Guest Post: Naked 2

 My friend Jenny did a nice informational review post about the Urban Decay Naked 2 palette for you guys! Thanks Jenny! ~ Megan

Now, I know the buzz of the Urban decay Naked 2 palette has kind of waned, but my amazing boyfriend got it for me for Mother’s day, so I wanted to share it with all of you.

First of all, I’d like to say thank you to Megan for giving me this opportunity!  Congratulations, and I can’t wait to see the wedding pictures.  Enjoy the honeymoon!

The Naked 2 palette is awesome.  It comes with 12 neutral colors that are perfect for a variety of uses, from every day wear to evening dramatic looks.  I found that there is quite a bit of fall out, so patting or dabbing the colors on usually works better than sweeping it on the lid.  Also, I highly recommend using an eyeshadow primer because I’ve heard from a few people that the colors don’t last if you don’t use one.  I personally use Urban Decay’s Potion Primer, but I’m sure any kind of good primer will work.

The colors included in the Naked 2 palette include:

Foxy-matte cream (a little on the yellow side)

Half Baked-metallic neutral gold (also in the Naked palette)

Bootycall-satin champagne

Chopper-metallic rose gold with silver micro glitters

Tease-matte purply-brown

Snakebite-satin deep bronze

Suspect-satin taupe

Pistol-satin steel gray

Verve-metallic gray with pink undertones

YDK-metallic taupe with copper micro glitter (it almost seems toasted)

Busted-satin, plum dark brown (I LOVE this color so much)

Blackout-matte black (perfect for liner use)

I haven’t had a chance to play with it as much as I would like, but so far my favorites are Chopper, Tease (I LOVE this matte), YDK and Busted.  I also love that there is a very pigmented, matte, black. 

It costs $50, and we got it at Ulta.  I definitely think that it’s worth the money because if you were to buy each of these as a single shadow, you be spending quite a bit more money.  (They’re about $18 per shadow!)  It also comes with a dual brush with a shading brush on one side and a crease brush on the other, and a travel sized Lip Junkie lip gloss in Naked.

Look how cute it is!  I love this lip gloss also.  It has a really nice smell and it has a minty taste and feel to it.  I’ve noticed that lip color doesn’t really stick to my lips very well, and this is really no different and I also prefer to wear a nude lipstick under this as well because it’s fairly sheer and the lip stick *usually* helps it stay a little longer.

I think that if you’re into neutrals, this is definitely the palette for you.  I don’t know if you necessarily need both the Naked and the Naked 2 palettes unless you’re a makeup artist or a neutral lover, like me.

Thank you for reading! 

Guest Post: Water Marble

 Lena did a lovely water marble with a blogger spotlight for us. Thank you Lena! ~ Megan

Hello all of you! I'm Lena from Lena Loves Nails and when I heard Megan was looking for guest posts I jumped at the chance. (Congrats by the way!) So I thought I'd share a little bit about how I got into blogging and being a polish addict. 

I'm by nature a collector, it used to be gel pens but I collect a lot of random things. I'm also a gamer and in adding friends on Facebook for games I found other ladies who liked nail art. Up to that point I'd really only done flowers and shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day. One of my new friends put a picture up of a mani and I was super curious. I hadn't seen anything like it before, and I was quick to ask her what it was. She explained it was something called water marble and told me about Collette from My Simple Little Pleasures. Well I read her whole blog and watched every single video she had on Youtube and I was hooked. At this point I didn't have any China Glaze, Fingerpaints, Zoya anything really except cheapies from the drug store.

I showed my boyfriend her videos and he was fascinated too, so we went out and got supplies of course. And I did my first water marble the very next day. 

Here it is, my very first water marble (my own followers haven't even seen it yet!): 

As you can see it was before I learned how to take decent pics and how to clean up properly lol. Sorry for the quality and mess :)

I started trying more and more and after a while I decided to start my own blog. By this time I learned that there were nail art pages on Facebook and had made friends with quite a few ladies and they were all very helpful by the time I got to that point. I was so scared to start my own blog and page. Scared that nobody would read it or that they would read it and say I had no talent and that I should find another hobby. (I did in fact have one rude person my very first day on my page but otherwise everyone is so nice!) 

I have ended up meeting great friends and have awesome followers, I'm so happy I took the leap and decided to join the wonderful people (because its not just ladies anymore, which is awesome in my opinion). I get to have fun doing something I have ended up loving and I've learned a lot and can't wait to learn more. If you'd like to learn more about me and see what I've been up to definitely please stop by my blog and Facebook page as I love to chat! 

As always, thanks for stopping by :)

~Lena

Guest Post: Strawberry Lemonade

Thanks so much for this summery guest post from Kristen at No More Nail Biting! ~ Megan

Hello everyone!  I am honored to be guest posting here at Painting Rainbows.  I am glad to help Megan out as she prepares for her wedding and honeymoon!  

I decided to show off a simple water marble using the China Glaze Summer Neons collection.  I absolutely love this collection and have been using the colors in a lot of my manicures this summer.  I may even have to buy backups of some of these colors!  Today's water marble uses China Glaze Orange You Hot?, China Glaze Love's a Beach, and China Glaze Sun-Kissed with Love's a Beach being used on my pinkie and pointer fingers.  Underneath the marbled nails I have one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On to give the colors more *pop*.  Sadly, neons are rather frustrating to try and photograph and needless to say that Love's a Beach is quite showing up in the photos how it appears on my nails. In real life it's more pink toned whereas I think it looks red in the photos.  

I love the yellow and pink combination that shows up on my nails and from the looks of it I probably could have gotten away without using Orange You Hot?.  I can barely see it.  This pink and yellow combination reminds me of strawberry lemonade, a wholeheartedly summer drink.  Mmmm.  Do you guys like water marbles?  What are your favorite colors to put together?  

I had so much fun doing this post for Megan.  I hope you guys liked it and thanks so much for having me as a guest poster. 

Guest Post: Rainbow Stripes Tutorial

 Thanks to Ana for this awesome tutorial that really goes with my blog! ~ Megan

INTERMEDIATE TUTORIAL: Rainbow Candy Cane Nail Art  

When Megan asked me to do a guest post, I immediately knew that this design belongs on her page! I originally completed this design for a nail art contest hosted by Tip Top Nails South Africa (and won, by the way.) I love this design so much because it reminds me of the rainbow candy canes you can buy at Disneyland. I could almost lick my fingers! :D You can see the winning design on my Facebook page because today's tutorial was just the first half of the final design! I used nail polish because it was a requirement of the contest. If I did this design again, I would do it with acrylic craft paint—it's much easier. Have Fun! ~Ana  

Instructions

STEP 1: Basecoat – to protect your nails and create a surface that nail polish bonds to STEP 2: 2 coats of your favorite white polish STEP 3: Using any color, create a stripe diagonally through the approximate middle of your nail. I started at the cuticle and rolled my finger toward me. This finished the line at the side of my nail. STEP 4: Continue making lines in your rainbow pattern down toward your cuticle. STEP 5: Then continue making rainbow lines on the other side, moving all the way to the tip of your nail. STEP 6: Topcoat – To seal in your design and give it a high gloss shine. Remember to topcoat the free edge and underside. This extends wear and reduces water absorption, which causes peeling and chipping  

TIPS:  

• To load the paint or polish on the long striping brush, drag the brush through the paint several times, while rotating the brush in your fingers. This way you will have enough on the brush to paint without reloading.
• Do not paint the stripes by dragging the brush across your nail. Instead, put your finger on a tabletop, place the brush on your nail and ROLL your fingernail under the brush. This will create a much straighter line. As you can see, mine were still a little curvy.

• Why do I start in the middle? This will help you keep your lines straighter. Just like when you're trying to write in a straight line on plain paper, a natural twist will happen. When you start in the middle, it minimizes the twist.

• I also used two different polishes for yellow and orange. The first coat was pale and didn't have much pizazz. Since all the other colors were shimmers, I repainted over the yellow and orange stripes with a shimmer to make the design pop. It took me 90 minutes to do one hand! This is why I recommend using acrylic paint for a full nail design. It won't have the shimmer, but it will be much easier and still be beautiful.

• If you do chose to use nail polish for the stripes, I would recommend just doing one rainbow, in a diagonal at the tips of your nails. I would also recommend starting at your nail tip and moving toward the center.

Materials Used

Striping Brush: The longest brush from the Mash Nail Art brush set. (Available on Amazon.) I trimmed a few of the bristles off to make the brush thinner. Base: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - White Tip Red: Nicole by OPI - OMB! Orange: Orly - Crush On You / LA Colors Color Craze Orange (from the Shimmer Brights collection) Yellow: LA Colors Color Craze Yellow #567 / LA Colors Color Craze Yellow Shimmer #570 Green: Wet n Wild FastDry - SaGreena the Teenage Witch #226 Teal: Wet n Wild FastDry - Teal or No Teal #227 Blue: Wet n Wild FastDry - Saved by the Blue #230 Violet: Wet n Wild FastDry - Buffy the Violet Slater #231 Note: this polish stains—as I found out upon removal :( Thanks so much to Megan for inviting me to guest post for her while she's on her honeymoon! We appreciate you stopping by! Please feel free to visit me (Ana at www.SimpleNailArtTips.com) on Facebook and ask me any questions. Have an amazing day!  

Will you be trying this design?

Guest Post: Sparkly Tips

Today I have a guest post for you from my friend Ashley at Polished Components. I'm jealous of her OPI glitters! ~ Megan

Today is another fun set of tips from me.  I know you have seen several like this in the past from me, but I just love the look.  I think I really started to like the look when I went to get my morning bagel, and the lady working there has fake nails.  But her tips are always a fun and bright sparkly color.  So since mine have gotten to longer lengths I wanted to do some fun tips too.  

 We have a picture in sunlight and with shade.  This is OPI Show it and Glow it.

Now while I do this free hand, there are several ways to help you achieve a straight line.  Scotch tape, there are also actual french tip stickers that can be found at most places with a beauty selection.  Also cleaning up with remover when you are done is an option, even though I refuse to do clean up:)   I love this look since it tends to make my nails look even longer than they actually are.   

Well I hope you have enjoyed this post on my fabulous tips.  See you soon and stop by to say hi.

Guest Post: San Diego!

I'm on my honeymoon in the lovely San Diego and Cuti-CLUE-les did some fabulous nail art themed for our trip! I'm so honored that she would do special nail art just for us. Thank you! Be on the lookout for some honeymoon pics we're snapping along the way on my Facebook page. - Megan

Hey all! 

I am so happy to help out the lovely Megan while she is off getting married! She tweeted that she was looking for guest bloggers to keep her blog busy while she was away and I couldn't say no. How sweet that she still worries about her blog with all the wedding plans she has going on :P So as they are going on honeymoon in San Diego I thought a mani mimicking the skyline would be a nice idea :)

I am not familiar with American scenery whatsoever so I had to google it :P This is the picture I used for inspiration:

Here is my take on it:

For the background I used Catrice I wear My sunglasses at night. This is a gorgeous black polish that is full of glitter. This only needed 2 coats. The formula is a bit thick but I think its easy enough to apply evenly.

When the black was dry I just freehanded all of the details using acrylic paint. Acrylic is far easier to control when doing nail art. It also dries incredibly quickly so you don't have to worry about smudging your nails!

For the light reflecting in the water I just mixed each colour with a little bit of water so it was less pigmented.  This was the hardest part!! I've never done a city skyline as nail art before. 

I really hope ye liked this post! I'm so grateful that Megan let me loose on her blog today. I love doing nail art and I'm so happy with the way this turned out. Megan I hope ye have a magical day and I wish the two of ye all the best for the future :) 

Cuti-CLUE-les

--
http://cuti-clue-les.blogspot.com/

Guest Post: Starfish Gradient

Our wedding had a naturey beach theme to it, so Alexis did a gorgeous starfish manicure for us! This is a picture my uncle took of the very beginning of our wedding. You can see my father giving me away, and the starfish in my bridesmaids' hair. Thank you so much Alexis. ~ Megan

Hi everyone! My name's Alexis and I'm extremely excited to be over on Megan's blog today! Thanks so much Megan for allowing me to do a post for you, I feel honored!
So, keeping in mind Megan is having a beach themed wedding I wanted to do something that sort of signifies or at least relates to the beach and weddings. I adored her cute starfish hairpins she showed on her blog for her bridesmaids so I took that into consideration and actually ended up doing my mani around the starfishes. I had one idea which turned into another which turned into this, overall I'm happy with it but I hope you all and Megan like it!

I know gradients were a big thing and they're sort of dying down now but I thought to myself, "What's a beach mani without an ocean inspired gradient?", do you all agree? I think the teal and blue combined with the white really brings to mind the ocean and well you already know about the starfish! :) I added a flakie topcoat just to give it some extra "special" and I thought it went along with the beach theme great!

Colors Used: Wet n' Wild - French White Creme 2 coats, (gradient from light to bright blue) Sinful Colors - Mint Apple, NYC - Water Street Blue, (accent nail) Starfishes are SC - Mint Apple and NYC - Water Street Blue, dots are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Pacific Blue, Essie - Shine of the Times 1 coat, NYC In a New York Minute - Top Coat 2 coats.
I reallllyyy hope you all enjoyed this beach mani, I know I had so much fun stopping by! Thanks again Megan for having me, and thank you lovely readers for well, reading! :D  Also, I hope you and your (soon to be or already is depending on the date the post goes live) husband the best! Awww I love weddings! haha :)
- xoxo Alexis Leigh

My Blog Find me on Twitter Find me on Pinterest 

Guest Post: Trophy Wife

I'm getting married today and some lovely people have offered to help me out with guest posts. I can't wait to share details and pictures with you. Thank you so much for following me all this way! Here is a lovely guest post for you guys so I can enjoy the day spend time with my new husband. There will be quite a few more guest posts and scheduled posts from me to come while we're on honeymoon. Mandy picked a perfect polish with a perfect name for the occasion! - Megan

 

Hi there!  It's Mandy, from Mandy's Polish.  I am excited to be guest posting today for Megan.  I have been following her blog for a while now and love all the generous things she does.  I wanted to share a polish with you that is great for summer and the work place.  Right now summer is all about the neons, but some people may not be able to wear those colors to work, heck, they may just not be into neons at all.  I love this pink, it's very pretty and not too out there.  This is Trophy Wife from China Glaze, what do you think?

Thanks for having me Megan!!!

Guest Post: Max Factor Polish

Meet Stacy from Stacy's Nail Diaries! ~Megan

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This is Max Factor Max Effect Mini Nail Polish in Dazzling Blue. 

Despite my pics not showing the true multi-chromatic nature of this polish, it is a duo-chrome/multi-chrome that glints teal, green, royal blue, and purple depending on lighting. 

This is 2 coats of MF Dazzling Blue over 3 coats of Lex Cosmetics PeaBow, one coat of Seche on top. I got this one in a swap from my friend in the UK :) 

Application is gorgeous - no visible brush strokes, very smooth. I looove the color(s) and the shine. Can't stop staring at my hands! :) Sorry my pics are crummy. I tried SOOO hard to capture from different angles and it just doesn't do it justice. 

Guest Post: Half Moon Mani

Thanks to Erin at The Sugar Cube for this super cute and easy to do post! ~Megan

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Before I start this post, I'd like to thank Megan for giving me the opportunity to guest blog for her. I racked my brain trying to think of a suitable topic to blog about here, and hopefully at least one of you will be able to take something from this simple tutorial that I made. If nothing else, I at least hope that I could do this blog justice! 

That said, on with the tutorial!

I've seen a lot of girls wondering how to do half moon manis, and the technique is surprisingly simple. If you're at all familiar with using tape to create nail art designs, you'll be able to churn this look out with no problem at all.

Materials you'll need:
- Nail polish in 2 different contrasting colors. Ideally one would be much lighter than the other.
- Reinforcement labels. If you have no idea what those are, you're not alone. They're the little round stickers with a hole in the center that are used to patch loose notebook paper when the holes rip. I bought mine at CVS in the aisle where they sell pens for roughly $2.00. 

- Top coat. 

Step 1: Paint your nails with your base color. It's obviously a good idea to use the lighter color as the base, since you'll need the other color to cover a good portion of the nail. I used OPI What's With The Cattitude. Let your base color completely dry. I usually wait about 45 minutes before moving onto step 2.

Step 2: Whip out your reinforcement labels. In case you're still confused about what these are, here is a picture of what mine look like.

Step 3: Apply one of your reinforcement labels to one of your nails, right where your cuticles are. The majority of the label should be above your nail, and only a small half moon shape should be on the nail itself. Once you have the label in place, press on it until it's completely stuck to all contours.

Step 4: Paint the entire nail with your darker colored nail polish. I did not include a picture of this step because it's very important that you remove the label when the polish is still wet and I didn't want to run the risk of it drying while I snapped photos :P

Step 5: While your darker colored polish is still wet, carefully remove the reinforcement label. Apply top coat once it's dry.

Step 6: Repeat steps 1-5 on each nail and then marvel at your half moon mani!

Guest Post: Multi-Chrome Goodness

This is Purple Beach by Nubar.  I have tried several of the Duochromes from Nubar and I have loved them all. This one was no different.  I am surprised though that they have not come out with just a set of Duochromes, they have sets of everything else it feels like.   

Well this was two coats of Purple Beach on top of Seche Vites Retain.  I have noticed that with alot of duochromes they tend to be on the opaque side and need at minimum 2 coats of polish, 3 probably working best.  Not that I usually use less than 2 but just the way they tend to apply seems to always be sheer.  The dry time on this was slightly slow but I am impatient.  I then topped it with Seche Vites fast drying top coat.  I love the way that top coat makes everything just a little more shiney :).  

This one is in sunlight. 

So to describe this color is trickier than most.  I can not really decide if it is a purple with brown duochrome and gold shimmer, or a brown with purple duochrome and gold shimmer.  You decide from the pictures.

Guest Post: Cult Nails

Hey dolls, it's Lakeisha from Refined and Polished. Today I have for you one of the beauties from Cult Nails…My Kind of Cool Aid. This is a light greyed-out purple that has a subtle silver shimmer included. Maria calls it gravender, which describes this color perfectly. The formula on this shade was awesome as I have come to expect from Cult Nails. It applied easily and was almost opaque in 1 coat. The second coat just increased the depth of the color. The dry time was relatively quick, which is always a plus.

I love this shade. It’s really unique in my collection and I love how it varies from grey to lavender in the light. This is definitely a shade that can be worn year round. I attempted my first scotch tape mani using My Kind of Cool Aid as the base. OPI’s Your Royal Shine-ness was used for the diagonal tips and Aldo Hit the Pavement for the dots.

I really like the way this turned out for my first attempt. While the color combo doesn’t scream summer, it makes me happy because they are my high school’s colors. I’ll be attempting more scotch tape manis in the future now that I know how relatively easy they are. I just have to be sure there are no air pockets in the tape to get a smooth line. Please feel free to leave any tips on ensuring clean lines when using tape. Hope you all enjoyed the guest post. You can see more of my nails here. Happy polishing dolls!

Guest Post: Mmm Cupcakes!

Hello lovelies of Painting Rainbows, I'm Danielle from With A Sparkle . As Megan is away I thought I would bring you some cupcake nail art! I started with Sally Hansen 

Maximum Growth in Real Royal. In the bottle this polish reminded me of 

chocolate which then made me think of cupcakes!

Real Royal is a dark polish with a brown/orange shimmer. You can see it 
better in the sunlight.

I stamped the cupcakes using Bundle Monster plate BM014 from the 

original series. My favorite polish to stamp with is the LA Colors Art 
Decos that can be found at Dollar Tree. They come in lots of 
different colors and are only a dollar. They have a thin brush and are 
good for nail art too. For the cupcake I decided on vanilla (using the 
white polish) with strawberry frosting (using the baby pink polish).

 

I'm still rather new to stamping, so please excuse the smudged one. I 
also always do my stamping so the design is facing myself. If you'd like 
to check out my nail art, please stop by my blog! I hope you try out 
some cupcakes on your nails, they are making me rather hungry!

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I really want cupcakes now lol ~Megan 

Guest Post: SpaRitual

Hi everyone!

First of all, a big thank you to Megan for asking me to guest blog for her, I am not a professional blogger, just a lifelong polish fan!

Today, I would like to share with you my latest acquisition, the SpaRitual Wilde Fall 2011 Collection.

SpaRitual is a 4-Free company, vegan, and certified by PETA. Their formula is one of the best on the market, at any price point, in my opinion.

I placed my order with www.AveYou.com, here’s what I received, only two days after placing it online:

The green tote was free with purchase, and the cute little bag came with the four polishes in front of it. My entire purchase, with shipping, was only $35. I actually ordered the minis for all six in the collection; AveYou.com gave me a free upgrade to the full size bottle on Howl.

Sacred Ground:

Running with Wolves:

Howl:

Rhythm of Life:

Spirit Child; please pardon my slightly messy cuticles:

And finally, Instinct:

So, that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing this fabulous fall collection, it is one of my favorites so far this season. SpaRitual products can be found in major salons nationwide, and can be purchased from a few online retailers, such as Soap.com, AveYou.com, and Drugstore.com. Full size bottles are $10, the cute little minis are $5. Thanks for reading!