Year of the Dragon Manicure

On January 23rd, we entered into a new year of the Chinese Zodiac - the Dragon. This zodiac year is unique because it is the only one of the 12-year cycle of animals that is legendary. Apparently, it is also considered the luckiest year in the Chinese zodiac. Get ready everyone! (Especially those of you who were born in a year of the Dragon).
In order to do a Year of the Dragon inspired manicure, I, obviously, chose to use OPI's Red My Fortune Cookie as the base colour.

This red is our all-time favourite red. It works on every skin tone (even those annoying pinkish ones that I have) and is simply a gorgeous, bright, and warm red.

Then, I painted on these Chinese symbols in black:

These symbols mean Gong hei fat choi, which loosely translates to "Congratulations and be prosperous" and is used to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Overall, a nice message to wear on one's nails!

I also added a fierce dragon head on the thumbnail in black and added a little gold glitter for extra flare. This is how it turned out. 

It's difficult to see the dragon head because of glare, so I took some close up photos on my phone. Unfourtunately, my phone camera really messes up the overall tone of the photograph but please bear with me!

Here are some more photos of the overall manicure:

Happy New Year - Congratulations and be prosperous!

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Lana Del Rey's Born to Die Manicure

I watched Lana Del Rey's newly released video for Born to Die and was totally inspired. Check it out.

First of all, I am pretty obsessed with her intense voice and whole shtick (see more videos further down in this post). Second of all, the nails! I knew I had to try them as soon as I saw this video. Here are some shots from the video of her nails:

Aren't they awesome? OK - so I don't have the super long and square fake nails thing going on but I decided to try my own version of this look anyway. Plus, the bright red and thin line of gold glitter are perfect holiday party colours. So, since I knew that my bare nails would be showing, I gave them a good buff to make sure there were no discolourations. Then, I painted one coat of China Glaze's Strong Adhesion Base Coat. 

This has been my go-to base coat for a while now. It dries quickly (important) and seems to really help my manicures last longer. It gave my nails a nice subtle shininess that would accent the red and gold tips perfectly. Then, I hand-painted the rounded "V" shape onto the tips of my nails and added thin lines of gold glitter with a skinny brush. As expected, I used my favourite red, OPI's Red My Fortune Cookie.

For the gold glitter accents, I used Nicole by OPI's Twist of Fate.

This is how it turned out:

I really love how these turned out! Like the geometric christmas tree nails I posted yesterday, this manicure really elongates the nails. Plus, I'm pretty sure these nails could really work a holiday party. 

And, as promised, more Lana Del Rey.

Enjoy!

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