In August, we heard cult ‘90s makeup brand Hard Candy was coming to Walmart stores at lower prices. Well, the time to paint your nails funky colors and wear matching jelly rings has arrived. Hard Candy lipsticks, glosses, eye shadows, concealers, and, yes, nail polish, are available now. The products have retained their cute packaging and playful palette, but they’ve kicked the hefty price tag. Back when Hard Candy launched in the 1996, LA retailer Fred Segal sold bottles of pale blue polish for $18 a pop. These days, everything costs $10 or less. And, if you don’t live near a Walmart store, buy online—shipping costs just 97 cents. Needless to say, our nails will be painted forest green as soon as the postman delivers our order. [Walmart]

If you have an unbearable case of nail ennui, here’s the cure: flecked nail polish. Deborah Lippmann has been leading this trend with her 10th Anniversary Set, which contains three bedazzled shades (red, copper and black), and her holiday shades (multi-colored Happy Birthday (left) and silvery Marquee Moon), $18 each. Kinda spendy but we love the look—it’s chunkier and less precious than glitter, and an unexpected touch when paired with winter tweeds and thick sweaters. [Beauty Snob]

Just last night I decided it was time for a change—I am going to go completely bare ... on my toes. That’s right, for the first time all spring and summer (and, well, fall), I made the conscious decision to take off the polish on my toes and not replace it with a new coat. This is big news, and I can’t remember the last time I went without on my toes (my fingers are regularly without polish—I’m way too chip-prone to get OCD about ‘em). Wanna know why? Because it’s actually good for your fingernails and toenails to take a break. That and ... during my last pedicure, I noticed my toenails were turning a not-so-pleasant shade of yellow.

Not everyone is into the matte nail craze going on right now. “Matte actually looks really ugly… kind of like you markered your nails like you did when you were a kid,” commenter loveitlala told us. Some colors might not look as good when they lose their shine, but nail polish expert Michelle of All Lacquered Up has found an amazing way to use matte-finish polishes without going completely lackluster.

Chanel’s Jade nail polish is already so over. Sure, the color is finally hitting beauty counters now that it’s Fall, and nails are getting their first taste of the perfect green hue. But after the Spring 2010 show, gray is the new jade.

On the runway, Karl Lagerfeld not only brought the barn indoors and made farming look chic, but Chanel Beauty Creative Director Peter Philips invited the fashion and beauty obsessed to find their newest nail adoration.

And here’s a hint: If you can’t afford the Chanel polish, Essie’s new fall shade, Chinchilly, definitely has a perfect gray look to it, and it’s more affordable!

CND, the makers of the awesome new Colour & Effects nail polish line, worked with just a handful of designers for New York Fashion Week, to create special layered combinations for each show. Since the colors aren’t straight from a bottle, they’re sort of like couture nail polish.

At both Jason Wu on Friday and Karen Walker on Saturday, the nails were done in muted metallics, which, at first, seemed like an oxymoron to me. Metallic that’s not in your face and bling-tastic? Yes, it exists. I spied a toned-down, brushed, silver shade backstage before Walker’s show—half of the models in the show had their nails done with one coat of Silver Chrome and one coat of Studio White, and the other half had the same but with two coats of Putty on top. The combos resulted in colors somewhere in between white and silver. Neutral but not boring.

At Michelle Obama’s favorite designer Jason Wu‘s show, half of the models had a matte bronze that was a result of painting a coat of Super Matte on top of one application of Copper Chrome, while the other half had Gold Pearl between the two layers, adding a little texture. Check it out, after the jump!

Today our Catherine is absolutely rocking the Russian Navy shade from OPI‘s new Matte collection, and I have to say, it looks so right-on especially with fall approaching. The lack of shimmer is sophisticated, and the blue tint is less harsh than that whole black nail look that was so big last year. (Black has moved up to the lipstick category, more on that here.) Anyhoo, OPI isn’t alone on this: Knockout Cosmetics has also come out with Flatte, and we’re definitely crushing on Essie’s sparkle-free Neon line. Luckily, the flat-top hairstyle has shown no signs of showing up again.

Normally, the Daytime Emmy Awards aren’t really my bag. I’m not a huge soap fan (Is she preggers with Sonny’s baby or does it belong to Jax?! OMG, is he really sleeping with Hope Brady?!) or a regular “View” watcher (except when Elisabeth goes off on one of her nutso rants), so to me, the event is sort of a non-issue. What isn’t a non-issue, though, are the red carpet goings-on at the Daytime Emmys and I’m struck by one seriously dope beauty trend: white-ish nails. They were everywhere. Not that the marshmallow-fluff-white shade is a just-this-second color—it’s been kicking around the nail salon shelves for years—but it seems like there’s a bit of a resurrection of late, which I lurve. Also, white nails look great on all skin tones and tend to make your complexion and hands look tan in comparison. So, what better way to wring out the last of your summer bronze (or if you’re like me, non-bronze)? Screw the no white after Labor Day maxim. After the jump, the best shades out there!

We’re not math whizzes, but we do know that having seven nail polish bottles in our bathroom means we can paint our nails seven different colors. Soon, however, nail polish arithmetic will get a whole lot more complicated thanks to CND’s upcoming Colour & Effects line. With 50 Colours available—from Brilliant White to Blackjack, and everything in between—along with 15 Effects (variations on pearly, shimmery, and glittery) to layer underneath or on top, there aren’t endless possibilities, but there are hundreds more than we can count on our uniquely manicured hands. [$9 - $11, CND]

We’re giving five readers a bottle of Oil Slick and a bottle of Sapphire Sparkle from CND’s Colour & Effects line (which doesn’t even hit salons until later this fall!), but you have to work if you want your nails to look good. The five best commenters for this coming week—from today, Friday, Aug. 28 through Thursday, Sept. 3—will be awarded with a set. So, be as clever, smart, and original as you can! Click HERE to read the official rules.

Remember Hard Candy? It was the nail polish brand of the late ‘90s, successfully marketing funky nail colors like green, silver and frosty blue. The must-have brand was a middle and high school status marker—if you wore Hard Candy (or better yet, had a collection of bottles) you told the world that you cared enough to spend way more than $1 on the Wet ‘N Wild variety, and that you loved being a trendsetter. Then somewhere along the way, Alicia Silverstone stopped wearing the shimmery sky-blue polish, and the company slowly morphed into Urban Decay, only to let Hard Candy fall to the wayside and become available only in hard-to-find ways, like on eBay.com. Well, she’s back!

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but if said girl can’t afford the real thing, there’s always, erm, Essie nail polish. Essie has linked up with luxe jeweler Judith Ripka to create a trio of polishes infused with diamond dust. The polishes range from subtle pink (Put A Ripka Ring On It) to fiery red (Queen of Hearts). Although they cost $15 a pop, these are sure to be a hit—like Essie’s other summer hookup with J.Crew. For a small cosmetics line, Essie sure does get around! Find the Ripka/Essie collection and other special-edition colors here. [NY Mag]

We just got an email from J.Crew alerting us to the fact that “New Fall Arrivals Are In” and immediately stopped working to drool over the retailer’s genius ribbon-front top, wool schoolboy blazer, and ...nail polish? Yes, J.Crew appears to be selling nail polish from our favorite maker, Essie! (We always knew the people at J.Crew were totally on the same page as us.) The two special colors are called One of A Kind, a bright orangey red (which just happens to be this writer’s favorite shade for her short nails), and Eternal Optimist, a subdued baby pink.

Trying a new polish color can be a gamble, because what it looks like in the bottle isn’t necessary how it appears on your hands. But since we adore just about everything J.Crew produces, we’re guessing these shades, with their J.Crew stamp of approval, are pretty fab. [J.Crew]

The hot summer weather might be making us glistening with sweat, but the of-the-moment trend for nails is the opposite of shiny. A tar-like matte black nail polish popped up courtesy of KO Knock Out Cosmetics a couple months ago, and now other colors are available from that company and others are available. And, if you have a favorite shade that doesn’t come in flat finish, a matte top coat will take away any polish’s sheen. Now if only we had a product that could keep us from sweating on a 90-degree day.

I love nail polish that’s a little different from the usual pinks and reds, and last fall, I tried to make green nail polish happen. I painted my nails a lovely toad color and hoped others would follow suit—or at least appreciate the color. Our Emily was the only person who was fond enough of the color to paint her own nails with it. And most of my friends said it looked like I had some sort of fungus.

Well, it seems I was a little ahead of the nail polish curve (but slightly off on the exact shade), because Chanel has a jade green polish coming in October. The brand always sets color trends, so I have little doubt we’ll all be sporting minty nails very soon. And I couldn’t be happier.

Want pale green nails right this instant? A few delightful shades, after the jump…

I remember the days when manicures were fun. More often now, it seems like a burden and an expense when I look at my hands and go, Ugh, I need a manicure so bad. So, when browsing the drug store the other day, I was tempted by this package of nail gems by Fing’rs (creepiest name ever). Pretty certain that I am the worst manicurist ever, I doubted that I’d be able to pull of the creation, but I found it shockingly simple. To make things easier on yourself, pre-select the gems you want to use, spreading them out on a piece of paper. Work up a thick coat of polish; apply the first coat, let dry for a minute, then apply a second coat, allowing it to set up for about 30 seconds. Using a tweezer, drop your designs into place and maneuver them using the wooden stick provided or the tips of your tweezers. This part is surprisingly forgivable because the thick polish lets you push the jewel into place without messing up the entire nail. Once you’ve got your nail art in place, cover it with several thick coats of clear nail polish. After the jump, a few of my decorative ideas. [Fing’rs]

A few years ago, we all fell hard for Chanel’s black nail polish. Celebs started sporting this goth color and soon it spread faster than the H1N1 virus. But can they cause another nail craze again? Come summer, most of us turn to bright pinks, corals and reds when we head into the nail salon (if we head in at all); however, this summer may be different…Read More

I feel so ladylike and put-together when I have a fresh manicure, but that same polish job makes me feel like a sloppy slacker when it chips a few days later. I’ve tried a couple of things to solve this problem. I was a dedicated daily re-applier of Nail Tek Xtra, but then I got a life. Now I’ve settled on boring light colors that make peeling polish less noticeable, along with Creative Nail Design’s Stickey Base Coat. I was really excited when I read about O.P.I.‘s Axxium Soak-Off Gels, a permanent nail lacquer that lasts and lasts. It’s basically the same powder used for acrylic nails applied thinner. When dried under a UV light, the powder forms a chip-proof bond with the nail. To maintain the color, wearers get “color fills,” similar to an acrylic tips fill-in, when their nails grow out. Permanent in this sense doesn’t mean you have to rock the same nail color forever, though. Regular nail polish can be applied on top of the Soak-Off Gels. And the gels are removed by soaking the nails in an acetone solution.

Unless you are lucky enough to work at The Frisky, chances are, you have to tone down the fashion factor for your work wardrobe. Sadly corporate culture condemns otherwise stylish girls to hide their individual look and makes them and conform to Dr. Evil-esque suits. What is an adventuress girl stuck in a boring suit to do? Well…what your boss doesn’t see won’t hurt her. Here are a few ways to keep your fabulous fashionista under wraps until 5p.m.