Golden Autumn Leaves- Fall Nail Design

Hello everyone! Hope everyone is having a nice fall. This year has been a weird fall, especially where I live it has been warm for fall, now that it is the end of November it is starting to feel cold and more fall or winter like. Anyways today we have matte and glossy fall nail design that we will be creating. The leaves will be on a brown matte background and just to add some color, we will be add some gold as well.

 

Fall Leaves Nail Design  

Here are the nail polishes and tools used for this fall design: 

  

Base and Top coat- CND Stickey Base Coat, Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat, for a matte look; NYC- Matte Me Crazy topcoat.

Nail polishes- NYC- Brownstone, Revlon- Gold Coin, and China glaze- white on white.

Acrylic paint- white, red, yellow, blue. (red & yellow to make orange, and red, yellow, and blue to make brown.) 

Nail art tools- a thin detail and liner brush and a small dotting tool.

Other- small glass jar or cup with water in it to clean nail art brushes. 

Let's start this fall design! 

Close up of leaf design on middle and ring finger nail. 

 
 Close up of leaf design on thumb nail.

Start off with a thin layer of base coat, to protect your nails. 

Then polish your ring, middle, and thumb nail brown and your pinky and index finger nail gold.

Once your base color has dried, we will first make the outline of the leaves with white paint, this will help the colors for the leaves to stand out.  

On all three nails I made a few random leaf shapes, their really is no certain way that you do this design.  You can make a simple leaf with only one point, or a leaf with more then one point.

Once you have the white outline of the leaves and that has dried, you take an orange, red and yellow paint and start to paint the leaves. For example some of the leaves I would start off with a yellow and then take a orange and go over that, while some yellow is still showing. For the leaves it is okay if you don't clean off your brush each time, it gives a nice blend of color when you do this. 

When you have the leaves the colors that you want, take a brown paint or if you don't have one mix red, yellow and a little bit of blue to make a brown. This will be for the vein of the leaves. For the veins just make a line down the center then, a few lines to follow the outline of the leaves.

When I had added all of the leaves to the design, it just felt like it was missing something. So with a small dotting tool I added a few white dots with some white polish, making sure to add just a few, that way you can still see the brown background.

 

 Fall Leaves Nail Design.

Then once your fall nail design has dried apply a glossy top coat to all of your nails. Once your glossy top coat has dried, on the nails that you did the fall leaves design on apply a matte top coat to give this design a different look. You may need to go over the glossy top coat again to make sure your nails are all matte.

I thought adding the matte top coat on the leaf design would be great for a fall look, along with a touch of sparkle/ color with a glossy gold color. Also the white dots I put into this design kind of look like snow, and this is kind of fitting for the weird fall that we have been having (depending on where you live) because one day this week the weather was in the 70's the next day in the 30's and light snow. I know crazy! 

 

 

   Fall Leaves design on middle and ring finger nail

Want another option? On my right hand I did the leaf design on just my middle and ring finger nail and polished my thumb, index and pinky gold. This maybe an even simpler option for you, if you just want the design on two finger or you could even just do this design on your ring finger as a accent nail.

Hope all of you enjoyed this fall leaf design! Also have a nice Thanksgiving!

See you next time for more nail fun!  

Magnificent Find- New Sally Hansen Color Therapy Polishes

Hello everyone! It has been quite some time since we last had a Magnificent find, I just recently stumbled across some brand new nail polishes that I am super excited to share with all of you. The new polish line is from Sally Hansen called Color Therapy! A lot of nail polish companies have been coming out with polishes that are suppose to help dry and damaged nails, and this is another polish to add to that.
As a nail tech, I see people come into the salon all the time with dry and damaged nails, most likely due to them going to a salon where they don't care what they do to your nails, like using a drill to take off your acrylic nails or even gel polish, over filing the nail, the list goes on and on. If you are a person that gets your nails done, I think that it is always a good idea to know what is being done to your nails and what protects are being put on them as well, It is also a good idea to have a nail tech that know what they are doing and that will not damage your nails. After all if you go to a salon to get your nails done, don't you want them to not only look nice, but also not be damaged and be healthy as well?         
 
 
Anyways sorry for that long intro. I really wanted to include that in this post, about the importance of knowing what is being done to your nails. Let's get into the post about these Color Therapy polishes.
     
So you may wonder what in the world is so special about these polishes? These are a regular polish that has Argan Oil in the formula, that is suppose to add nourishment and moisture to your nails and help them to look healthy. 

Also you may have thought, if you have oil or any lotions on your nails it makes it hard for the polish to stick? Well not this polish the oils in the polish are put into the formula and then released on to your nail plate once the polish has dried.

The Color Therapy line is a little bit different from your average Sally Hansen polish or polishes in general, with the oil in the polish of course. But this polish does not need a base coat! You may think what no base coat! The reason why you may not need a base coat with these polishes is due to the oil's in the polish, it is meant to make your nails healthy and that makes it so their is no need for a base coat, because a base coat are meant to protect your nails. 

  

 Sally Hansen Color Therapy- top coat, Mauve Mantra and Rosy Glow.

As stated above this polish does not require a base, but their is a special top coat that you can use with this polish, along with a cuticle oil (that I did not purchase, I use CND Solar Oils.) 

  

 Instructions and brush for the Sally Hansen Color Therapy polishes. 

When it comes to applying this polish you apply it like any other polish, just with no base coat. You polish the color on with however many coats that you will need, then apply the Color Therapy top coat, let it dry and then if you purchased the oil you can apply that to your cuticles as well. I always apply CND Solar oil to my cuticle, once my nails are dry no matter what polish I use. On the Sally Hansen website this polish is said to last up to 10 days with no chipping or fading. 

Also these polishes have a nice wide brush as well (as you can see in the photo above.) 

You may wonder do I really need this special top coat? Probably not, but I thought for this test I would purchase the top coat that is suppose to go with this polish just to see if their was a difference. 

For a test on my left hand I wore the light pink, Mauve Mantra like you are suppose to, no base coat and with the Color Therapy top coat. Then on my right I used my usual base coat CND Stickey, the hot pink color Rosy Glow, and Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat. We will see at the end of this post if they wore any different?  

Ok let's get into the two polishes that I purchased from this collection! I only purchase two polishes because I was unsure if I would like them, and I wanted to test them out first before I bought to many.  

   

 Sally Hansen Color Therapy- Mauve Mantra

First we will start off with Mauve Mantra, this is a light pink that has some gold shimmer in it. This is normally not a color that I gravitate to, I normally like very bright colors, but this color I really ended up liking, maybe it is the gold shimmer in the polish. This polish was a bit streaky for me when I applied the first and even the second coat, on the third coat it had much better coverage, this may be due the argan oil in the polish. This was the polish that I used the Color Therapy top coat with.         

 

 

  Sally Hansen Color Therapy- Rosy Glow

Next we have Rosy Glow, this is a shimmery hot pink polish. This was a polish that I took forever to decide if I wanted it, due to the fact that I was unsure if I had a polish like this in my collection already. (that's when you know you have way to many polishes!) by the way I didn't have this color already. This polish also applied very streaky on the first and second coat, then the third coat it looked much better. This was the polish that I did apply a base coat (CND Stickey) and my usual top coat Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat. This color I had read in a review can stains the nails, so that's why I wore this one with a base coat. 

Also these polishes have a weird smell to them when applied to the nail, one blog I read said they smell like Granny Smith Apples, I'm not to sure about that? This is probably the argan oil, which I was expecting it to smell a little bit different. I mean don't sit their and smell the bottle of polish, that would not be a good idea, but once you apply the polish it does have a weird smell to it.     

Final thoughts:

I did really like these polishes, I mean they where not super unique but I like the idea behind the formula and helping to keep your nails healthy. As for the formula it self, I didn't like that it was streaky and took three coats to be smooth, but this could just be due to the oil in the polish.   

As for any health/ beautifying the nail, this is hard for me personally to tell because my nails normal are in very good shape, and I am unsure if the argan oil really did anything as well, for the same reason. With any kind of moisturizing with lotions and cuticle oil it will help out your nails, so maybe after time with someone that has damaged or dry nails this may help. 

As for wear, as stated above this is suppose to wear well with no chipping or fading for 10 days. I normal take my polish off Saturday night, then polish my nails Sunday and wear it for that whole week. So far I would say that it is wearing very well, no chips or fading, I have had this polish on for five days so far. Normally polish wears very well on me, and I always do touch ups on the color and top coat. But this polish I have only touched up the top coat. 

So yes I would recommend purchasing these polishes. So far their are 38 polishes in this collection that are very spa orientated (with the names) and even the bottle look very nice and spa like.

These polishes are suppose to be in stores in December, but I found these at Target last week (November), which is supper exciting! 

I purchased these polishes for $6.99 each even the top coat was $6.99. So for three polishes and top coat I spent around $20 plus tax.

           

Here is a link to Target's website if you would like to purchase some of these polishes.

 Sally Hansen- color therapy polishes 

Also here is a link to Sally Hansen's website for more information.

Hope all of you enjoyed this kind of long blog post!

See you next time for more wild and bright nail fun!