50 Shades of Grey

  Let me start off by saying I hate myself for that title, but I just couldn't think of any other puns on the color grey.  So, I'm sorry, but the awful title stays, because it's too perfect for a post all about how much I loooooove grey nail polish!!
  I love it because it's perfectly neutral without being all gothy and black, and it just looks soooo classy!  Besides, mattes have been really in this season and grey is just so hot right now!  I also love grey as a base when doing really any fun nail designs, because I find that it's easier to use than white polish, both in terms of number of coats needed and quality of polish,* but it's almost just as bright, so you can make your detail colors really pop.  (*Seriously, can we talk about white nail polish for a second?  Like, why is it always, no matter how much you spend on it, the thickest, goopiest crap of all time?  I mean it - my Wet 'n' Wild is equal in quality to my OPI.  They're both fucking horrid.  Sometimes I think we were better off back in the WhiteOut-as-nail-polish days of yore.  And streaky.  Always streaky, so you need at least two coats to make it even.  But it's so thick that it's way heavy at even just two coats, which makes it start chipping the moment it dries?  Ugh. Ugh. Ughhh.  Anyway...)

  Now that I've finished talking about how much I hate white nail polish, (not the way it looks! I love that part!) here's a look with white nail polish!  Super simple white half-moons.  I love a good monochromatic manicure, too, so bonus!  The white is OPI, the grey is Revlon Top Speed in Hazy.  Love this shade, it's one of my favorites.  White half-moons are typically done on nude nails, like a reverse French, but I love using a surprising shade for the main color.  It's playful while remaining totally chic.  Perfect.


  My current nail obsession is ombre glitter.  It's incredibly easy to do right and make it look like a pro job!  You want to use a glitter with a clear polish base - the great thing about clear bases is that any brush strokes and roughness is magically erased with a top coat - not so with colored gel bases.  And you are going to need a top-coat to gloss over the mountain of glitter if you try this look.

Sigh, stupid camera.  Top photo has most accurate color.

  It's a simple process: I did my longest layer first, letting the brush drip heavy at the base of my nail, and taper off to nothing by the time I got to the tip, actually stopping the brushstroke before I reached the end of my nail.  After that base layer dried, I just dabbed with my brush, concentrating at the base, and using the brush to really push the glitter into the places that I wanted it.  It's easy to play around with the glitter to get it looking just how you want it.  Finish with a nice, thick top coat.  Looks awesome starting from the tip, too.

  This is the same grey as above, only looking totes diff!  Awesome!  The glitter is Sephora by OPI in Spark-tacular!  (God, these names....)  But really, this is an awesome polish, and I love it so much I just might marry it.  The photos barely do it justice, but I tried, which is why you get to behold it in blurry realism and also with wrinkle-and-blemish heightening flash!  How lucky for you!

  Now, I really thought I had more lovely grey manicures to share today.  I guess this is not much at all like 50 Shades of Grey, except that trying to photograph that grey was torture.  (Ba-dum tsschhh!  I'll be here all week...)