ABC Nail Challenge - Fireberry Red & Fluo Blue

ABC Nail Challenge
Day 6
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Fireberry Red
Joe Fresh Fluo Blue 

The reason why I posted 2 photos for Day 5’s challenge is so that I can show more pictures of polishes that I never used or I used but never photographed it. But today’s challenge has 2 polishes, Fireberry Red and Fluo Blue.

Fireberry Red is a deep red with sparkly red and gold glitters and this is shown in (I believe) 2 coats. Fireberry Red was one of the specialty polishes from the Xtreme Wear line, but if you stalk Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens, you might be able to find one lingering around; that’s how I found mine LOL.

Fluo Blue is an azure blue creme that is shown beautifully in 2 coats. I definitely LOVE the formula and application of Joe Fresh polishes and I’m so glad that they opened a Joe Fresh near my work (5th Avenue, NYC) so then I can stalk their nail polishes! It was 3 for $9 and I believe $4 each? I got a few polishes from there and I would definitely consider buying more, since they are at a good price!

ABC Nail Challenge - Electra Magenta

ABC Nail Challenge
Day 5
China Glaze Electra Magenta

Electra Magenta was a part of the China Glaze Tronica Collection, which is a ‘holographic’ collection that came after the OMG and Kaleidoscope Collections. I guess it was supposed to be similar to the previous 2 holographic collections, but honestly I liked the other two more than Tronica. Anyways, Electra Magenta is a magenta holographic polish which also highlights a lot of the silver in the polish as well. The holographic isn’t as apparent as the polishes in OMG and Kaleidoscope but it does show in the sun and light. Electra Magenta is shown in 2 coats. 

ABC Nail Challenge - Dusty Miller

ABC Nail Challenge

Day 4
Priti Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller is a dusty jade green with gold shimmer. The gold in the bottle looks amazing but for some reason, it doesn’t translate onto the nail -______-. Nonetheless it’s a great polish and it’s the first Priti Polish I’ve tried. I never really tried Priti Polish, maybe because it was approximately $11 a bottle. But I got this deal from livingsocial where I paid $20 and got $40 worth of credit onwww.bloom.com, so I tried it out and got nail polishes! But that was a while back so I’m sorry I couldn’t share with you earlier! >.<;

ABC Nail Challenge - Crystal Ball

ABC Nail Challenge

Day 3
China Glaze Crystal Ball

Crystal Ball might be one of the older China Glaze polishes before the B3F (correct me if I’m wrong), since it has a silver cap. Anyways, Crystal Ball is a burgundy/dark scarlet creme that’s packed with small holographic glitters. This polish was VERY easy to work with and it was opaque in 2 coats. 

ABC Nail Challenge - Bisbee

ABC Nail Challenge

Day 2
HAREpolish in Bisbee

Another great polish by HAREpolish. Sorry for the picture being a bit blurry! My camera isn’t super awesome :\! Bisbee is a teal jelly-creme that suspends gold hexagon glitters. This took about 2-3 coats to get opaque but looooove it!

You can purchase HAREpolish at Nikole’s etsy store. Most of the time her polishes are sold out, so you can either sign up for the email list to get emails when she restocks or follow her on Facebook.

Galaxy

Hello everyone! Today's a non-nail post but it uses nail polish, so it's relevant in some way right? :P Hurricane Sandy is slowly approaching NY, which is keeping me home so I finally found time to vamp up this wooden jewelry box I purchased from an art store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's a plain wooden box that I got for $4. I planned on doing something but then I decided I wanted to make it a galaxy box. I only did the top of the box, and I'm considering on whether I should do the entire box or not.


It started with this plain box like this:

Then, using a black acrylic paint, I painted the whole box black to create the base for the galaxy.

Using a number of polishes (I will list below) and a make up sponge, I created the galaxy look on the top of the box.

Polishes I used:
Cover Girl Boundless Color - Disco Dazzle
Essie Pink-A-Boo
Klassicolor (same exact polish as Kleancolor) - Aurora
Pa Nail Color - A125
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Fireberry Red
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Purple Gala
SaQu - 635
Wet N Wild Coloricon - The Crown is Mine
Zoya - Crystal


Thanks for stopping by and hope you like this post! :)
Katherine

Two Looks

Hi everyone! Today's late post is to show two looks that I've done when I haven't blogged.


The first look is my "professional" work nails; this polish is one of my favorite go to polish for work. I've gotten a lot of compliments on this nail polish and everyone always asks me which polish it is. It's Sephora by OPI Xox Betsy which is from Sephora by OPI collaborating with Betsy Johnson. Sorry for the lack of clean up, but other than that, it is shown in 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. My nails are FINALLY growing back. Over the summer from July to August, they were BEAUTIFULLY LONG and then a tragic STUPID accident chopped 2 of my nails and I had to resort to cutting them :'( I haven't been able to grow them back as long as I like but they're starting to! Xox Betsy is a muted light natural pink with hints of purple/gray.

The next look I did was earlier this summer when my bf became the NY/East Coast brand promoter for Beautiful Struggle. The story behind the brand is : 

Beautiful Struggle is a clothing brand that I proudly started here in San Leandro, California.

What inspired me? Well, life simply did. As a kid, I was in a family that moved around constantly. I went from city to city, school to school and it seemed never ending. I could not get a girlfriend to save my life, I lost a ton of friends, and at points I did not even know who I was. I thought my life was a complete disaster. Eventually I realized that all the pain, sweat, and tears from my childhood only made me a stronger person. I vowed that inspiring others would always be one of the most important priorities in my life.

As my teenage years passed on, I fell in love with art. From photography to drawing and designing; I loved anything that allowed me to express myself. When I combined life and art, I found Beautiful Struggle. The term Beautiful Struggle has always been commonly used by people. It is my passion to expand the term and it’s meaning to an even broader perspective. Clothing. At first it was just an idea, but it evolved into something more. This became a way for me to show my art to the world and was the beginning of the brand.

People ask me, “How can a Struggle be Beautiful?” Well, every person has their own story just as I do. You may not have had the same problems like I did, but you definitely have felt failure and defeat before. The ability to look in the mirror, recognize those failures and defeats, and keep moving forward is a Beautiful thing. What you become because of the pain, the sweat, and the tears are a Beautiful thing. Without those struggles, who would you be?

Thank you to everyone out there that supports the brand, and believes in it as much as I do.

Much love. Stay Beautiful.

His brand mainly consists of clothing (for now) and it continues to grow as he is inspired by life. The 'LIVE' was from his tank top that he had over the summer and the thumb accent is the logo for his brand (I could've done better; but I haven't done nail art in a while). The photo below shows my bf modeling the tank top from Beautiful Struggle, and the picture was taken by ME 8D! We took this photo in the High Lines in New York City. The nail polish I used was American Apparel Cotton, in 2 coats and then I used both a black and red nail art brush for the lettering and accent nail.


I hope you all liked both looks that I have to offer today :)
Katherine

Back

Hello everyone :) I would like to officially announce that I am back on Blogger, Tumblr wasn't the place for me to blog about nails as much as I thought I would like it. I did keep my old entries from Necessary Nails, but I'm not sure if I want to start fresh and delete everything or keep it. I know sometimes people (maybe) reference anything I've done but I don't know completely enough to keep or delete them. I've changed the blog name and URL to The Nail Renaissance. My challenge is to try to post more, which I've always wanted to try to do but I haven't been on a good schedule to be consistently painting my nails in colors that aren't work appropriate. But I do want to challenge myself more.

I'm posting to announce that and I would also like to see any suggestions for any wine/burgundy colors. I've seen someone with that shade on and I definitely would like to try it out. So please suggest away.

Here's a photo of reference from All Lacquered Up -

I'm happy to announce that I'm back (hopefully posting more) =)

Katherine