Tag Archives: nail polish

OPI San Francisco Nail Polish Collection

As I sat in the back room of the salon I work at, eating my caprese sandwich and flipping through one of the salon’s magazines, I saw the ad for OPI’s fall/winter 2013 collection: San Francisco. I immediately let out a loud “ooooo!” because it is one of those collections that I was instantly drawn to because of its cohesive and successfully represents a central theme. Another thing that stood out to me about the collection was that I found myself really liking each color, which is very rare. Usually there are a few, if not more, colors (or pieces if we’re talking fashion) that just does not really appeal to me. In this case, however, I really do like each color and could see myself buying and wearing all of them.

Even though I like all of the colors, the three that stand out to me the most are “It’s All San Andrea’s Fault”, “Keeping Suzi At Bay” and “Muir Muir On The Wall.” Those three are definitely my favorite from the pictures so far and I cannot wait to try them! I especially like that the collection includes both the regular polishes and the liquid sand line because I’ve really been into grainy finish polishes lately. The texture is really cool and the shine/sparkle always looks better to me somehow.

After OPI’s last release, “Rock Goddess” the Halloween 2013 collection, seeing the “San Francisco” set was very refreshing. I’m sorry but the Halloween collection was just so bad. I mean there are endless possibilities with Halloween, especially when you name the collection something interesting like “Rock Goddess”. Unfortunately the four colors they produced were a big letdown, which makes the arrival of such a beautiful collection that much more enjoyable! Make sure to keep your eye out at Sephora and other stores that carry and sell OPI this fall for their beautiful new “San Francisco” collection.

30 Day Nail Polish Challenge Desirae Espinoza Edition

Both Kelsey and Desirae did the nail challenge together for the month.

So this month I used “Brushstroke Blush” from the Finger Paints polish line. This was the closest color I could find that matched Kelsey’s Oz polish so we could provide some different design perspectives using the same or similar nail colors.

1. I was feeling very girly earlier this month, so I decided to mix floral and glitter to go with the very feminine pink polish. The gold glitter polish I used is OPI “It Looks Like Reindeer” which I love. It is textured when it dries which is very cool because it accentuates the flecks of glitter. I always do my designs free hand with detail polishes (the thinner tubes with fine brushes) which even though it takes time and practice; it’s worth it in the end because some salons charge steep prices to do intricate designs. The floral pattern I did was very simple and quick, but I think it goes nicely with the overall look.

2.So first of all, I am sorry that the photo quality for this picture isn’t the best, but my camera spazzed out on me. Anyway, the second look was inspired by a nail blog I used to check out a while ago. The owner did a daily nail design and one of them was this little geometric design that is novice friendly. I used green and blue detail polishes to do the lines. It isn’t too difficult to create this look, especially with detail polishes. So if you’re just beginning with free hand designs then I definitely suggest you start with a simple look like this.

3. Okay so my third look is really cool, but I will say that I was bummed because my nail broke so I had to file down the rest of my nails to match and that one which broke my heart. First world problems I know, but my nails are very important to me. But enough of my pity party, let’s talk about what I decided to do. I figured trying to get super detailed and intricate would be a bit difficult so instead I did a simplified version of plaid nails. I actually really like it because it reminds me of the bottle of my favorite perfume, so that was kind of cool.

4.Finally, for my last look, I actually had some inspiration. As I was sitting in my room watching Beetlejuice, as one does, and decided I decided to do black pinstripes over the pink and it came out very nice. In this picture it looks like a different pink, but I think that is because the black is throwing some reflecting that is darkening the pink. But aside from that, this is a simple design like the second look, the only difficulty is keeping the lines straight. As you can see I had some trouble with a few of them, but overall it looks nice and I was digging the Beetlejuice feel.

30 Day Nail Polish Challenge Kelsey Bowen’s edition

Some of us are not that lucky to own a plethora nail polish colors. So I decided that I wanted to do a 30 nail polish challenge with one color. Let’s be honest even if you do own a ton of nail colors you buy that one color that you love and you know you want to wear it for more then a week so here are come creative ideas to use the same color for more then one weeks worth of wear. The nail polish I choose was from the OPI; Oz the Great and Powerful collection called I Theodora You.

The first design I choose was the leopard print. I love konads (http://www.konadnailart.com) nail art plates because I am not very good at doing designs on my own. I was happy to have a stamp kit so that I could have the same awesome look as everyone else. I liked that the pink came through so nicely under the leopard and sorry it was a messy picture!

We all know that if we fall asleep with out nails even a little wet they leave a mark. I thought for week two I was in the clear till the next morning which I saw sheet prints. So what’s the best way to solve this? GLITTER! I have been obsessed with Which is Witch from the same collection. I thought it was the perfect way to cover up the flaws that had occurred over night rather then repainting my nails.

I love blood splatter. I don’t think that this is just a Halloween exclusive kind of thing for me. I like how the red looks on the pink background and this is again from the konads stamp pallet. I like with this stamp that you can make each nail look a little different by how you place the stamp on the nail. For this kind of design it does not need to be uniform.

Where would this nail art design be if I didn’t have at least one week with fairly plain nails? Let’s be honest some weeks you are just too lazy to do fancy nails so instead the one fancy nail was enough. I used the Miss Piggy glitter from the Muppets OPI collection. I wasn’t too happy with how this glitter looked on my nail but I was too lazy to change it so I stuck with it.

This was my thirty-day nail challenge. It was not as exciting as Desirae’s but I do not have the same skills as were or the same patients. I love the konads stamps so that I can achieve a different kind of look on my nails and I hope that some of you that had not heard of it will take a look at the site. Hopefully this will give some inspiration to what can be done with a single nail color!