Half-moon manicure

I've hopped on the bandwagon! This week I decided to try to calm myself and continue with the simple designs. What better way to do it than by following the current trend of half-moon manicures!

What I used:

• Base coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat
• Gold half-moons: Savvy Nail Lacquer in Golden Honey -- 1 coat
• Blue color: OPI Nail Lacquer in Ski Teal We Drop -- 2 coats, applied over some circular reinforcement label stickers  used as guides
• Top Coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

What I've learned:

• I had no idea what I was doing. First off, you don't paint the moons on afterward. You paint the bottom color over your entire nail, then put the next color on top so that a moon-shaped hole shows the color beneath. This is actually my second try at the same colors in a half-moon manicure because the night before I had done the blue first, then painted on the half-moons by hand. Didn't look so great, even when I slept on it gave myself time to get used to it. 
• Reinforcement labels are key. I suck at drawing the half moon shapes, and the reinforcement label technique worked wonders. The only bad thing is that if you have sensitive, dry fingers like I did the day I painted these, removing the stickers may hurt your skin a little bit. They're permanent stickers so when they stay on, they stay on. (They're not super sticky like duct tape or anything but they still hurt, so I'm throwing that warning at you)
• I still love that color. I love this blue color. Seriously. I want all my clothes to be that color. (not really but you get what I mean)

I be haulin' - Beauty Outlet

I am apparently not over my "it's Christmas time to spend money" bug... so that combined with my laziness equals multiple blog entries that make me look like I went on a spending spree of nail supplies. Hoorah.

I kinda went crazy at my local Beauty Outlet because their nail polish inventory has increased immensely since the last time I was there. Another thing that got me to buy stuff was that they now have a roll of scotch tape hanging by the polishes and you can use that to test out the colors. No more blind purchases. Yay!

From Left: OPI Nail Lacquer "My Private Jet"; Seche Vitte Dry Fast Top Coat; Orly "Limelite"; OPI Nail Lacquer "Ski Teal we drop"

1. OPI "My Private Jet" : Haven't used it yet but I got it because it basically dries with a really "dense" and "mineral-y" look, like a granite countertop. So cool.

2. Seche Vitte: I joined the ranks and bought a bottle of this so-called "Best top coat" from all the nail blogs I read. And I love it. It's thick but doesn't smudge my Konad nail polish and only needs one coat, versus the 2 coats I needed with my Avon top coat. Looks like I'll be changing that blog entry that says what my top and base coats always are. Oh ya and I just realized I actually bought this on eBay, not at Beauty Outlet. Yay eBay bucks that get me a free top coat that's way better than my old one.

3. Orly "Limelite": Not much to say yet, since I haven't used it. But I had never seen a shimmery color like that before so I went ahead and bought it. 

4. OPI Ski Teal We Drop: I love this blue. My sister commented last night that it looks like algae green, which is true in indoor colors. Then in daytime it's blue again. Nail polishes with color-changing-trickery are always awesome. I used this color already on my recent half-moon nails. So lovely. 

And one last thought ... am I the only one who imagines cheezburger cats saying "o rly" when I see the brand "ORLY?"