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Here’s my final manicure for the June SquareHue SoBe Collection. You can see swatches at The Silver Nail, and see the art I did with the first color here and the second color here. The final color I used was Collins Avenue.
3rd color: Collins Avenue, with OPI’s Tomorrow Never Dies
Still loving the June SquareHue SoBe Collection. You can see swatches at The Silver Nail, and see the art I did with the first color here on Formulated Phrase. The second color I used was Ocean Drive.
2nd color: Ocean Drive and Yellow Submarine
May’s SquareHue was a huge disappointment for me: three shades of pink, a color I hate. One a neon, which is tough to work with, one a frost, which is a finish I dislike, and one a creme, which is the only one I kept. So I was nervous about June’s SoBe (South Beach) collection.
I got it (and, like, four other nail polish packages — I have a problem!) earlier this week, and was deliriously happy when I opened the box and saw three colors I loved. The Silver Nail swatched it fast (she’s got great swatches of a variety of polishes on her site, along with breaking polish news like new collection press releases), so I thought instead of swatching it like I did with the Bloom Collection, I’d show some nail art I do with each color.
1st color: Lincoln Road
I love floral nail art, so I found it pretty difficult to narrow down what I wanted to do, but I finally ended up with this simple, pretty manicure that’s perfect for spring.
Ah, yellow. I love yellow, but it very definitely does not love me back. My ancestry is first-generation Portuguese (which in a perfect world would give me lovely olive-toned skin), and I-don’t-know-when-they-came-here Russian Ashkenazi, so the combination leaves me with cool-toned light skin that burns easily but then tans well. Or it would, if the weather would cooperate, but it’s been raining for four days. But what it really means is that while I love buttery pastel yellows and covet them in nail polish, they look pretty terrible on me. Sadface forever.
So I have to start by noting two things. First, I’m editing this post while sitting in the gorgeous spring sunshine on my patio, so I can’t properly see the colors; I hope I didn’t overcompensate for my camera’s tendency to redden my skin. Second, I suck at freehanding straight lines. I need to invest in some striping tape.
Click here to see more Cinco de Mayo nails (and overripe clementines)
This took me all morning and I’m not happy. I don’t even know.
I originally decided to do cherry blossoms for Spring. I started with butter London’s Hen Party, a delicate sheer cherry blossom pink shimmer, but I hate having my nail tips visible because I get so much stuff under my nails and it drives me nuts to see it. So I tried again with a base of Essie’s Where’s My Chauffeur? – a bright-hued light blue. Too bright. Then China Glaze’s Keep Calm and Paint On, but then it looked like an Arizona iced tea can. So I finally went with OPI’s My Vampire is Buff, with branches in acrylic paint and petals in SquareHue’s Wartime Romance and High School Crush (from February’s Vintage Love collection).
Spring is in the air, except for here in the Northeast where it’s, like, 40 degrees and I’m wearing a winter sweater. But nail collections are in full bloom, including the April SquareHue: the Bloom Collection.
Recap: SquareHue is a subscription service. For a monthly fee, they send you three full-size polishes, formulated and chosen by SquareHue. You don’t get a choice in color and you don’t know the colors in advance, although each month they put a promo picture and the name of the collection on the website, so you can make an educated guess. You can’t buy the previous polishes after the month is over, although maybe that will change in the future. It costs about the same as a Julep box, and you get far more polish by volume (3 x 0.5mL versus 3 x 0.28mL), but there are no cute add-ons or extras. You can suspend or pause the account, if you can’t foot it that month or the promo pic doesn’t thrill you (I’m on the fence about doing that for May, because I don’t know with that promo pic), and part of the proceeds go to charities: the current focus is preventing human trafficking and both helping victims and prosecuting criminals of it. SquareHue formulas are 3-free, so you can feel good about that, too (although I use Seche Vite as a top coat, so I’ll be birthing three-headed babies, I suppose).
This month’s box contained, as expected, spring colors of yellow, green, and purple, but I was pleasantly surprised when I went through my collection and found no actual duplicates. Each month’s polish names are themed; this one seems to be flower child, which makes sense.
So right this moment, I’m missing the season premiere of Game of Thrones because my mom doesn’t have HBO and she wants me to watch The Bible with her. I have to admit, Jesus (played by Portuguese soap opera star Diogo Morgado) is really hot. Just saying that probably costs me points in Heaven or something.
Anyway, so I’ll be watching the opening of season three on HBO Go after Vikings. But in the meantime, here are my Game of Thrones inspired nails. Several weeks ago I saw this tutorial by IndigoNova and I knew I wanted to do this design for this week. I’m not a Lannister fan, no matter how awesome Tyrion is (especially after reading Feast of Crows and Dance with Dragons, where his character gets butchered). I am, however, a fan of the amazing Queen Margaery of House Tyrell. As of book five, she’s the only one winning the game of thrones. I also adore the love story between her brother Loras and her first husband Renly Baratheon, and I think her grandma is pretty damn amazing (and she’ll be played by Miss Emma Peel in the show, so she’s twice as kickass).
formul8edphrase 