This is two coats of the super sexy Milani Blue flash. Easy to apply as long as you wait a few minutes between coats. It dries a bit gritty & with a matte finish so it needed a couple of coats of topcoat but it's well worth it in my opinion. Gorgeous deep teal & sparse black micro glitter!
One of my new favorite books, Among Others by Jo Walton, also happens to have a pretty cover.
The next day I add a bit of China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I love this manicure, super hero glitter nails!
Zoya Wednesday is gorgeous, a "faded dirty medium turquoise with green undertone and an opaque cream finish." The formula is a bit thick & needs a topcoat to level it out. Shown here at 2 coats Wednesday is a new favorite for sure!
The next day I tried out a tutorial by Taylor of the blog REJOICE for a fishtail braid manicure. Since it looked time consuming I opted for just an accent nail but I strongly discourage doing only one nail unless you have lots of patience to wait for the layers to dry. It's really quite easy to accomplish & would look amazing done on every finger. I used Zoya Wednesday, Kristi, & Cho. I love this color combination & I can't wait to try the fishtail braid for a full manicure. Thanks for the idea Taylor!
Thanks for reading! April
This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.
I knew I had to do some nails inspired by my Mr. Mitten's shirt when I wore it with Zoya Myrta. I used tape strips to block off the lasers then painted a coat of American Apparel Hassid followed quickly with a sponge effect in Zoya Breezi. I love them & my silly shirt. You can still get a Mister Mittens' Big Adventure shirt for yourself.
Zoya Lara is cool-toned magenta creme, nothing earth-shattering but I do like it a lot. It's a lovely bright color that's great for spring & summer, though I know I'll wear it in winter too! Good formula easily applied in 2 coats.
My birthday & Will's are very close so we had a joint birthday party a few weekends ago. I wore a new shirt that just happened to go well with Zoya Lara. I added the matching polka dots with American Apparel Hassid & my trusty dotting tools. Super easy & super cute.
Thanks for reading! April
This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.
I decided to try out my Ikat Chevron nails in another color combo. I ended up choosing three lovely Zoyas, Cho, Shawn & Mira. Check out my tutorial if you want to give these a try!
Finally the tutorial for my Ikat Chevron nails from last week. These look intricate, but they are really very easy just a bit time consuming.
What you'll need: 2 or 3 fairly opaque polishes (no thin formulas for this technique), a flat brush, & a good top coat (I like Essie Good To Go)
Paint all your nails with one coat of the lightest polish color (Mint). Don't worry if it's streaky.
Add chevrons in your second color (Green) to all nails. I just used the polish brushes. You can be very messy & imprecise.
Add chevrons in the third color (Orange) to all nails.
Remember your chevrons don't need to be straight and perfect!
Next put a drop or two of green polish on your palette (I just use the middle of a nail wheel). Dip a flat brush in the polish & start creating your ikat lines. I recommend doing just two nails at a time at this point.
Repeat step 5 with the orange & mint polishes, 2 nails at a time.
It's going to look kind of terrible until you add the topcoat. Just go for it! Check the overall shape of your chevrons at this point. You can easily go back and add a few lines to straighten them up if needed. (You can see I added a line at the apex of my orange chevron
Add a coat of topcoat before until continuing on to the rest of your nails. Beautiful, easy & foolproof!
Thanks for reading & let me know if you try this out. I'd be happy to post them on my blog if a few of you lovely ladies give it a go. April
I did some ikat hearts last month & figured out that it's very easy to make fun patterns in this style. This is my new favorite manicure that I've ever done! I'll be posting a tutorial very soon.
Here's a picture with a movie I watched every year as a kid, Darby O'Gill & the Little People. Excellent leprechaun effects, banshees, & a young Sean Connery singing!
These were mostly my boyfriend Will's idea. I love how they turned out! Not difficult exactly but rather time consuming and a bit frustrating to get the diamonds (mostly) even. This design would be easier to do on flatter nails than mine but I think they were worth the effort.
I used Barielle Soul-er Powered (fantastic polish!) for the base and then added corners of Zoya Holly & Sinful Let's Talk. Thanks for the great idea Will!
I'm always looking for new ideas for nail art so I asked my lovely sisters to send me some inspiration a few weeks ago. One of the things Ashley passed along was this post about the ikat trend. It didn't really catch my attention at first. Later I ran across these fun ikat nails by Candice of Mr. Candiipants. She has a great tutorial video! I decided to try my own ikat nails & I LOVE how they turned out. It's actually way easier than you might expect based on the results. I used my beloved Pure Ice French Kiss for the base. Then added hot pink hearts in Zoya Lolly., a little dab of Color Club Blue Light & finished with lines of Zoya Marley. You can be very messy with everything & if you happen to add a bit too much polish when adding the lines, you can very easily go back & add a few lines in your base colors.
I think this may be the best manicure I've ever done. Thanks Ashley for the original inspiration & to Candice of Mr. Candiipants for helping me figure out how to accomplish the look. Thanks for reading! April
This manicure drew a small crowd when I went shopping the other day. I must say it's one of my recent favorites even though it's bit messy since I did it in a hurry. I just really love this color combination! I started with Sation Overdressed Party, then added the heart parts in Sation Violet Flare, finished with an outline of Sinful Secret Admirer. Sation polishes will be available for purchase soon. You can check out their facebook page for updates.
Zoya Cho & Farah are from the newly released True collection. I'll have the rest of the collection up over the next week or so. I can tell you that I love the whole collection just as much as I did Zoya's Intimate collection from spring last year! As many other bloggers have pointed out, Zoya really nails their color descriptions so I'll be using them in my posts.
First up we have Zoya Cho an "opaque yellow-toned light soft peachy beige with a hint of ultra fine silver shimmer. A light, creamy nude especially nice for skin tones with olive or yellow undertones." I added a few drops of thinner to aid in application and had no problems after that. I think it's gorgeous! I've got lots of pictures in full sun & in the shade.
Next we have Zoya Farah "an opaque light khaki-beige with subtle sandy, greenish undertones and a cream finish." I love this one too! The application was typical of a pastel creme and didn't self level very well, but a few drops of thinner & topcoat evened things out nicely.
I know many people will want to see how these two compare. I did some simple but lovely nail art so my readers can really see them side by side. This was so pretty in person!! I used Cho for the base & Farah for the tips.
Thanks for reading! April
This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya!For more information you can read my disclosure policy.
