ILNP Stripe Nails

Today I have a fun and quick nail art post to share with you featuring both a blinging holo polish and an super great multichrome polish.



The holo/multichrome pairing is something I truly love. It is often sunny in California so I'm always in the mood for a good holo but I also spend a good portion of my days indoors in the office. So I am always on the hunt for a good mani that looks good indoors and out!



For this look I paired two polishes from the INLP 2015 Fall Collection, which I reviewed (my picks at least) here. I started this look with three thin coats of INLP Maiden Lane, a lovely pale grey-leaning lavender ultra holo.



After the base dried, I added straight nail vinyls to create a simple straight line running through the whole look and painted one coat of ILNP Glory (one of my FAVORITE polishes of this year) in the stripe-created spot.





You'll see these macros just how bling-y this is in direct light and then in soft light.



I really did love these nails, they were soft and understated, but then also super bling-y. Best of both worlds! And I thought the greyish neutral base of Maiden Lane would make Glory really stand out, and it totally did!

That's it for today folks. Sorry this is so quick, but I've got a big incoming pile of to-swatch holiday collections coming up for you! Believe me you won't want to miss out on what's coming up from all my favorite brands! I just love the holidays don't you. Promise to sprinkle nail art at least once a week too! :)

Emily de Molly Review

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had great weekends, I had one that was filled with a whole lot of nothing and boy did I really need that. Unfortunately I spent the better part of yesterday suffering from a migraine (which kept me from playing with polish), but it didn't stop me from being able to prepare this fun post for you guys.



I recently found out that Emily de Molly, an Australian-based indie brand, now has a US retail website – which makes purchasing from her so much easier! So yay for being able to get my hands on some of these amazing beauties!









First up we have one of my most favorite wine-colored vamps of the season. This is Garnet Fire and it isn't just a vampy holo it also has amazing orange flakies which create an orange glow, which I've never seen before in a wine colored polish. This is like a clash of my two favorite color families coming together in this perfect polish for fall! Application was a breeze, opaque in two thin coats. I wore this for an entire weekend and I couldn't stop staring at my nails, they were so pretty!









Second up is Ariel's Realm. This is a gorgeous teal jelly polish packed with cooler toned multichrome flakies and tiny red microglitters. The jelly/falkis combo gives this polish such depth. I found application was best in three thin coats, as the jelly base does make this a sheerer polish.









Next up we have we have The Rapture, which is similar to Ariel's Realm being that it is another jelly/flakie combo. The Rapture is a purple jelly with cooler toned multichrome flakies and similar microglitter pieces (blue and green I think) floating throughout. Application took three coats for opacity.









The final polish I have to share with you is Terra Firma. This is described as a brown to green duochrome holo, but I found the shift to be very subtle. Either way, I find this to be mostly green, olive leaning a bit, but perfect for the fall season. This was an amazing formula, opaque in two coats. I wore this one for about half a week too, toped with ILNP Glory another favorite of mine this season – I took a couple of shots of that look for you below. I also did themed stamping over it, because I wore it for the weekend I went to Apple Hill to do apple and pumpkin picking!



So what do you think?! Have you tried Emily de Molly before? Which are your favorites? I have to say Garnet Fire and Terra Firma are true standouts for me here, and Garnet Fire might make my list of top polishes for the year!

Brown Lightning for Fall

Happy Fall everyone, the weather has finally turned just a tad cooler here in California and I finally feel like I just might be able to break out a sweater or two! Or who am I kidding, probably just a light cardigan, either way, I feel like autumn has finally arrived.



This mani was partly inspired by my friend Andrea of Indigo Bananas, and though it doesn't actually use any Indigo Bananas polishes, she helped me come up with the idea.



This fall brown holo polishes have been popping up all over the place and I wanted to create a mani that put that on display. So for the base I did two coats of ILNP Shoreline and then I used lightening vinyls to put two of my favorite browns this season on display.



For this look I used Elevation Polish Saif al Jabbar (which is really more of a vampy brown-red holo) on the tips and Pahlish Hundred Eyes on the bottom. Both of these polishes were from the joint Adventures of Marco Polo collection Elevation Polish and Pahlish put out together. The whole collection is just lovely.



I really like how these all paired together. I wouldn't have exactly thought of lightening bolts with this look, but I think it pulled all the colors together perfectly! Thanks Andrea for the fun idea!



The whole look was stunning in the sunshine.

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty great, was at a friend's house just watching Netflix and movies and shows all weekend. She is recovering from wrist surgery so I was just there for company, and for an excuse to escape the chaos that is my condo bathroom project.

I don't even know what is happening with that (it's Sunday night and I'm about to re-enter that hell), but everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. :(

Hope you all had great weekends, I'll update about my bathroom once it's no longer chaos! Wish me luck!

Fall Nails featuring Elevation Polishes

So I saw the Sunday Stamping prompt in the lovely Adventures in Stamping Facebook group today was fall nails so I decided it was high time I partake in this fun.



I just had a great weekend. Super fun day yesterday with girlfriends showing them how to nail stamp and then today I had a swatch-a-thon and wanted to reward myself with a fun nail stamping look to cap off the day.



So I grabbed my new MoYou Mother Nature 07 plate and set out to do a fall leaves manicure! Fall is my absolute favorite season and here in California we've been having a bit of an Indian summer weather-wise, so I am trying to will the cooler weather on with these fun leaves changing color nails.



I used all Elevation Polishes for this fun look starting with a base of Ephemeral Sands SBP and then using Khan of Khans (olive green), The Latin of 4 Languages (orange) and Zhenjin (gold) to stamp the leaves on top.



The effect creates a subtle leaves changing color type look. I really like how these turned out, now if only California would change seasons already!!!



I hope you all are experiencing much cooler weather than we have been in California and I hope you area all enjoying various pumpkin flavored delights! I've caught way up on my swatching, so now I've just got a lot of post prepping to do this week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From my nails to yours....

I'm using this collage of my nail art to bid adieu to fall and autumn nail art! 

I'm thankful for this blog and all the ladies I've met through the nail blogging world! I just love geeking out on nails with you all. 

Don't forget to sign up for my Reader Appreciation Giveaway and have an awesome Turkey Day! 

I'm spending the morning with friends at the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot in San Jose and then having relaxing afternoon/evening off with just my parents (Mike is headed to his parents' for the weekend).

I braved Trader Joe's last night to give my parents a semi nice meal tomorrow night, well nice enough for the three of us!

Here is what I got (even though I won't eat any of this except for the cranberry sauce).

I hope you all have fun weekends with family and food aplenty, and of course nail polish!!!

Painted Polish #PSL with Nail Stripes

Today I'm showing off the lovely glitter bomb #PSL, which is short for Pumpkin Spice Latte, which every one has a love affair with this time of year (or a few weeks ago before Starbucks brought out the red cups and peppermint lattes).

Anyway, I was seeing swatches of this left and right on Instagram and I just knew I had to have it!



This glitter bomb is packed with gold, burnt orange, copper and holo glitter pieces. It is a gorgeous mix of sparkly autumn. I loved it. I used four coats to obtain this opacity, and then used a double coat to top coat to make it smooth and sparkly!!!

So shortly after getting this polish in the mail, I saw a beautiful manicure Serene at Copycat Claws did with some sparkly gold polish and I knew I had to recreate it with #PSL! I used nail vinyls to get this look!



I knew that Zoya Pepper would make the perfect paring with #PSL and I just totally loved this manicure! I was working my mom's show while wearing these nails. Apparently when you are cashiering, people really notice your nails. At least a lot more than my day job as a writer. But so many asked if they were stickers. Grrrr. I don't know why that irks me but it does!



It's also gorgeous in the sun as you can see above!



I also wanted to say thank so much guys for sticking with me as my blog posts are a bit sporadic! I'm currently starting a Holiday Nail Challenge, and I can't wait to show you all I'm going to be working on. And so I'll leave you with a shot of my cat Patty, hogging my light box while I was trying to shoot these nails!

The Ultimate Fall Leaves Gradient Nail Art

You guys, I love fall. And I love the fact that I get to work in a town with the most beautiful trees. I mean take a look at my background on my iPhone, I truly love these trees.



These trees are the Chinese Pistache, and Los Altos is full of them. They are green most of the year, and then every year in November, the leaves turn from green to yellow to the most magnificent neon orange-red. So in honor of these trees, I created a matching manicure.



I mean I love this manicure so much, not only am I currently wearing it, I was originally going to wait to show you all this until Wednesday (to stick to my normal posting schedule). But I literally could not wait to share with you the amazingness that is this manicure. I think this might be my most favorite nail art ever!!!



To start this manicure I did two coats of Sally Hansen OMGhost (which has a great formula, except for some minor bubbling, and is especially great for stamping). After that I sponged on a gradient of Zoya Shawn, Kiko Melon 356 and OPI Red Lights Ahead Where (which is I think my most favorite coral creme of all time, see my blog header).



And then, because I still am super critical of my gradient, I added a layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust, because Fairy Dust covers a multitude of mistakes. To finish it all off, I stamped my favorite fall stamp ever, Bundle Monster BM H-11. I still feel like my gradient skills need some work, but practice makes perfect and I just truly love this manicure to death!



I never want to take this off, I am so in love with it! What do you guys think? I know a lot of us are all working on holiday nails in preparation for the fun holiday season, but I just can't get over fall. I haven't quite accepted winter is coming, because really in California, does winter ever really arrive?

Fall color dotticure nail art

To cap off this fun week I've had sharing nail art with you, I thought I'd try a dotticure with a neutral base!

I have a very hard time finding neutrals that work with my skin tone. I am actually a neutral skin tone, so warmer colors and cooler colors work well with my skin. But finding the appropriate nude polish has been a difficult journey.



So I picked up OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around recently and thought I'd give it a try. The formula is great, this is it above with two coats (no top coat). Not sure I totally like it with my skin tone, but I don't hate it, and for a nude that is actually a compliment for me. What do you think?

Anyway, wanting to make this a fall manicure, I thought I'd add a fun dotticure, after being inspired by some manicures I saw on Pintrest.



For the dots I used Zoya Penny, a gorgeous darkened brick red creme, Kiko 356 - Melon (one of my Germany nail purchases), a mustard yellow creme, and Zoya Channing, a burnt orange foil polish.



I placed the dots in a gradient like fashion, but I didn't want to cover the whole nail. I liked the look, but I wasn't totally in love with it. I think the nude I picked was a tad too pink, which made the look less fall like to me.



But I really did like the combination of the dots and I thought it would be a neat idea to include Channing, a different finish, to mix up the dots. Neat?!? Who uses adjectives like that, I'm super lame. Hahaha, sorry for the random aside.

Anyway, I hope you liked fall week here at Newsie Nail Novice, I loved sharing it with you. And as of now, I have absolutely no idea what I'll share with you next week, but I have a lot in the vault!