Nail Art: Japanese Garden

Here's part two of my foray into nail decals this weekend. LA Colors Wired provided the deep royal blue background for these red and pink floral decals from Kiss. 

Nail Art: Gold Embossed Burgundy

After a failed experiment with Revlon's nail stencils (I'm returning them to CVS pronto—impossible to use!!), I still had my heart set on floral designs. I turned to a simpler option—Kiss Nail Artist decals. I used the Confetti shade Glam 'N Up for this burgundy background. No more stenciling for me—I love the more intricate look of these gold decals!

Sally Hansen Nail Polish Strips Christmas and Winter Designs

I saw this display at Bed Bath & Beyond today. Overall these are not as much fun and Christmas-y as last year's holiday collection. My picks are Simply D-Vine and Shiny New Year. The others...yawn. SH needs to step up their game with nail polish strips being such a hot item right now—there is so much more competition than there was at this time last year! I'll be keeping an eye out for more holiday designs—I'm counting on Kiss to have some good ones!

Christmas Nail Bling

Too early for Christmas nails? I think not. I'm not sure if this Nail Bling pattern (called Midnight Kiss) was meant to look like Christmas lights but that's what I saw when I picked them up at Sally Beauty Supply. These decals go on clear, so I used them over two coats of Nina Ultra Pro in the cream-colored shade Molten Opal, also available at Sally. For New Year's Eve, Nail Bling offers a black-based alternative to this design called Cosmic Lights. Also there are some super-cute Halloween designs on Sally's website (I didn't see them in the store.) Here's the link.

Deep and Dark Halloween Nails

I've never been a big fan of straight black nail polish. Where's the subtlety? Instead I prefer to go for an almost black like this midnight blue shade (L'Oreal's The Mystic's Fortune). Or a blue/black with a glittery twist (L'Oreal's The Queen's Ambition, pictured below). Both are limited edition shades from the Project Runway collection.

Caramel Apple and Candy Apple Red Nails

Fall makes me think of county fairs with candy apples and caramel apples. I tried to duplicate both for these manis. To get the glasslike look of a candy apple I alternated thick layers of essie's appropriately named Jelly Apple with a glossy topcoat.

I didn't think it would be so easy to find a caramel colored nail shade, but on my first stop (at Bed Bath and Beyond) I was lucky enough to find L'Oreal's Hudson Sunset from their limited edition New York Nudes collection. The apple red is Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby. Admittedly there's no apple shape but I think I got the shades right, so those of you with more artistic talents than mine can create your own caramel apple mani.

Nail of the Week: Matte/Gloss

Revlon's new shade Surf is a great muted blue option for Fall. To add some dimension I used the topcoats NYC Matte Me Crazy and China Glaze Patent Leather.