The Mighty Monarch!

Yellow (China Glaze's Happy Go Lucky) → Orange diagonal gradient (China Glaze's Sun Worshipper) done with a sponge, Flexbrush's water-based black for the stripes, and OPI's Alpine Snow for the dots (applied with the rubber end of a bobby pin).

Mermaid Gradient

OPI's Papua Pink Pearl → China Glaze's Sea Spray

I imagine a mermaid would have nails like these...

Adventures in Sponging

All done with sponges--it looks a little like '90s denim.

Green - OPI's Who the Shrek Are You?
Pink - China Glaze's Something Sweet
Blue - China Glaze's Sea Spray
Orange - China Glaze's Sun Worshipper

White m57 Konad on top

Mauve → Purple Gradient (Sponged)

OPI's Pamplona Purple sponged over China Glaze's Below Deck.

It looks really good in person... not so much in pictures!

Update: Faux Airbrush Now with Leopard

Here's an update on this post.

Just some hand-done Dou'ble-Art black leopard over my faux airbrush mani. Holy wow, do I love this look! True, I'm a leopard addict, but this is on a whole new level.

Double Feature: Faux Airbrush & Gray/Teal Tips

My favorite thing about Lindsay Lohan's trial a while back (besides her sentence) is her nails. Yes, they were offensive, idiotic, and completely inappropriate for a court date, but they were pretty fierce minus the text.

This is my basic attempt to recreate the look somewhat without going to a salon to get them airbrushed.

Base color (painted on): OPI's Fiercely Fiona

Top Right: OPI's Rumples Wiggin'

Bottom Right: OPI's What's With the Cattitude?

Bottom Left: China Glaze's Something Sweet


The three colors other than the base color were sponged on with a cosmetic sponge. Just paint the sponge (you may want to cut it to get a wedge shape if it's not already) and apply to the nail. It may take a few coats to get the tone of the color you want.

Let me warn you, clean up takes a lot of time if you're as messy as me. Pretty much my entire finger was covered in polish up to the first joint. You may want to cover exposed skin in tape so you can just peel off most of the mess instead of spending eleven 12-minute Metalocalypse episodes trying to rub off the polish like I did.

Overall, I like the look! Normally, I use super-blunt straight edges so this is a nice change. It's also super easy to do because mistakes are hard to come by, and if you do mess up it can be fixed easily.

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Please excuse the new nail shape, it's an experiment in vintage pointyness.

Two thirds of the nail is China Glaze's Shower Together (teal) over one third of Barielle's U-Concrete-Me (gray), separated by silver stripping tape.

I freehanded the teal over the gray. The line separating the colors doesn't have to be extremely perfect because the stripping tape covers any small mishaps. If you don't think you'll be able to freehand the edge, wait until your base color is completely dry and place a piece of tape over the part of the nail you don't want covered. Wait about a minute and peel the tape off leaning toward/in the direction of the wet polish (the polish should still be more wet than dry). This allows the polish to form a smooth edge that's more flush with the nail instead of a leaving a rough edge where the polish would have butted up against the tape.

Let me say, for the record, that Shower Together is one of my least favorite colors that I own (it was also my very first China Glaze), but I absolutely adore this color paired with gray. Currently my toes are a gray based leopard with teal spots/black edges annnddd it's gorgeous. It's a nice fall/winterish color combo.

Space: The Final Frontier

Mark my words, spacey/galaxy/nebulous nail art is going to be the next "in" thing. The great thing is that it's a super easy look to pull off as long as you have the right range of colors and a few tools. Here's everything I used in order:

From left to right:

1 OPI's Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow (green based black)

2 Nicole by OPI's Black to the Future (black with micro-glitter)

3 Barielle's U-Concrete-Me

4 China Glaze's Shower Together

5 China Glaze's Grape Pop

6 OPI's Meet Me on the Star Ferry (pink frost with gold undertones)

7 Benefit shimmer powder in Mint Julep (blue/silver glitter) (pictured with an E.L.F. eyeshadow brush)

8 CM Nail Art's Gold Diamond (silver/gold/bronze glitter)

9 Seche Vite top coat

Here's how to do it:

One full coat of #1, followed by another full coat of #2. I did this because I'm running out of the Nicole, so I just used another black underneath to get a solid color. The Nicole has multicolored micro-glitter so it's perfect for that tiny star look. Next, I started to sponge on patches of #4, 5, and 6 on top of each other to give a cloudy look.

To do this, you can cut up a sponge (like a cosmetic round) which is what I was going to use until I saw the spongey bits holding the cosmetic rounds together that are conveniently pre-cut into wedges. Paint the polish onto the sponge (as pictured) and sponge it on parts of your nail. Don't sponge the whole nail or else you'll lose the depth that you're trying to create.

On top of the 3-layered sponged sections I dusted on the shimmer powder (#7),  then randomly added glitter with #8, and topped it off with the Seche (#9). It may seem like a lot of work, but it's a super simple look to pull off and mistakes aren't a big deal because space is messy!

Here's the result pictured in different angles/types of indoor light to show as many of the colors as I can:

Pre-cleanup

I'll try to post a picture of the nails in natural sunlight. Since I'm not one to resist a theme, I'm going to go play with my Star Trek action figures while watching the Home Movies episode about Starboy and the Captain of Outer Space after I change in to my Star Wars shirt. To infinity and beyond!