. I just used a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover and then blotted on a tissue. First I laid down a little spot in Maybelline Color Show's Avante Green, and then another spot of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Blue It. I didn't think the green was prominent enough, so I shaded a little bit on top of the green with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Ivy League. Then I added in the hot pink, which is Sally Hansen HD's Digital. For the glitter, I put down a spot of Nicole by OPI's Rainbow in the S-Kylie (from their Kardashian line). Then I put a VERY thin layer of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Disco Ball. Finally, I finished the whole thing off with a layer of OPI Top Coat.

This manicure made me SO happy. Every time I looked at it, it made me smile. I don't really think anyone else GOT it. Tim thought it was hilarious. But this is my favourite manicure I've ever done. It just turned out so much better than I thought it ever would. 

Finally, I did my nails yesterday for Halloween. I'll try to do a post later about my costume (which has been a LOT of work) but these nails are my interpretation of claws. 

Along with my usual base coat and top coat, this is a layer of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's (I have a lot of these polishes because they are CHEAP and they're actually a really nice, thick, heavily pigmented polish) White On. I used my new Orly Detailer Brush (more info also to come) to paint the outer lines of the triangles and then just filled them in. The colour is Essie's Good as Gold, which is one of my favourite polishes. 

I already have some ideas for November's nails!!