don't really lilac it...

One day, I randomly found OPI's Do You Lilac It? color in the usual bin of nail polishes.  Intrigued by the appearance of a new option, I quickly applied it, but unforunately it really didn't work with my skin tone.  It made my skin look dead and likewise the nails kind of dirty looking.

To salvage the situation, not to mention my laziness to remove them completely, I used Essie's Sexy Divide to give it some life.  I think it added a pretty decent contrast between matte and gloss, light and dark, boring and exciting...

tiger

Here's another easy touch-up technique that can double as a kind of simple pseudo nail art.  This time, I'll upgrade the plain Damsel in a Dress nails, which I've enjoyed for several days now.  Inspired by some random ad I saw at Sephora, I decided to add a tiger seal pattern to my left hand (right hand is, let's admit it, difficult to do, besides the fact that doing weird stuff on both hands is over-kill).  Using gold regular paint pen -- yes the kind you use to draw on post-cards and stuff -- I drew random tiger-like patterns on my ring finger nail.  I felt like having one nail with a seemingly continuous pattern was a bit awkward, so I let it "spill over" to my adjacent nails.  Finished it off with top coat (I recommend Seche Vite's dry fast top coat by far, but any top coat works.  I'll mention it on a later post) so that the paint pen doesn't come off.  Turned out decent, I think, and certainly gave them a new fresh look.

excuse any typos while my nails dry...

This color is awesome!  Well, Rock Star Skinny is too, but Essie's Damsel in a Dress is in a different way.  It looks exactly like the grape juice I'm drinking, actually, with a hint of brown because of tiny gold sparkles that give it its shine.  But it's not glittery and gaudy, retaining much of the translucent and succulent feel, just like the juice!  Or if you prefer, think of rich, aged wine in a super clean glass.  Really dark cherries would do too! Ok, maybe I got a little too excited about this.

I was actually going to attempt some nail art suggestions that I saw at Sephora, but that's going to have to wait a bit.  Don't want to ruin them just yet.

more mattes

Don't worry I haven't already forgotten about the blog... Here's Rock Star Skinny by Essie. This is actually from a while ago, and it looks like I did a terrible job here, but I must say that this color is quite awesome.  It's deep and elegant, but matte, so definitely a repeater for all kinds of occasions.  In fact, I might just have to use them right now, now that I've finally removed the French nail look that was falling apart.

hello, world

Here's a quick inaugural post with my current nails, featuring Essie's Mint Candy Apple.  The color is actually greener than pictured and than expected by the color in the bottle, but I like it.  I plan to keep posting personal nail experiments, mostly using my friend's nail polish collection.  I do own some of my own, but they're not that interesting... I'll be digging into my archives as well, so no guarantees that things will get better.