Presenting: Ann Taylor's beautiful new polish palette, created to support the fight against breast cancer.
Although I think you can't lose with that pale shade on the left, my personal favorite is Ribbon Pink (in the center).
It's what I chose for this week's beachy travels; I felt like it was summery but still classic (you can see Kendrick photobombing his approval in the background).
A little Friday fingernail inspiration: China Glaze in Dress Me Up with FingerPaints in Circus Peanuts.
Not that I'm the most talented person in the world at DIY French manicures - I used to do them all the time and was pretty good at them, but this one, as you can see, was a rush job completed during a much-shorter-than-I-expected-it-to-be nap - but there are a few little tricks that make them way easier:
1. Start with very little polish on the brush - you don't want any rolling down and glopping onto your nail.
2. Begin the line at the halfway point and go to one edge of the nail, then return to the halfway point and draw the other side of the line.
In the past three months, you know what the number-one beauty tip I’ve picked up is? You know that saying “An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure?”
(SensatioNail Gel Polish / 1 week after application.)
The reason why I don't ever, ever get salon manicures: I don't know whether I don't wait long enough for my nails to dry before returning to normal activities, or whether I just have color-repelling fingers, or what, but I am completely incapable of making newly polished nails maintain their pristine state longer than two or three hours. And insta-chips are maddening when you've just sat in a salon for forty-five minutes and shelled out something in the range of fifteen dollars.
Maddening.
So I do my own manicures.
The fact that I've been wearing baby-pinks and black-purples for years now means that I have an enormous collection of said shades sitting in my bedside table drawer, all ready to be offered up to the DIY gods...
Finally, after having them recommended to me by everyone in the world, I did it: I bought the Sally Hansen stick-on things (officially known as Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips).
The plan yesterday was to get an actual, for-real pedicure, but at 6PM, on the way home, I decided that I wasn't particularly in the mood to spend forty bucks or to sit in a salon, so CVS it was. The plan was also to pick up a pretty grey polish a la Dior Gris Montaigne and Sally Hansen's Fairy Teal (or something similar), but all the greys were purple-y and all the teals were sparkly, so I had to revise.
I ended up going with my trusty Mink Muffs on the toes...and leopard on my fingers. I totally love it, and I hear that it'll last a week, which would be exciting (since my manicures are usually ruined within ten minutes of application, which is why I never, ever get them done in salons).
Pros/Cons:
Favorite nail look for fall: a pure grey on fingers paired with orange, teal, or pink on toes.
I've been way negligent with the pedicures lately, and my feet are starting to look like Frodo's, so this afternoon we'll be doing grey + teal in preparation for tomorrow's trip to Canada (the word on the street is that it's more autumn-y up North).
From left: Dior Gris Montaigne, Essie Vermillionaire, Sally Hanson Fairy Teal, Sally Hansen Shell We Dance.
Zoya's Karina ($7): like a sparkly Christmas ornament for your nails.
I'm almost out of my #1 nailpolish, so I decided to revisit a little trick I used back in high school to keep my favorite shades going just a little bit longer...
