For years I felt pressured to write a substantial holiday gift guide. You know, the kind intended to advise you, dear reader, on what to buy for your partner, your kids, your parents. The kind of list you’ll find on every major publication and retailer’s home page. Instead of gifts for him, her and them,…
Monday Manicure
Groupon– The Easiest Spa Appointments In Town! Get Yours Right Here
People ask me all the time, where my go-to manicure places are, or what my favorite spas in Chicago are. I usually try to give a recommendation based on location, treatment or price point, but I’ll be honest with y’all. Sometimes I really don’t know. I can only speak to what I’ve been to. There…
How To Get The BEST Manicure – Tips On Nail Salon Ethics
I’m just old enough to remember a time before manicures were commonplace. When I was growing up, manicures were for the fancy or for special occasions. Now, many of my friends have weekly nail appointments. I live in a part of Chicago where there’s a nail salon almost every three blocks – and when a…
DIY – How To Master Nail Art
I think nail art is some kind of innate skill that certain people are born to have. Where some folks are able to draw precise lines on their own fingernails, or dip their fingers into water to create a marbleized effect ala Pinterest, I seem only capable of creating a mess of my own hands….
Metallic Manicure – Quick Easy DIY
They keep trying to say that nail art is a dying trend, but I refuse to believe. I see the appeal in a more sedate manicure from time to time, but my spirit is drawn to statement nails that make heads turn. Lately I’ve been into at-home pampering, and this weekend as part of my…
Manicure Monday – All Lacquered Up’s Nail Collection Is GORGEOUS
One of the most beautiful things about blogging is, there’s no roadmap to success. You create your own as you go, you chart your destiny and sometimes, if you work really hard for a really long time, you can develop opportunities that are bigger than you ever dared to dream. That’s been my experience,…
Nail Stickers – Totally, Hopelessly Obsessed
What took me so long to give nail stickers a try? My eternal nail polish dilemma – I have somewhere to be in 20 minutes and I remembered everything BUT the manicure. And having to do a rush job on your nails while managing to keep them in pristine condition for me is MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE….
My Monday Manicure – And It Was All Yellow. NARS Pierre Hardy Sharks Review
Yellow nail polish is so fun, so fresh, so summertime – especially on gorgeous, deep shades of brown skin. I am here for yellow nails this summer (and every summer)! The only thing is, yellow can be tricky. Finding the perfect yellow that won’t look streaky can be tough. It’s become something of an…
Monday Manicure. Spring! Pastel! Nails!
I’ve been seeing these really cute springtime manicures on Pinterest, where the girls paint their nails in various pastel shades, each nail in a different color. SO CUTE. I’m not here for all pastels (I’m not a baby pink kind of girl), but there are some really really cute new pastel nail polishes out…
Manicure Monday – A Monet Impressionist Floral Manicure
You know, I’m not an artist. I was that kid in kindergarten who took just a little longer than the others to figure out that you should stay perfectly within the lines. And when I minored in art in college, my focus was ceramics. Handbuilding, to be specific. Precision and detail work has never been…