Wow. What an exciting title huh? I’ve been talking to a lot of women who historically haven’t been fashion diva’s like I have [well, at least in terms of nail polish designs], and it turns out they don’t know where to start with their nails. So, I thought I’d post an article talking about nail polish in general so they can get grounded in the basics before advancing to something cool like crackle nail polish! Sometimes it is easier to start with easy nail designs before jumping into the deep end of the pool!

Nail Polish Basics

So, where to start? I tend to classify nail polishes into a couple of different broad categories. One is quality, and the other is colors. Let’s start there with our nail polish tutorial shall we?

First, quality. If you buy a bottle of nail polish at your local drug store for under $4, you’re likely going to get what you pay for. Cheap polishes will tend to not go on your nails very easily or smoothly, may have bubbles in them or be a bit grainy in spots, and in general can be frustrating to apply to get a consistent look.

Once you manage to get the polish on your nails, it may also dry inconsistently. Now, after all of this potential frustration, the worst part of the cheaper formulations is that they often start chipping, cracking, or peeling after only a few days – which may cause you to think that nail designs are way too much work for little reward. WRONG!

If you stick with a quality polish the application process is super easy and smooth, and often will last up to 2 weeks without chipping or peeling! Some polishes I like that are in the $8 range which I consider high quality include:

• OPI Polish
• China Glaze Polish
• Chanel [in the $20 range] Polish

Nail Polish Colors

So this would be the next thing I think about. You can classify nail polishes into the following categories of colors – each tends to give on a distinct impression, and some are infamous for the connotations associated with them, so do a bit of research ahead of deciding on the solid color you want to try on your nails:

• Bold Colors – Red and Black are the dominant ones here. See my other articles on red and black polish to understand more the emotions and image they can portray.
• Basic Colors – These are the most common – pinks, greens, purples, white, grey, brown, blues etc.
• Pastels – These are “soft” colors. Often only seen at weddings, pastel colors have made a huge comeback in the last couple of years. These range from flesh or peach tones to light greens, blues, and even faint pinks or browns.
• Sheer – Sheer nail colors are very transparent, and may range from a glossy clear coat to a very slightly tinted color – often more flesh tones.

In addition to thinking about colors, there are also some nail polish formulations that should be considered as well:

• Glitter polish – Has tiny, almost microscopic flakes of metallic material embedded in the polish to produce a glitter effect on your nails. Gold and silver used to dominate designs, but lately top manufacturers have come out with very colorful glitters across almost all basic colors. The higher end polishes have super tiny specs in them that produce an amazing effect, while the cheaper polishes tend to have larger flakes that you can almost feel on your nails when dry [avoid!].
• Crackle Nail Polish – A specially formulated polish that randomly cracks (or “shatters”)  as it dries, allowing a color of polish applied underneath it to show through in very random patterns. I have tones of examples on my site about this, so won’t spend more time here on this.

Nail Polish Accessories

Finally, there are several items you should read more about that should be part of your nail design arsenal:

• Base Coat – a clear coat applied before any colored polish. Nourishes your nail base and provides a better surface for polish to stick to.
• Top Coat – special clear coat that is applied after your done painting your nails. Acts as a protective coating and often can extend the life of your nail design for up to 3-5 more days.
• Cuticle Oil – used during home manicures to soften and enable removal of excess cuticle skin around your nails.
• Q-tips – helpful for cleaning up around your nails any extra polish that may have spilled over onto your skin.
• Nail polish remover – pretty much as it says. Removes old nail polish ahead of you putting on new.
• Nail file – helps shape and smooth your nails ahead of applying a polish.
• Nail art brush – useful when starting to experiment with painting designs on your nails.

There you have it – the basics of nail polish to help you get started. Once you venture into doing basic nail designs, you can explore my site to learn more advanced techniques to accomplish more and more sophisticated designs!

Dr. Mercola’s article on manicure risks can be found here:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/16/hepatitis-b-from-manipedis.aspx?e_cid=20120116_DNL_art_1

This is one more reason why to consider replacing some of your salon manicures with a home manicure using our new 2012 home manicure guide

Talia

My husband has been a obsessed lately with trying to eat healthier with a goal of losing some of his spare tire – you know exactly what I mean right?

Well, after spending more time online then I spend doing my nails, he settled on a specific nutritionist guided program to increase his healthy food options for meals. I won’t bore you with the details as currently I’m not really as focused as he is on that. However, as part of the program he purchased they gave him a free jump start sample of the entire program to redistribute for FREE!

So, in the interests of all of the new years resolutions around eating better and losing a few extra pounds in 2012, I thought I’d provide you the link to his site – you can find the free sample of this diet program [from a certified nutritionist he told me] on the upper right side of his weight loss blog – www.cutbodyfatfast.com.

No strings attached – he isn’t even asking for your email! You simply click on the link and download a free initial starter guide to give you a feel for the larger program – even by itself this FREE guide is a great way to get started eating healthier, feeling better, and even shedding a few pounds without drastically changing your lifestyle [the meals in my house aren't too weird - trust me!].

Anyway, thought I’d give him a little love, as well as you, by sharing this free resource!

Be save this new years, and remember to sport some new nail art designs in 2012!!!!

Talia

As much as I do my own nails [sometimes 3-4 times a month if I want to try out a new nail design or polish], I’ve never been able to achieve the same results that I see on my occasional visit to the salon [and leave $55 poorer!]. While I love the salon manicures as much as any other women, I can’t justify having my nails done “professionally” more than a few times a year. Especially as they only seem to last about 2 weeks before I have chipped a nail or the polish as come off on one of my nails [especially on my right hand given I am right handed...which means dishes and chores take a heavier toll on them!].

I talked to a friend of mine who is heavy into web and computer stuff, and he asked me why I don’t just buy a home manicure guide and learn the “Secrets” of the professionals. Well Mr. Smarty Pants – sounds good in theory but I couldn’t find a good guide on line or in my local barnes and noble! As if he has to worry about how his nails look.

He was a bit contrite, and in return for what I thought was his arrogance, he helped me get set up on a site where you can find a professional to do work for you [for a price of course]. So I bit the bullet and put a set of requirements on the site for a qualified professional manicurist and author to write me an E-Book about doing a home manicure.

I am VERY happy to announce that I found a good “contractor” on this jobs site, and paid her to work with a manicurist to create a step by step home manicure guide.

After I saw the finished product I tried it – and it rocks! There were even little simple things I wasn’t doing at home for my nails that made a huge difference in the final result after the polish and top coat had dried!

So, I worked with my computer guy friend [he helped me set up this blog BTW] to see how I could offer this to all women at a very reasonable price [to cover my costs in creating it and of course hosting this site]. A few days ago we finally got everything lined up and now are offering this awesome home manicure guide for purchase directly from my site as well as on Barnes & Noble if you own a NOOK tablet reader!

So I encourage you to check it out – I’ve priced it at $8.95 for now [he thinks I should be charging close to double that - but, to be fair, he is a guy and maybe doesn't understand where us women like to spend money and the comparison shopping we do constantly!].

It’s cheap – even I would have EASILY paid $8.95 for this guide – but since I was the one yearning for a simple step by step guide and couldn’t find one, I had to pay quite a bit more to hire this contractor and manicurist to create it for me…but you don’t have to repeat my process – instead you can simply buy and instantly download the results!

I hope you check it out – I truly believe you will get much better results from the care you give your nails at home, and with a 60 day money back policy you have my personal guarantee that it will be worth your time and money to try these techniques at home. If you don’t see results within 60 days you can get a refund – really!

Thanks for helping me celebrate this – this is my first big milestone in terms of creating a product I can offer to women around my passion for the best nail art designs possible – without spending a fortune. I’m excited and hope you are too!

Take care,

Talia

In this timely update, I’m going to share some research I’ve been doing on nail art stickers for nail art designs, and give you my perspective [which I'm never shy about doing] on how well they work, and are they a front runner for doing easy nail designs. I can tell you a bit of a teaser before I get into the nail designs that I don’t think they are just for beginners – in fact I may start alternating some months using nail stickers versus my normal crackle polish designs or a trendy OPI nail polish…

Easy Nail Designs using Sticker Art

Ok, so my avid readers will know I haven’t always been easy on Sally Hansen nail polishes – this brand of nail polish simply has never performed well for me, so I’ve not written a lot about it when reviewing the best nail polish brands [as for me it isn't a good nail polish]. Besides, this article isn’t about the sometimes tedious approach to painting your nail art designs using multiple nail polish brands!

However, setting aside their polish collection, Sally Hansen is getting rave reviews for their line of nail art stickers – they call them “Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips”, and are essentially easy to apply stickers that have some unbelievable designs already printed on them – they provide incredibly complex nail designs as art, with minimal effort. They use real nail polish when they make the strips,  which is why so many reviewers indicate they last 10+ days with little to no chipping or peeling, which is amazing!

They have a great pattern and color tool to see what each of the nail stickers look like – you can find it at the Sally Hansen Site [kind of fun to play around with actually]. Give it a shot to preview what these nail art design stickers will look like on your hands.

If you watched the video at the beginning of this article you already know almost as much as I do about how these nail stickers are applied [although calling them nail stickers doesn't seem to represent the quality of the nail designs to be honest!]

Tips on Artistic Simple Nail Designs with Polish Strips

A few tips on using these to ensure you get the 10+ days wear out of your nail art designs that most readers do:

• You can warm the strips up between your hands before peeling them off, as it makes them more pliable and you’re less likely to tear them by accident
• Use the included little file to remove the excess strip that hangs over the edge of your nail [if you try and rip it you won't like the results trust me!]
• Consider putting a clear nail polish top coat over them once they are “dry” for extra protection
• Try them on your toes – they will last several weeks on your toes, and you won’t believe the compliments people will give you as it is unusual to see cool nail art designs on toes [other than the usual butterfly or flower ]
• Be sure and store the unused strips in an airtight baggie ASAP – they will dry out fairly fast
• They will remove fairly easily with regular acetone nail polish remover – trying to peel them off will likely leave residue on your nails, which won’t be a desirable nail design at all!

If you haven’t tried these yet – give them a shot. It takes less than 15 minutes to apply, there is no mess to clean up afterwards, and you truly get some stellar artistic nail designs that would cost a small fortune to have done at a nail salon [if they could even do them by hand, which for many of these I doubt it!].

My favorite place to buy these is either my local Ulta store, or online of course at drugstore.com.

Have some fun with these – you get totally professional looking, sophisticated nail art designs in about 15min, and at around $9 per kit I think it is a great deal – especially if you want to sport a totally cool design that you never see on other women’s nails!

 Cool Nail Art Designs by Painting with Polish

Occasionally I will get the urge to do some really cool nail art designs using fine brushes and a few different nail polishes.

The nail design video below shows you one example of someone creating a leopard nail art print on their nails – this can result in a cool look, but be warned you will have to put some time in and practice – this nail design won’t come out perfect the first time. When I tried it my nails had an impressionist art look to them unfortunately!

The above video used Elf nail polish to create the Leopard Nail Design.  This next video shows how to create  cool Christmas Nail Art [okay - maybe more Winterish than Christmas] that shows snowflakes and snow on your nails – definitely a cool winter scene depicted in real life on your nail art!

As you can see from the above nail art videos, some nail art actually isn’t as hard as I make it out to be [that can come from me being lazy sometimes to be honest]. With just 2-3 colors of a quality nail polish brand, and the good nail brushes included with them, you can actually create some cool scenes on your nails – turning them into works of art! I still tend to use toothpicks and some super fine nail polish brushes, however, as accessories I pick up at my local beauty store. Sometimes the brushes in your existing nail polish bottles can get crusty from past use, or may not be as fine as you need [or maybe this is from my hands not being as steady as they should be? I never claimed to be an artist - especially for nail designs!]

In a future article I’ll take a look at some other nail art sticker options for the trend of easy nail designs – this was a good start and hopefully has given you a new option to try in the meantime!

Happy Nail Designing!

Talia

The Katy Perry Shatter Nail Polish by OPI is part of 5 colors OPI released in 2011. The black shatter polish is the only crackle polish in this line of polishes – the other 4 colors while not crackle polish, are still very vibrant and of course trendy [being associated with Katy Perry how could they not be?].

Not all collections you can find online include the Black Shatter polish – so make sure when you’re considering purchasing this polish collection it has what you want – otherwise you can always purchase the  black crackle separately.

Like most of the OPI brand of nail polishes, you won’t break the bank on this collection. Each bottle runs for around $9 each, and you can find mini-bottle collections on amazon to try them all before deciding which big bottle you want to invest in.

Colors Included in the Katy Perry Nail Polish Line

The colors are of course creatively titled, which remains one of the fun things I like about OPI as they aren’t some boring, formula sounding name like you sometimes see with Chanel nail polishes!

• Teenage Dream – a beautiful shade of pink with a subtle shimmer and sparkle
• Not Like the Movies – a metallic silver shade that is perfect for those urban night outs
• Last Friday Night – an awesome shade of blue nail polish with a nice glitter effect
• The One That Got Away – ok, this polish is not referring to the last time you went fishing! A nice berry shade with overtones of purple.
• Katy Perry Shatter Polish – one of the most talked about polishes from this lineup – an awesome black crackle polish.

These are some effects you can achieve with the Katy Black Shatter Polish – there are literally thousands of combinations using the black crackle polish over top of almost any base color!

Using Crackle Nail Polish is a bit different than a normal single polish coat. This is a simple demo showing you graphically how this crackle effect works on your nails. Note that in my experience the quality of a crackle nail polish makes all the difference in the world – cheaper polishes don’t create uniform or good shatter effects, and can go on clumpy and even blend in with the underlying base coat color…Even if you use a cheap base coat underneath, be sure and spend a few bucks more to get a quality crackle polish such as OPI!

For Halloween one of my all time Halloween nail designs is to use a nice quality orange base coat, of course wait until it is completely dry, and then apply the OPI Katy Perry Black Shatter on top. With very little effort this super easy nail design creates a perfectly themed nail design with the classic Halloween colors! Even beginnings can have a holiday nail design that looks like it was professionally done – yet you can leverage the shatter crackle and do this in your own home in minutes!

Aside from the celebrity endorsement by Katy Perry, I simply love the quality of OPI polishes, and this collection holds up to their standards. Read any of the reviews on amazon or other sites [including mine of course] and you’ll see this love is pretty widespread!

Anyway, not a super long post today. I just wanted to highlight Katy’s version of black crackle polish now that we are rapidly approaching Halloween and this should be a nail design you try given how easy it is [and of course cheap compared to going to a nail salon!]

Later….

Talia

Zoya Fall 2011 Nail Polishes

Zoya has introduced 2 sets of polishes for their fall lineup. The first is their Mirrors Collection, which is an incredible set of 6 polishes that I’m itching to try. “Mirrors” refers to the shimmer that you see from this slightly metallic nail polish formulation – since you already know I am a huge crackle nail polish fan, I am drawn to trendy but easy nail polish designs that exhibit a different effect than just a plain old base color, and while this isn’t a crackle polish set, the shimmery effects have me excited!

As mentioned in my other post on organic or safe nail polishes, Zoya remains true to form with these polishes being formaldehyde free, DBP and Toluene Free. The mirrors polish  collection for Fall 2011 is made up of:

• Nimue Fall Polish – this is a muted purple shade with a subtle silvery metallic sparkle. Very classy looking.
• Marina – you can guess this shade – a subdued blue with metallic hints, a very cool color shade of polish.
• Tao – Brings up visions of meditation for me, but in reality this fall 2011 polish from Zoya is a light grey with hints of a machine type feel to it that makes me want to dress of the club scene in Manhattan!
• Yara – This is not necessarily my kind of color to be honest, but I have an aversion to brown style shades given my complexion and fashions…best described as an olive shade with subtle gold metallic sparkles.
• Neeka – this for some reason made me think of one of my favorite shows “Alias”…this 2011 Fall Polish is hard to describe – to me it is a vibrant purple with gold accents that create a nice shimmer effect.
• Jem – Ok – out of the above collection, I have to say this is the first one I will try when I get my set. It is an intriguing dark purple-red combination with a gold sparkle that shines through for an amazing effect. It looks daring, racy, and yet crosses over nicely into a classy look when needed during the day [i.e. at the office].

The Smoke Collection from Zoya, also part of their Fall 2011 lineup, is best described as a set of cream polishes. The  Jana polish has subtle grey and purple tones and is described as a medium nude polish.

The remaining 5 polishes in this collection range from black to a teal color, to brown and a few shades of purple. I’m not going to describe all of them here, as you can find more info at the Zoya site and can view the colors in larger scale than I can provide here!

Suffice it to say that Zoya has again brought us an amazing and versatile set of safe nail polishes for us to dress up our fall wardrobes – I’m ready – are you?

(The above photos are compliments of Zoya)

Happy Wednesday all – and to all a good night

Talia

Ran across a fun, although not so simple nail design slide show at Seventeen Magazine [yes, 17 was a long time ago for me, but they still publish a lot of cool nail polish stuff - now be quiet about my age please].

 I’ve put a couple of pictures in as a teaser to make it worth your while to go over to the link above at Seventeen.com – I didn’t see any crackle nail polish designs but let me know if maybe I missed one!

One item I’m starting to toy with more is some foil nail polish designs. Sent out some initial techniques on my mailing list [subscribe now if you aren't already - see the hot deals page], but in looking at some of these more complicated designs I think it would be fun to spend some time working with foil designs, as they are super super easy to do, and can results in some looks very similar  to what you see on the above slide show.

I’ve been getting a lot of hits on my OPI Fall 2011 Polish page – apparently a lot of interest out there in the new OPI collections – if you haven’t seen my review of them check it out at Review of OPI Fall 2011 Collection! Some fun stuff to try as the weather starts changing.

Ok short post today as I am at work and probably shouldn’t be thinking about nails right now – look for more later around some of the easier nail designs using Foil techniques!

Have a great day

Talia

PS. Don’t forget to take the latest survey – it helps all of us learn more about what other women are doing with nail polish!!!

I try and be a bit discrete, as otherwise women may wonder why I am staring at their toes all the time [unless of course they know I am the world famous Talia doing research for my world famous nail polish blog!].

So – I didn’t see as much crackle this trip as I would have liked. Lots of red nail polish on fingers and toes, a really awful shade of green polish on toes, and a beige polish tone that I’m not sure I liked. Would probably have to see it somewhere else other than an escalator up to ticketing to be sure.

Crackle polish, to me, is still a hot trend, and offers endless experimentation. While I haven’t been successful in finding a Chanel crackle [maybe because they don't make one...or they figure women paying that much for nail polish aren't interested in crackle? Kind of like some kind of class distinction maybe...rubbish.

Cracked Nail Polish

Some of my friends still refer to Crackle as "that Cracked Nail Polish Look". I hate this characterization - cracked nail polish to me is what happens after 1-2 weeks of using a cheap nail polish that starts to chip and crack. But hey - if you want to call the distinctive, beautiful nail effect of crackle using this term - so be it.

The Katy Perry OPI Crackle is still one of my favorites...Black Shatter remains a high quality and very vibrant, noticeable, and fairly long lasting crackle polish. One of the easiest places to get it remains amazon of course, as you can always find the best polish price and selection from multiple sellers [and not have to change out of your bathrobe to go shopping].

I’ve written so many other articles on Crackle Polish it’s hard to know what new things to say [to be honest]. I love it, you can use glitter polish as a base coat with black shatter on top for a stunning effect. I haven’t noticed any remarkable effects from spending more money on the base coat such as Chanel for example…I tend to stick to my OPI and lately some China Glaze for both the base coat and the crackle top coat.

OPI nail polish colors still seem to me to have the best variety to use for my base coat, and the OPI crackle collection is one of the best out there in my opinion – whether you’re using the black shatter and like the black nail effect or not. If you haven’t tried OPI polishes check out this great OPI Polish Article to see why you should.

Zoya Nail Polish – No Cracked Nail Polish Here

I don’t think Zoya makes a crackle polish to be honest [email me if you find one]. I have, however, read tons of reviews of women that really like using a Zoya base coat with China Glaze crackle. One reason might be due to the fact that Zoya polishes are often included in discussions about organic or safe nail polishes, due to being free of toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). So while I wouldn’t characterize these as non-toxic, they are definitely positioned as safer nail polishes due to removing some of the chemicals widely regarded as somewhat toxic and possibly harmful.

This makes sense I guess – the polish closest to your nails is a quality, safe and possibly organic polish, while the crackle coat that goes over top isn’t in direct contact with your nail surface. Never really occurred to me to think this way, as I don’t worry too much about the chemicals in nail polish – but if you are, and want something considered to be a safe nail polish, then this would make sense.

Along with the OPI Fall 2011 Collection, Zoya has also announce their fall 2011 nail polish collection:

Zoya Smoke Nail Polish Collection – Fall 2011

• Jana  – smoky mauve quartz cream
• Petra – smoky eggplant mauve cream
• Codie – smoky brown taupe cream
• Anja – smoky palatinate purple cream
• Cynthia  – smoky Prussian blue cream
• Dree  – smoky camouflage green cream

Zoya Mirrors  Nail Polish Collection – Fall 2011

• Nimue  – rich thistle metallic
• Marina – steel blue metallic
• Tao  – slate gray metallic
• Yara  – sparkly olive green metallic
• Neeka  – sparkly amethyst purple metallic
• Jem  – sparkly fandango pink metallic

I haven’t tried any of these Zoya collections yet, but if they aren’t going to make a Zoya Crackle Polish, then I am a bit excited by the metallic nail polish set – especially am a bit eager to try the Neeka polish…stay tuned.

Crackle Nail Polish Opi?

Yes of course. OPI remains, IMO, the queen of crackle nail polishes. A close second is China Glaze which I also have used quite a bit in the past. With an awesome color like the Neon Flying Dragon how could you not love this brand? [ok, so this one isn't so much a crackle, but still love the color]. One of the best places to buy China Glaze Nail Polish is Sally Beauty. However, they don’t carry a large collection of OPI polish so amazon is still a great bet in terms of online shopping for OPI.

OPI crackle polish for me is just one of the best quality crackles – it goes on smooth, isn’t too runny or clumpy like some other polishes I won’t name, and the cracked nail polish look is always random and doesn’t look like fault lines on your nails.

If you haven’t tried OPI crackle, I would of course start with what I consider one of their flagship polishes already mentioned earlier – the Black Shatter is simply superb.

Ok – I have the Crackle bug out of my system for tonight. Remember – I have lots of other articles on specific crackle colors, approaches to beautiful nail designs, and specific tips and tricks to using crackle polish - check them out. This article was just a little teaser after not seeing enough crackle on my business trip!

Talia

_________________

Like makeup or cosmetics, nail polish brands also have a wide variety and collection.  Depending on what a woman is looking for, there is always a brand that caters to each and everyone.  Along with many other products out in the market today, the nail care industry has also gone the natural and organic way.  With the entry of Zoya Nail Lacquers, the nail polish brand began to revolutionize the nail industry by focusing on more natural and healthy nail polishes.  Zoya is one of the favorite nail polish brands of beauty addicts today.

Founded in 1986 by spouses Zoya and Michael Reyzis, the brand originated from being a small nail salon into being a full-blown spa that focuses on natural, herbal and healthy skin care and products.  Zoya was also originally a pianist, who decided to venture out into the nail care industry.  Due to the demands of her clients for natural and healthy ingredients in beauty products, her husband Michael, who was a chemist, began to formulate and develop products made from natural and healthy ingredients.  Soon enough, Zoya became a popular nail polish brand that released the very first fast-drying topcoat and the longest-wearing, toxin-free nail polish.

As every beauty expert knows, it was the first known nail polish brand that removed toxic ingredients such as toluene, formaldehyde, camphor and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) from its formulations, making it a healthy, safe and natural alternative to the usual array of nail polish brands out in the market.  Beauty reviews have been made about the brand certifying to its natural and healthy qualities.  Like most products, quality is of utmost importance to most women, and for nail polish, this means it has to be durable, long-lasting and easy to apply, among other things.

With Zoya, it reached that high-quality standard by not only being made from natural ingredients, but also for being long-lasting or long-wearing.  It can last for at least 2 weeks, without chipping and the without the colors fading.  It’s also easy to apply, and sometimes, without the need of a base coat and top coat, the nail polish color is as good as it is on the bottle. It’s also quite affordable, compared to other high-end brands, considering its quality and formulation.  Today, the Zoya nail polish brands are also known for having a wide array of colors, including the creation of the unique formulation of matte nail polish colors.