Uh, yes, please! Heaven knows the weather has been more daiquiri than hot toddy around here lately, but as long as the snow wishes to remain a holdout, I shan’t complain. So let’s order up a couple of them frosted (and straight-up) frozen delights and see this extended summer out in style. 🙂
As with all things in life – but especially friggin’ pain-in-my-arse water marble manis – practice makes perfect, so when my blogging friend Five Zero suggested – nay, demanded? – limeade nails to go along with yesterday’s frozen pink lemonade manicure, I happily snapped-to, this time with the addition of a couple of sweet Fimo fruits. Next do we have any calls for orangeade, maybe a little Orange Julius action? Or how about a strawberry daiquiri water marble? I’ll call it the Frozen Drinks of Summer Series (*immediately goes off to begin making a list of every possible type of fruit and/or rum-infused cocktail. I could be gone a while.*)
I suffered a nail break the other day that has cancelled any plans I had for nail art (actually, a nail slice; I grossly underestimated the surgical precision with which my vegetable peeler could excise my nail from my finger) and so I thought I’d turn a beauty eye to the bath instead while my now-nubs regain a bit of their pre-surgery length.
This juicy-looking little chunk of soap is another Lush creation, this time Layer Cake soap, a somewhat recent addition to their multitude of brightly coloured, sweetly scented bath time goodies. Nomenclature notwithstanding, Layer Cake smells not one bit like bakery. Its ingredient list instead boasts a mouthwatering blend of grape, orange, pineapple, blueberry and raspberry juices, and indeed, its scent is pure juice – not juicy or juice-oid or even sweetened juice cocktail, but freshly-squeezed sunshine, straight from the fruit. It’s a beautiful, intoxicating scent.
Lush and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship in that I love the descriptions of their products, particularly the scent profiles, but hate that they so rarely match up to the actual item. Layer Cake is that rare product that matches its description – a lush glycerin soap overflowing with tart fruit juices, straight up. Very nice.
Poured in five horizontal, multi-coloured layers befitting its name and fruity ingredients, Layer Cake is somewhat oddly also cut on a horizontal, which means each little chunk only encompasses two, maybe three, of the soap’s gorgeous, glassy colours (red, purple, yellow, orange and blue.) This doesn’t affect the scent at all, as the juices run throughout the bar as one tart, fruity blend, but if you’re dead set on receiving, say, a red and purple chunk like mine or even all five colours, you may be disappointed when you receive a green and yellow chunk.
Layer Cake soap has actually been on offer for some months now in North America, after making the rounds overseas last year. I purchased my bar from Lush.ca, and so can you!
These nails, which rely heavily on those little Fimo pieces that never, ever want to lay flat on your nails, turned out much better than anticipated. Although the little Fimo fruits would not, could not, lay flat on my nails, and this manicure is impractical plus-plus. So pretty much business as usual for 3D nail art embellishments. But cute? So cute!
In combination, the two glittery polishes I used here, Smitten Polish’s green Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass and turquoise Glacial Springs, remind me of an icy tropical drink. And because no good, blue curacao-soaked frozen cocktail is complete with at least a bit of garnish, I added some of that, too. Drink up – there’s lots of good-for-you fruit in there!
A number of years ago I got more than a little cocky about my abilities as a balcony gardener. I have two large balconies that overlook a river, and for one glorious summer three or so years ago, I cultivated a thriving garden of everything that’s not supposed to grow on a windy hunk of waterless concrete, from herbs and pansies, hibiscus trees and roses, to succulents and ferns, daisies and – in my greatest feat of green thumbing EVER – a fruit-producing raspberry cane. BOO-YEAH! All right, so it would appear I haven’t quite abandoned the cocky thing just yet, but come on, that’s kind of impressive, right? I’m still impressed! Just look at this little raspberry! I made him!
Although perhaps I should not be quite so down with me, because that one glorious summer of thriving bounty? Never to be repeated again. Subsequent summers have netted naught but a wasp infestation in my gerbera daisies, one tiny bulb of garlic that grew into a slightly larger bulb of garlic and a flowering magnolia that steadfastly refused to flower. It should also be noted that that one perfect year I harassed the power of nature, my blueberry bush REFUSED to do, well, anything. It sent off a few promising green shoots and then just sort of sat there for the season while I periodically cursed it out.
But there was no swearing at these cute blueberry nails, which were not only easy (detail brush for the leaves, dotting tool for the berries) but also didn’t require me to go outside, which is terrifically attractive when it’s as cold and rainy as it is today. Not that I’d be gardening today anyways, but the analogy stands! I think. The one thing I can be absolutely sure of, though – these little lacquered blueberry bushes are a lot prettier than the real deal, and definitely more bountiful!
The (nearly) all-holo edition. Pineapples are the fruit of hospitality (which begs the question, what’s the weed of hospitality, or the fungus, or the root vegetable?) although this manicure was anything but hospitable to me during its creation. Some days your mojo just flips you off before up and departing, and I fear today was just such a day. Shame, too, since these were my very first attempt at pineapple nails. Two years of nail art, approximately 300 food-centric manis, a quarter of which deal with fruit, predominantly strawberries and watermelons, and yet no pineapples. Weird.
For these mostly holo nails, I used a handful of my favourite Cirque polishes, including grass green Panacea, golden Chyrsopoeia and cherry pink Powwow, accented by Smitten Polish’s dark brown Seasonal Lattes.
I think these glittery nails for day two’s theme of peach in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge are, to drive a pun straight into the ground, just peachy! I like the little blushing peach on my ring finger, but what really makes this mani extra meta is the glitter polish I used here, KB Shimmer’s To Peach His Own (although in the shade and and against my ultra fair skin, it does take on a rather nude look.) I really love To Peach His Own, a release from KB’s Spring 2015 collection, but, like so many glitters, it really does have only so many applications outside of occasional general wear, so I was glad to find a purpose for it, both in terms of appearance and pun-ability!
Citrus slice nail art, because it’s been a while since I’ve used orange in a mani, either as a colour or quite literally, and also because I wanted to work in that little nod to The Flaming Lips. Inspiration comes in many bizarre forms, folks. 😉
Finger Candy 