Spring/Summer Pink Nail Art: Neon and Neutrals Colourblocking!

One of the trends this Spring/Summer season has been the contrast of nudes and brights! On the runways this has translated into colourblocked outfits juxtaposing neutrals and bright shades, but there wasn't really any parallel for nail art.

I saw a couple of nail bloggers bringing this juxtaposition to nail art, so I decided to give this a go too! I colourblocked a light neutral pink with a neon pink, and decided to make it my own by adding - of course - some bling!

For the light pink base, I used RBL (Rescue Beauty Lounge, for those who don't use acronyms) Lulu, which is a pretty neutral pastel pink. For the neon pink, I used one of my favourites, Eyeko Punk Polish, and painted it in a reverse-Chevron shape. Eyeko Punk Polish is a retina-searing, neoner-than-neon hot pink, which I love. For old-time readers of the blog, if this looks familiar it's because I've actually used Punk Polish before for a Valentine's Day manicure. I then used some white striping tape to outline the V-shape, and topped it off with a pink gem!



The great thing about this manicure is that even if you aren't great at nail art (like me, for instance), this is still easy to look good. When you're painting the Chevron shape, you don't have to worry about the edges looking neat, because the striping tape will cover that. And when you're sticking on the striping tape, you don't have to worry whether the two pieces of tape will meet nicely exactly in the middle, because the pink gem will cover that. So each step covers the mistakes made in the previous step, leaving you with a pretty good-looking manicure, if I do say so myself. Seriously, aren't I awesome? LOL. (And yes, I totally plan out my nail art to cover up my noob skillz as much as possible. It's how I make my non-existent nail skillz look good).



Anyway, other than hiding my non-existent nail skillz and making them look awesome, I really like this manicure. I went for an all-pink look, of course, but I feel like I should repeat this look with different colours, and perhaps with contrasting colours, even! I mean, the all-pink look is nice, but it can get a little dull.



Anyway, I love this - it's pretty, girly, and Spring-y. And it's actually pretty easy to do, although you'll need to set aside some time to do all the nail polish layering and striping and sticking on the gem. But at least you know it'll turn out looking good!

Easter Nail Art: Pastel and White Stripes!

Look at my Easter nail art for this year! It's all pastel-ly and stripe-y and totally inspired by the shades and designs of easter eggs! Although it's pretty simple, I really like how it looks. I know it isn't the most original nail art out there (if I'm not wrong, there are TONS of people doing Easter stripes nail art too), but I feel like for once, I actually did freehand nail art without screwing it up (too much), so this look is special to me!

For the base I used RBL Lulu for the pink, Illamasqua Jo'mina for the purple, Nails Inc Spring Mews for the green, and Maybelline Banana Puddin' for the yellow. I don't have that many pastels, so this was about it I think. Still, I was glad that they worked together without clashing or anything. For the stripes, I just used this LA Colors white striper that I got from another nail blogger sometime ago (I believe it was Scandalously Polished, but her blog is no longer up. *sobs*). I was worried that the striper would be too sheer, but it turned out alright.



Being pastels, some of these shades had difficult application - that's the thing about pastels, for some reason, they're always trickier to apply than un-pastel colours. Nails Inc Spring Mews and Illamasqua Jo'mina were good, and fully opaque in two coats. (I've actually featured Nails Inc Spring Mews before, not just once, but twice, for my Valentine's Day nails, and I've also blogged about Illamasqua Jo'mina too.) RBL was sort of a two-and-a-half-coater, meaning that it was opaque in two coats, but still streaky, so I had to use three to even everything out. Maybelline Banana Puddin' was just a pain in the behind to polish - it needed a full four coats before it was opaque and not streaky. (I've actually complained about Maybelline Banana Puddin' before, but in the end I just put up with the application for the colour...it's hard to find a yellow that looks great on my skintone.)



Anyway, despite the painful application on some of the colours, I really love my Easter manicure. It's not particularly original, or perfect, but I'm really loving it. I know Easter isn't really all about eggs and bunnies and things like that (it really has a much deeper meaning to it that's so powerful), but I figure that anyway I can celebrate Easter on my fingers can't be bad.

RBL Grunge, Nails Inc Diet Coke London, Instyle Mink, Jermyn Street: Any Dupes?

While I was wasting my youth on that infernal time-sucker called Twitter, I was chatting with Liloo (who is @tsunimee on Twitter - PS you should follow her because she's really awesome!), and she was asking me if the Nails Inc Diet Coke London shade was similar to the Nails Inc Instyle Mink shade, and she wanted to know if I could do swatches to compare the two.

For those of you who are non-UKers, Nails Inc is a luxury brand of nail polish in the UK, and every now and then they have promotions that allow you to get a bottle of their polish for cheaper than the really pain-inducing retail price of 10.50GBP. As luck would have it, this month in the UK, there are not one but TWO Nails Inc promotions - one that allows you to get a free bottle of Nails Inc polish with a purchase of Instyle Magazine, and another one that allows you to get a free bottle of Nails Inc polish with a purchase of two bottles of Diet Coke. And as is usual with Nails Inc, the colours released for both promotions were right on trend.

In fact, so right on trend that people thought two of the colours from both promotions were dupes. The colours in question are London (from the Nails Inc Diet Coke promotion) and Mink (from the Nails Inc Instyle promotion). Both of them are the classic, yet still-edgy mushroomy, taupey-brown greige shade I absolutely love. They looked similar, so people started speculating that they were dupes.

Fortunately, because I am a mushroomy-taupey-brown-greige hoor, I bought both Nails Inc Diet Coke London, as well as Nails Inc Instyle Mink. So if you have been wondering if they are dupes, wonder no more! The mystery will be solved!

And because I love you guys so, I thought I could do better than that - and I found two similar colours in my stash, RBL Grunge, and Nails Inc Jermyn Street, to compare both of them to as well! Aww, don't you love me now?

So without further ado, let's begin our comparison post with the requisite bottle picture:



L - R: RBL Grunge, Nails Inc Diet Coke London, Nails Inc Instyle Mink, Nails Inc Jermyn Street

Ooh, photos like this just make me drool all day long. I am SO loving this greige/mushroomy trend. Also, I got really excited when I was doing bottle comparisons, because when I saw how close RBL Grunge was to Nails Inc Diet Coke London, I was like, "OMG YOU HAVE GOTTA BE KIDDING!!" Seriously. Something that us UK girls can get free (with two bottles of Diet Coke) is a dupe for something the US girls pay USD$25 for?! Is Nails Inc London really a dupe for RBL Grunge?

There was only one way to find out: nail swatches! Unfortunately, because my nails were already painted with an NOTD I didn't want to remove yet, I was forced to make do with swatching on fake nails. (Note - I don't wear fake nails, have never worn 'em, will probably never wear 'em. I just love my real ones too much, LOL.)

So here are the swatches:




L - R: RBL Grunge, Nails Inc Diet Coke London, Nails Inc Instyle Mink, Nails Inc Jermyn Street

Aww shucks. As you can see, nothing is really a dupe for anything else, although RBL Grunge and Nails Inc Diet Coke London are really close. The main difference between London and Grunge is that London is more purple. They aren't dupes, but they are similar. Nails Inc Instyle Mink is a lot more brown than any of the colours featured here, and Nails Inc Jermyn Street is darker than any of the colours here. I'm so glad I don't have any dupes, it allows me to keep them all. And I LOVE these colours, they are my favouritest colours to wear on my nails. And for some reason Nails Inc looks really really dark, but it isn't that dark - I think it's because all the other colours are relatively light in comparison, so my camera's contrast settings made it look darker than it really is. I don't know why though. I had to take this picture multiple times to get a decent effort. Anyway, I did a previous NOTD with it before, and you can view it HERE.

So here's the question I like to answer at the end of every comparison post - which one should you choose, if you aren't a mushroomy/taupe/brown/greige hoor like me and think four nail polishes from the same colour family is too excessive?

Well the answer would depend, as always, on your skintone, and colour preferences. Skintone-wise, I personally feel that these greige/mushroom colours are pretty neutral, and have the ability to flatter a wide range of skintones, but for the sake of comparison, relatively speaking, shades that have more brown in them tend to flatter warm tones better, while shades with more purple or grey tend to flatter cooler-toned ladies. And of course, your preference for colour - whether you want your greige mushroomy shade to have more purple, grey, or brown, is also going to play a factor.

Out of all of the 4, RBL Grunge is the most beige, so for girls who don't really like the mushroom trend, but want to dip their toes into it, this is a good way to go. Nails Inc Instyle Mink is by far the most brown, so that might be good for warmer-toned girls, or girls who want a colour leaning more brown. For cooler-toned girls who are averse to any hint of brown, it's a good toss-up between RBL Grunge and Nails Inc London. For someone who wants a colour that's equal parts brown, purple, and grey, Nails Inc Jermyn Street is probably your best bet.