Manicure Monday: Layered in Blues

Learn how to create a fun layered look fast and easy with this manicure tutorial.

First layer: this is a clear coat perfect for your nail base coat
This polish dries in 60 seconds.

Second: add one even layer of this nail polish.
You don't want it too thick, because it changes
the shade of this beautiful teal color.

Dries in 60 seconds as well.

Third step: add one even layer of this Glitter mix
from Milani.
 You want an even layer because there are big and small chunks of glitter.

Dries in about 90 seconds (which is fast for glitter,
but if you don't let it dry completely it'll peel this layer and the other layers off too.

Manicure Monday: Purple Licious

Lately my nails have been breaking and splitting a ton.
This is actually helping strengthen them.
Apply as your base coat polish.

I love metallic polish!  This is now a favorite of mine!
Apply in 2 coats.

I love glitter polish, but Milani is the best and fastest drying glitter polish.
Apply as much glitter as you want!  Let dry for a full 3 minutes.

Manicure Monday: Nail Polish Brand: Milani

I love nail polish! I love having beautiful, creative, fun nail designs on my toenails and finger nails.  I love when nail polish brands come out with more fun, creative, helpful ways to use their polishes.  One such company is Milani.  I have some of their glitter polishes, that are just so beautiful, because their glitter is bright, brilliant, and rich in colour.  I have one of their beautiful yellow polishes, and then I found some awesome new Milani polishes, they have skinny long detail brushes.

Milani Glitters

Milani 101: Lemongello

Milani: 709: Green Sketch, 708: Yellow Design

Now that I have found these new designing brushed Milani polishes, the next thing to do is to use them.  So enjoy the following technique, its a hand painting, learning to control long bristled brushes, as well as learning to control skinny brushes with nail polish on them.

Polishes used

First layer of colored polish: brown is a great accent to the 

lines, painting straight lines is hard, especially with long skinny brushes
once you master this technique you can expand your talents.
So I did straight lines on the smaller toenails, and a curved line on the big toenail.

Manicure Monday: Color Block with pens

Hi everyone,

Well I'm back from vacation now, it was a really nice break.  Much needed as we haven't had a vacation since 2008, and with all the stress from multiple moves, school changes for our children, and our plates constantly being balanced and changed and my husband's job changing multiple times as well, we needed to leave everything behind and just enjoy ourselves and our little family.  I will be taking this whole week to get back up on track of everything so once again please be patient.

On a side note, since today is Monday, I was able to sneak in a manicure while on vacation, so here it is! I will go a head and apologize for it being sloppy, but like I said I sneaked it into our vacation, so it was literally like apply, then take off before people notice the smell of polish and see me missing.
~Enjoy Nails With Zing

Nail Art Design Tips from Pros

After a lot of research I found some great articles that will help us amateurs learn how to have professional looking manicures and pedicures.  And if that seems to daunting of a task learn how to make your Nail Salon experience the best and safest it can be.  Even though I've been painting nails for more than 17 years, I actually learned some new tips and tricks to make my nail artist experience better for myself and my clients.  Enjoy! ~Nails with Zing

1.  5 Different Nail Shapes for your next Salon Visit, from How Stuff Works: learn about the top 5 trending nail shapes.

2. 5 Nail tools you should know About: from How Stuff Works: which file, what pens, buffing or not? and other cool tool tips for nail health.

3. 5 Home Treatments to keep your nails Healthy, from How Stuff works: learn about why moisturizers are so important to nail health and other wonderful tips.

4. 10 Steps to do your own Pedicure, from How Stuff Works: from limited time to all the time in the world, what's important when you do your pedicure at home.

5. 10 Steps to do your own Manicure, from How Stuff Works: nail buffing and base coat polishes? Learn what's most important with manicures.

6. 5 Steps for the perfect at home Pedicure, from How Stuff Works: how often do you do a full Pedicure at home?  Want to learn how to do it easier?

7. DIY Nail designs from tools found around your House, from BeautiyLish: what can you easily use from around your house that will help you be more creative?

8. How many coats of polish are necessary?, from How Stuff Works: 1 or 2 or more, learn what it is here.

9. 10 Top creative Nail art design Trends, from How Stuff Works: Learn about glitter, ombre, crackle, nail jewelry and more Nail Art Design Trends.

Manicure Monday: Accessory Match: Scarves

Its that time again, and we have a great new Manicure Monday Accessory Match.  Doing this post this week, has made me totally wanting the accessory from the image sent to us.  Yes, I'm in love with the beautiful teal lacy scarf!  Just to let you know we tried a few different option for fingernails, and toenails. Enjoy! ~Nails with Zing  

accessory

Dermelect: She-She, NYC: East Village

Opaque Teal polish as the base, then lace decals on top, 

Since my lace decals had a wide middle stripe, I painted it with translucent teal polish
 and added a tear drop on my ring finger to match 

Sally Hansen: Insta Dri 60 second top coat, Sally Hansen: gold, Dermelect: she-she

I tried a new look by removing all polish from my ring finger and painting it gold

I loved the look so much that I went with the same look on my toenails:
 gold and opaque teal

I added dotted vertical lines on each gold toenail

Then I added a mini lace decal on the teal toenail

Lastly I paint a gold stripe on the lace decals where the translucent teal polish was
when everything was dry, I used my 60 second dry top coat to seal everything together

Are your Nails healthy?

I have recently been thinking about health of mind, body, and the different parts of your body like dental health, vision health, organ health, skin health, brain health etc.  As a blogger who does lots of product reviews, lately I've been asked to review lots of vitamins, minerals, and other natural dietary supplements key to keeping your body healthy.  When we are in tune with our body, we know what different types of pain mean, we know what symptoms to remember when something isn't flowing well, our bowel movements aren't normal or we are craving something not in our diet.  As I have been learning to listen to my body, with every creak, pop, jab of pain or growl I am learning something new about my body and how it tells me I'm doing good, or that I'm not doing good health wise.

When I don't feed my kids enough vegetables they get a yellowish tint around their mouths.  When I don't eat enough greens my hormones are fluctuating like crazy.  But I have never once thought about noticing my nails and how they change to let me know they're healthy or not.   I have always had thin weak nails that chip, break, tear and sometimes peal off in layers, this has been going on my whole life.  But just recently I have learned that not all of that is normal, and its not really good...not SUPER bad, but there are things I can do to help my body to be healthier by listening or rather following the health of my nails.  So my question to you is, do you know if your nails are healthy or not?

Below I have listed a few links of articles that I have found, very helpful to me in helping me learn more about nail health and how it keeps us more in tune with our total body health.

1. Top 10 things Your Nails say about your Health from How Stuff Works, 10 detailed and real tips or suggestions on how to measure your body's health by following or watching for bad signs from your nails.

2. 5 Home Remedies to prevent nail Problems from How Stuff Works, 5 treatments you can do from your home to help keep your nails healthy and prevent dangerous or harmful issues to your nail health.

3. 5 Things not to do before going to the Salon from How Stuff Works, Learn how to keep your nails, your skin, and even your legs from being contaminated at a Nail Salon.

4. 3 Reasons your nails are naturally Dark from How Stuff Works, nails that change color isn't healthy, learn how to treat and prevent this from happening to you.

Manicure Monday: Summer Stripes

Hi again, Nails with Zing here for our newest Manicure Monday!  Today we have put together a fun bright summer look with a little attitude.  I call this look Pink Sass. Enjoy!

Sinful Colors: 24/7, NYC Matte finish, Hot Designs Polish Pen: Black

2 layers of Sinful Colors "Neon" Pink

Add a fuzzy/ thick zigzag line from the Black polish pen,
 then once dry, add 1 layer of the matte finish

Once matte finish is dry, add more zigzag lines
but that are thin and leave shiny

Manicure Monday: Accessory Match: Dots and Belts

 

We had two very similar accessory pictures sent in this week.  White and Gray dotted belts for women.  So here is what we came up with for our nail accessory match.  We want to thank Nails with Zing once again for these fun, fast cute designs.

Dermelect Gray polish, LA Colors White polish, and a polish dotting tool

We started by painting 2 coats of the Demelect Gray Polish on every toenail except the 3rd toenail.  That toenail we painted with 2 coats of white polish.  Once those coats dried, we randomly dotted each gray toenail with white polish, and dotted our white toenail with gray polish.  Super easy, took like 5 minutes.

Manicure Monday: Summer Bubbles

Start with the Sinful Color Pink

Add Matte Finish

Using a polish pen start with Green bubbles

Then add white and gold

Line your other toe nail tips

sorry about the bad quality I'm having nail emergencies left and right

What I used