PERFECT SQUARE NAILS

Nail art by a fangirl/ nerd/ student/ nail polish addict.

[perfectsquarenails]

I finally painted some art on my nails.  And then went to the beach.

[perfectsquarenails]

Happy February? Didn’t put a ton of thought into this one, just did what I was planning.

[perfectsquarenails]

tl;dr I did my nails. And my followers rock for sticking around.

Holy crap, it’s been a long time.  I honestly didn’t know if I would be making posts again over here, just because nail art wasn’t making me happy.  So I moved on.  I still have my box of polish here at school, and I had a moment of inspiration (aka running away from the world into the meditative space of painting my nails).

It means a lot to me that there are still people here.  Like I expected plenty of you to drop slowly as I stopped posting, but here you are, even though I’ve only made like six posts this year.  Thank you for sticking around, for whatever reasons you have.  I’m not completely giving up on my nail art, but I am giving myself space to do what makes me happy.  (currently that’s makeup, and I’ve had friends say I should post that instead but I’m not as into that as I was posting the nail art)

[perfectsquarenails]

For this one, I just wanted to do all of the things, so it took me a few days for everything to come together.  Totally worth it, and I am digging the matte topcoat.

[perfectsquarenails]

Summer is here, and I am painting my nails again!  School was so busy this year, and I found that I had no time to paint my nails, and that painting my nails was starting to feel like a chore that I had to do to get something posted.  I don’t want to feel that way about something that makes me happy, so I stopped until I felt I could paint my nails and have it feel good again.  My favorite part about nail art is that it is a creative outlet that relaxes me, posting my nails is secondary.  I’m gonna see how much posting happens this summer and then we shall see about the future of this blog. (I’m not digging the blog name, I think i’ll be changing it but I have no ideas so far...)

In the meantime, enjoy a nice and easy drybrush mani :)

[perfectsquarenails]

Pretty much I wanted to do something with lots of tiny details, and triangles.  So this happened.

[perfectsquarenails]

Happy Valentines Day!  This was a true test of my fine line skills, and both of our abilities to withstand falling asleep appendages.

[perfectsquarenails]

Here’s a better swatch of LynBDesigns Curiosity and Knowledge, which I did over silver. Glitter always makes me happy.

[perfectsquarenails]

Did reindeer at a friend’s request and OHMYGOSH THEY ARE ADORABLEEEEEEEE

[perfectsquarenails]

If you’ve been hanging around this blog in the past few months or so, you will know that I suck at editing pictures, which basically means that you get no posts if I get lazy (hint, I am lazy all the time).  Also, finals kicked my butt so I didn’t paint my nails for like two weeks.  Which is a very long time for me.

Sooo: Happy Sunday, Happy New Year, and Hello to all of my followers!  It’s been a fairly crazy year, so going back to nail art and relaxing for a bit has been a great way for me to feel like me.  Thanks for sticking with me, I can’t wait to see what this year has in store :)

[perfectsquarenails]

Swatch: IncidentalTwin The Cavalry

I thought this was going to be a bit blacker, but I’m so glad it’s not.  The Cavalry is an awesome shifter, between a purple-mauve and warm brown-gold, generally staying on the golden brown side of things (these pictures really pick up the purple, yay!).  I think this is three coats plus topcoat, but I can’t remember completely - I have been really behind with editing pictures and there was a longer gap than usual between me writing this and painting my nails.  But yeah, I loooove this color, it’s not something I would normally pick up but I think it’s a gorgeous fall color, and it made me really happy to wear it, so that’s pretty much a done deal.

[perfectsquarenails]

I knew I was going to  get LynBDesigns Curiosity and Knowledge because I am a shameless consumer of all things Ravenclaw.  It’s such a fun blue glitter, and I love the black and purple bits that add depth to this polish.  Here I have Curiosity and Knowledge over my favorite cobalt blue, just to amp up the blue a little bit.

[perfectsquarenails]

I bring you the ‘I wanted to do nail art but then got lazy halfway through so I just finished these accent nails’ look.  I’ve been feeling like plaid is supposedly in or something… maybe I heard that somewhere? (do you feel the internet sarcasm- I hope so, because if you’re anything like me, you’ve been inundated with the plaid is in for fall thing everywhere).  I jumped on the bandwagon so I can now feel satisfied with my on trend-ness.

[perfectsquarenails]

Today I have some doodle-inspired art with IncidentalTwin’s The Cavalry, and a little bit of I am Groot.  I was super lazy about taking these pictures, which is why by the time I got outside there was very little light.  I still think this really shows off the awesomeness of The Cavalry, in all it’s shimmery, shifty, glory.

[perfectsquarenails]

Swatch: IncidentalTwin Tiny Alpha

I bought this polish because it looked amazing in the bottle shots, but I’m a little dismayed that I find it looks more special in the bottle than on my nails.  I loved the formula on this one.  It dries to a satin-y finish (I have on topcoat here), and I think the opacity is amazing compared to other incidentaltwin polishes I have.  I’m wearing two coats, but you could easily get away with one thicker coat.

As far the color goes, it’s just black, but if you know what you’re looking for (and you have to look for it carefully) there’s a lovely blue/purple shimmer that becomes visible in just the right light.  My complaint here is that I want more sparkle, dammit!  I did a direct comparison to black, and I can definitively say that Tiny Alpha looks slightly more navy than a plain black creme, and it was easier to pick up on the shimmer when next to black in my direct comparison test (I painted half of my nail black, half with Tiny Alpha).  I also ran the same test with topcoat/no topcoat and found that topcoat does improve shimmer visibility for indirect angles of light, and from further away.  I felt like a very diligent scientist, running my nail polish experiments.  These are things I needed to know!

[perfectsquarenails]

This was a part of my gradient-crazy nail art period a few weeks ago, when all the nail art I did had to include a gradient.  I really felt myself getting stuck in a gradient rut, which I’ve since tried hard to break out of, starting with adding on these chevron accents after I realized I had done yet another gradient.

[perfectsquarenails]

Simple floral designs are one of my favorites to pull out of my bag of tricks.  I wanted to do some thing sunflower-y since I don’t normally work with my yellow and orange colors.  The base is a brushstroke mani with my mint green, dark green, and teal polishes.