Nail of the Week: Dreaming of summer sunflowers

left hand (click on photo to enlarge)

left hand (click on photo to enlarge)

left hand (click on photo to enlarge)

right hand (click on photo to enlarge)

right hand (click on photo to enlarge)

right hand (click on photo to enlarge

The weather in Portland lately has been just awful, windy, cold, freezing rain etc so this week I decided to do a little dreaming of summer, warm weather inspired manicure. For the base I used "Absinthe" by Icing which is a beautful shimmery light ( but not neon) green. If you read my blog regularly or semi regularly you know I am quite a big fan of Icing nail polishes. Icing, for those of you who might not know is owned by the same company who owns Claire's, the cheapo jewelry/makeup/accessories store in the mall that is geared towards teen and preteen girls. Icing is kind of a big sister of sorts to Claire's, the price point is a little higher but the quality is better and the styling is geared towards the older more sophisticated woman. The Icing brand nail polishes retail for $4.50 each and they have a permanent special of buy one get one 1/2 off. They have some amazingly close dupes to higher end polishes, but overall the quality of them is amazing. They almost always apply totally opaque in two coats, have little to no streaking, and are very long wearing. I can get at least 6 days of wear with a good topcoat. Also they are very good about wearing true to the bottle color when actually applied to the nails, which is something that is a bit lacking in other brands *cough* sally hansen xtreme wear *cough*. "Absinthe" was one I actually found on sale for $2.00 and I snatched it up right away and overall this one did not really disappoint. The only thing I struggled with was the formulation of this particular color was extremely watery, so I had to be careful not to load too much on my brush when applying. But the finish of this, and all the Icing polishes, are fabulous leaving a smooth shiny finish that I think might not even require a topcoat if you are really pressed for time (but I always do :) ) So I would highly recommend this polish line, the quality holds up well against other polishes such as Revlon, or Sally Hansen Insta Dri of a similar pricepoint, and overall they have some of the most unique and interesting colors I have ever seen. Icing polishes are almost identical in shape to the China Glaze bottles and at .65 fl oz give more product then the typical polish.

Icing "Absinthe" $4.50

For the sunflower design I used white, yellow, dark green, light green, and brown water based acrylic paints. I purchase my paints quite inexpensively at Joann's for $0.59 a bottle. I created the design with a small size slant tip brush and my small size dotting tool. Both of these came in a 15 pc nail art brush set I purchased on Ebay for just $2.85. It contains brushes of all sizes and shapes, suitable for creating any design. click here to purchase. Here's hoping the weather warms up, at least a little bit, soon, but in the meantime I feel a little cheerier having bright, fun, summer inspired nails. I hope you enjoyed this week's nail design. If you have any other "summer" polishes you like to use in the winter I would love to hear about them :) thanks for reading and have a great week!