Affordable, stylish work, ethnic and casual chic wardrobe and tales from beyond the wardrobe

Between my blog­ging events and impulse buys, I have amassed an impres­sive col­lec­tion of nail pol­ish.  How­ever, when I try to apply nail pol­ish at home, they get over every­thing else except the nail bed for which they were intended.  For that rea­son, when­ever I want to get my nails done, I usu­ally just go to a nail salon. First of all, reg­u­lar nail pol­ish chips mys­te­ri­ously from my fin­ger­nails after tak­ing two steps out of the door of the salon.  And before you flood me with sug­ges­tions, I have already tried the shel­lac man­i­cure (aka soak off nail pol­ish or gel nail pol­ish) (See image below.  Also, read  Pretty Shiny Sparkly’s review Shel­lac Man­i­cure: An Hon­est Opin­ion) which looked really great after appli­ca­tion, but if you are the kind of per­son that keeps your hands in water a lot, you wont get three weeks out of them.  My last one only lasted one week.

I tried the minx nails (see image below) when I went to the IFB con­fer­ence last Sep­tem­ber and loved them, but again, they started peel­ing after a few days.  I tried acrylic a few years ago and I was not at all happy about the con­di­tion of my nail beds after I removed them and took an oath of promise that I would never reap­ply those things to my hands again.  How­ever, there are a few nail trends that I am really feel­ing that might bring me back to the nail salon to ask for some­thing other than “a man­i­cure with clear nail pol­ish please.”  Heck, I might even go for the acrylic again.

 

my shel­lac nail manicure

my minx nail man­i­cure, cour­tesy of mag­num ice-cream

***NAIL TRENDS***

1. Half Moon Manicure

Image via musingsfrommanhattan.com

Image via GlitterGeek

Of the 5 trends, the half moon is prob­a­bly the eas­i­est one for you gifted nail artists to try at home.  There are end­less DIY, how to’s for this trend avail­able on the inter­net.  I started tak­ing note of this nail trend late last sum­mer.  It is actu­ally a nail art style that was pop­u­lar in the 30’s when women painted just the cen­ter of their nails, leav­ing the moon and tip bare.

2. Ombre Nails

Image via NailGurl

Image via Glamour

I love the color gra­di­ent of this style.  The gra­di­ent can be done on nails as shown above, or each nail could be painted a dif­fer­ent hue in the same color fam­ily going from light to dark or dark to light.  I am so try­ing this trend, this summer.

3. Caviar Nails

Image via MadameNoir

Image via CocoandCreme

Yum, this looks like ice-cream with sprin­kles on top!  The caviar nail man­i­cure is the newest nail trend.  This man­i­cure doesn’t come for cheap, how­ever. The caviar nail kit sells at Sephora for $25.  I don’t even want to imag­ine what nail salons will be charg­ing.  Came across a sweet lit­tle DIY tuto­r­ial by Elle Sees (again, this is for the gifted peo­ple who can actu­ally man­age these projects at home) DIY: Caviar Nails for $5.

4. Stil­leto Nails

Image via NecoleBitchie

Image via Flickr

Jessie J’s nails, as seen in the first photo above are a tamer ver­sion of the stil­letto nail style made pop­u­lar by Rihanna and Bey­once.  The sec­ond photo.… I mean seri­ously?  Honestly…I wouldn’t wear this to work or near my cat.  I don’t think I would be able to pass secu­rity and I might get the same response I get from my cat if I bare my teeth at her.  I am sorry, these are talons!

5. Chrome Nails

Image via KellieGonzo

Chrome nails are not new either, but it’s not going to stop me from try­ing this look this sum­mer.  Appar­ently, it is vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to find nail pol­ish that can give this very same effect.  The chrome man­i­cure shown above was achieved by using Broad­way Fash­ion Diva Chrome Nail adhe­sives as seen on KellieGonzo.com.   Kristina from Pretty Shiny Sparkly also fea­tured  Liq­uid Chrome Nails on her site and gave a list of brands that you can try in order to achieve this look.

Which one are you will­ing to try?  I can’t wait to hear what your favorites are.

XoXo, Natasha

Tagged as: Beauty, nails

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