First Non Konad Nail Art

Recently I have seen several pictures of some simple geometric nail art that I thought I had a pretty good chance  of replicating.   The first was the Zoya nail designs for the Leanne Marshall show during fashion week in NY.
The second are the designs that All Lacquered Up reported were being used by CND for the Diego Binetti show.

I liked the look of both of these but I had no idea how to accomplish either (I can't freehand) until I discovered this manicure from On Beauty and Polish and the swoop technique from Lacquer Laine.

I really liked the idea of a holo design (mainly because I thought it might hide an goof with the shininess) so I started with a base coat of China Glaze DV8.  Let me take a minute here to rave about how incredible DV8 is.  This is hands down my favorite holo that I own.  Some holos don't really look holo in certain lights but DV8 glimmers in dim and bright light, artificial and sunlight.  Aside from the holo...the color is fantastic.

China Glaze DV8 (2 coats) with top

Next, I used French manicure strips to tape off part of my nail and painted the bottom half with China Glaze LOL.  I used 2 coats because my first coat was a little uneven, this mad the overall manicure a little thick but it still looked pretty good.

CG DV8 and LOL

I was happy with how this turned out but as the day went on I felt more an more like a court jester because the colors were so bright.  Next time I am going to try it with more subdued colors or only one bright one.  Its interesting that the linear holo pattern stayed the same even though it was bisected in the middle of the nail.  Does anyone else have any unique ways to use french manicure strips?

Eureka! I Have Found it - OPI Merry Mignight

Ok so some of you know that I have been traipsing all over the city looking for Merry Midnight from the 2009 OPI Holiday Wishes Collection with zero luck.  I checked nail mecca.....nada, Trade secret...zip, Pennys and Ulta also came up big zeros.  I even tried stopping by some of the local salons and just asking, "Hey do you have a bottle I can buy, I don't even care if its new."  One lady told me to check Sally's.  SALLY'S!  Seriously?!  I had to tell the nice lady that Sally's doesn't carry OPI.

I was sad.  I made the decision to order it online and was really surprised to discover that I could only find a couple bottles on Ebay and 2 random online vendors that listed it.  I wasn't familiar with either vendor so I was dragging my feet hoping it would magically appear and had basically given up on it.  Luckily a fellow nail polish crack head reminded me that Victoria Nail Supply might have it....DUH.  So we set up an order of things we didn't need and prepared to send it in.  That afternoon we happened to be stopping by a store new to me that carries Zoya (I posted about that earlier this week) and the gods of nailpolish must have smiled down on me because there it was in all its purple, foil, glittery glory....Merry Midnight.

 

OPI Merry Midnight (3 coats) and top

The formula on this was perfect, even I was able to apply nice thin coats.  I had full coverage in 2 coats but the color was more pink than the bottle so I added a third.  Let me just say this...I love foils, they go on so nice and thin, and smooth, and holy nail polish batman...they dry in no time flat.  The glitter in this is really small also so there isn't any of the lumpiness of a normal glitter.

Can anyone recommend any other foils? I just picked up Orly Glam Rock and Iron Butterfly and I have Finger paints Icy Iris and Easel Come, Easel Go but I want to try some in other colors.

Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year Manicures

I am late posting these because my parents were in town this weekend (a major production since the airports were non functional part of the weekend).  They thought me photographing my nails was funny but I didn't want to push my luck by busting out the Photoshop and starting to Blog.

This is my manicure from Saturday the 13th.  I have been a belly dancer for the past 10 years and Saturday my troupe danced at a Mardi Gras fund raiser so I wanted to get in the spirit.

I started with a base of Fingerpaints Icy Iris, which I have had for a month but hadn't had an opportunity to use yet.  EVERYTHING you have heard about Icy Iris is true.  It applies smooth, with full coverage in 2 coats and it is freaking gorgeous.  For those of you that haven't seen it, this is a deep purple with lighter purple/raspberry foil particles.  The foil is very small so it looks like very small glitter but it is sooooo much smoother, it also dries really fast. It was slightly dull to my eye once it dried but nothing a layer of top didn't fix.

 

Fingerpaints Icy Iris 2 coats with top.  The foil is pinker in person.  Yes that is 12 inches of snow in Dallas in the background.

Once I had a nice purple base I grabbed Rimmel Camouflage and New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold and Konad plate M69.  I painted the bottom of the ribbon design (well they look like ribbons to me) green and the top half gold and as Emeril would say BAM!

 

   Mardi Gras konadicure with flash, yes I am that pale.  The light box comes tomorrow hopefully photos will improve.

By Sunday I was tired of all things Valentine's Day and was really looking forward to a nice Chinese New Year mani in red...thats enough Valentine's Day cheer right?  Last week on my snow day I grabbed a new Konad plate I have been wanting to experiment with, M66 the one that shows parts of an Asian landscape.

I borrowed this picture from http://www.thenailart.com/ but I have never used their site for anything but looking at Konad plates, they have HUGE pictures of each.

Anyway I had been wanting to use little bits and pieces of the whole plate on different nails so each nail was different.  Chinese New Year gave me a great excuse to buy the plate and try this out.

 

China Rouge (2 coats) with top

I began with 2 coats of my favorite red creme, China Glaze China Rouge and then stamped New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold (hey its my go to gold stamping polish).  The overall manicure ended up being very subtle as the lines on most of these designs are very thin.  Black or silver would have provided more contrast.  It looked nice but you didn't really notice the designs unless you were close to my hands.  Photographing this was a complete nightmare, I couldn't get pictures that showed the details at all.
This is the best one I was able to get:

 

pinky - chrysanthemum (I think thats what it is)

ring - bamboo

index - woman

pointer - lotus

thumb - cherry blossom (not in picture though) 

I almost didn't post this as the photo looks like poop but I like the idea, I just need to use colors with more contrast between them.

Diamond Cosmetics Drift Away and Valentines Manicure #3

After the pink extravaganza from earlier this week I needed something more subdued.  I am a huge purple fan and have been meaning to try out Diamond Cosmetics Drift Away.  This is a standard Diamond Cosmetics formula and applys like butter, though I did 3 coats instead of the two I can normally get away with for a Diamond polish.  SHAKE THE BOTTLE, yeah I know I am supposed to do that for all polishes. I mean it for this one.  I don't know if it was because its so cold here or what but there was quite a bit of settling/seperation when I first opened it.  I did my normal couple shakes and the first stroke seemed watery and streaky.  After about 30 seconds of mixing it was back to what I am used to from Diamond.

This is an unusual color purple, it looks like a dusty, grayish purple in the bottle but on the nails it has a brownish tint too.  Its really hard to explain, just know its not your standard purple.  It is subdued but interesting at the same time, I really like it. 

 

Drift Away (3 coats) with top slightly more red in real life

I have been waiting to try a monotone hounds tooth pattern from Konad plate M63 so I grabbed my China Glaze LOL and stamped that over the Drift Away.  The LOL is only slightly lighter than the Drift Away and when the light hits the holo its pretty amazing looking.  It was a little plain though for Valentines Day, so I added a flower from plate M21 in China Glaze Millennium off centered on each nail.  The end result is pretty cool looking and I am happy enough with the whole manicure that I have left it on for two days. 

Drift Away base(3 coats), LOL hounds tooth, and Millennium flower, with top coat and flash so you can see the holo goodness.  Excuse the tip wear I took this after I had been wearing it for a while

Photographing Holos is a PITA

So photographing holos is a total pain.  I am totally going to get/build a light box as a result of today's polish.  A month ago I bought a bottle of China Glaze DV8 and has very excited about it.  Two days after buying it I accidentally knocked the box holding it onto the cold, hard, porcelain tile...shattering the bottle and sending gorgeous teal holo everywhere.  I was very sad.  On the positive side it gave me a reason to go buy a new bottle.  I was on a No Buy....ok I still officially am on a No Buy, but I'm not very good at it.  While at the local Vietnamese nail supply store (OMG!  I need to do a whole article on this place) grabbing a fresh bottle of DV8 I also picked up a bottle of LOL.  Its discontinued, if I don't get it now I might miss out.  Right?

Since I have had so many blue polishes on lately I decided to swatch the LOL first.  LOL is a purple linear holo.  I am obsessed with the linear holos like those in the OMG and OPI DS collections, they actually started my polish addiction and I have no willpower when it comes to them.  I was expecting really god things from LOL and I was needless to say giddy about trying it out.

Much like my experience with OPI DS Glamour, initially I was unimpressed.  It wasn't as dark a purple as it looked in the bottle and it didn't really have any of the holo goodness under fluorescent lighting.  Once I caught a glimpse of it under some nice recessed lighting or sunlight though....OHHH MAMMA!  Not as obvious as Glamour but still pretty fantastic.

Giddy and filled with purple, hologram cheer I grabbed my camera and started snapping pictures.  I normally try to take photos without a flash as my pasty white fingers reflect too much light with a flash.  Unfortunately there was no way to see how awesome this polish is without a flash or a better lighting set up than I currently have.  I resigned myself to taking one with and one without a flash, and a close up of the yumminess.

 

Three coats CG LOL and topcoat indoors without (L) and with (R) flash. 

 

 Ohhhh sparkly!

Because it was so overcast and gray out I wasn't getting a lot of light reflected back from this (well, the ladies room at work has great lighting but its just weird to hang out there and look at your nails), so I decided to add some hot pink and a little sex appeal for a Valentines-y konadicure.  Leopard print is romantic right?  No well my idea of Valentines day is skewedt, so this next week's mani's could be very boring or incredibly out of character for me.

CG LOL (3 coats), Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched, M57

Warlock

I have a confession, I am an addict.  No not to nail polish, ok that too but that's not my confession.  I am a WoW addict.  For those of you that don't know what I am talking about WoW is  short for World of Warcraft a massive multiplayer role-play game...a.k.a. a computer game.  So three nights a week I sit in front of my computer and type and talk through a microphone to 24 other people while we try to kill new imaginary bad guys to obtain digital loot and a gain a sense of accomplishment.  I can't really explain why I do it but I enjoy it most days.

The thing is that there is a lot of wait time associated with getting 24 other people all ready to play at the same time (even though we have a set start time), so most nights I use that time to change my nail polish.  Last week I was sitting at my desk staring at my character and thinking I should make a nail polish that matches her.  Ok I know that is weird but I think she is cute and I like the colors associated with her.  I play a warlock in the game and she typically cast spells and wears equipment in shades of purple, bright green and black.

She casts purple and pink spells so imagine that with the green

Materials:

• Sinful Colors I Love You
• Sally Girl Glitter - Fuchsia
• Chartreuse glitter
• Chelsea Twilight Purple
• Fingerpaints base coat (my bottle was half full)
• Clear Top coat
• Ballz

1. Add  1/8 of a bottle Sunful Colors I Love You to the Fingerpaints base coat
2. Add 2 small funnels each of chartreuse and fuchsia glitter
3. Add 6 drops Chelsea Twilight Purple (for shimmer)
4. Add ballz
5. Top off with clear
6. Shake well 

The chartreuse  glitter isn't very shinny, it is really sticky and likes to settle.  I really have to shake the bottle before using it.

Though I intended for this to be a sheer polish for layering over another appropriately warlocky color, I thought I would check it out solo first.

Its very hard to see the fuchsia glitter with multiple coats layered.  Three coats with a coat of Seche.

Here is is layered over some random polishes in my stash. 

WnW Black Creme

Rimmel  Night Before

Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched

Pure Ice Splash

I like it over both the Night Before and the Sketched and Etched.  The Night Before lets you see both colors of glitter the Sketched and Etched makes the green stand out more.  I was feeling a little brighter so I decided on the Fingerpaints.

One coat Warlock over 2 coats Finger paints Sketched and Etched and a close up of the glitter

I know its strange but it was fun combining my two addictions. Now when I look at my nails in the morning I will think about goofing off after work and who knows maybe it will bring me some good luck while playing tomorrow night.

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments. 

Sinful Colors Fall '09 Haul - Part 1

So my very first nail polish haul was 10 bottles of Sinful Colors from Walgreens.  I immediately used one to Franken.  I really don't like how these apply so I have been avoiding swatching them but am making a concerted effort to use everything I own at least once before buying more.

See You Soon is a black base with a teal microglitter.  In the bottle it looks almost like a dark teal shimmer but once you start painting you see the black polish and the shimmery glitter.   It applies fairly unevenly unless you use A LOT of polish on the brush.  I had bald spots and clear brush strokes after one coat.  A second coat and a layer of top coat takes care of these problems though.  In side it looks darker and more shimmery but in direct sunlight the glitter is really pretty.  I have worn this polish more than once despite the fact that it is a bit of a pain to apply and the fact that I have several polishes in the same color family.  I'm a Cowboys fan and while the color isn't quite right this has become my stand by for game day, though I admit that I typically Konad over it.

Sinful Colors See You Soon - 2 Coats and topcoat

I'm not really sure how to describe Mercury Rising.  Is it burgundy? Is it brown?  Is it bronze?  The answer is really yes to all of them.  There is definitely burgundy and dark red microglitter/shimmer in the base polish but that base is a bronze brown color.  It is beautiful when on though .  In doors it looks almost conservative but there is something that just keeps you looking at it.  When it catches the light though it just glows!  I keep looking at my nails and thinking how pretty it is.  I really want to put gold glitter on it or Konad an antique gold over it but I am refraining until I have had it on at least a day.  The Mercury Rising seemed to apply more opaque than a typical Sinful Color polish but once I was outside I notice VNL with only 2 coats so next time I wear this I will have to do three coats.

This shows two coats of Mercury Rising and a topcoat in sunlight. 
I didn't notice the VNL indoors but its pretty obvious here.

I am not in love with I Love You.  I don't know if it is even worthy of the "lets just be friends" status.  The first time I applied this polish I had such high hopes only to be utterly disappointed by the formula.  The polish itself is a purple jelly with purple glitter.  In the bottle it is a truly majestic purple, bright and glittery and holds a ton of promise.  Once you start painting though the problem becomes evident quickly...it is SOOOO thin.  The first time I tried this color I got 4 coats on and waited an hour, it never seemed to harden so I took it off.  I figured I had a bad combination of base/polish/top so I put it in a drawer to try later.

My second attempt It took me 4 coats to achieve bottle color and prevent VNL and by then it was really thick.  Combining that with the requisite Seche topcoat (I can't stand the bumpy texture of glitters) I looked like I had armored nails.  Ordinarily the thickness of a glitter polish doesn't bother me too much but there were other issues with I Love You.  Namely the color.  It was just too....bright?  It was almost garish.  I asked my nail polish buddy what she thought and her response described it perfectly.  It looked cheap...I mean it WAS cheap but I didn't want it to look cheap. On a positive side, it was possibly the shiniest glitter I have ever used and since it was 4 coats all the glitter blended together in the sun to look like a purple chrome. From arms length it looked like a purple chrome minx.  After swatching this I had to do something to tone the polish down a bit so I grabbed my WnW Black Creme and Konad plate M65 and subdued the violet glare a bit.

Sinful Colors I Love You 4 coats and top coat.  It is FAR brighter in person

Sinful Colors I Love You; WnW Black Creme M65

On a side note I had a disturbing amount of shrinkage after finishing this manicure.  Within three hours of this photo the tips of ALL ten nails had pulled back and exposed about 0.5mm of nail tips.  I am not sure if this was because I used Seche or the polish formula or just the thickness of the polish (6 coats total with base and topcoat). 

Fire Red is a typical red shimmer and was surprisingly easy to apply.  I have actually worn this polish a few times now and it goes on easy and wears about the same as a typical CG creme polish.  It is not fire red though, its a dark red, not vampy or anything just not true red and it has no orange undertones that I can see.  I really like to Konad black fishnet over this one.  Actually I did that immediately after taking this photo but then I forgot to take a picture of the final product.

Fire Red 3 coats and top coat

Purple Slate

I am constantly on the look out for a perfect purple creme, I still am not sure what that is or how to describe it but I am always willing to give a purple creme a shot as long as it isn't to grapey. Last week I thought I had discovered my match in OPI Siberian Nights only to get it home and realize it was much darker than I was anticipating. It was almost black by the second coat. I decided to experiment with some of the random polishes in my stash and try to come up with something somewhere between purple and black rather than just a really dark purple. Somewhere between charcoal and purple. Charple? Purcoal? I'm not really sure what I was going for except that I wanted it to look like dusty plums.
Materials:

• China Glaze Up All Night
• Rimmel Celebrity Bash
• WnW Black Creme
• Color Club French Tip
• Empty 0.5 oz bottle
• ballz
  

1. I started by filling the empty bottle ~1/4 full with CG Up All Night, this is a REALLY dark blue so I needed to lighten it up a bit to see what I was doing.
2. Added 1/4 French Tip and shook well. This was too much, 20 -30 drops would have probably been enough.
3. Next I added 1/4 bottle of the Celebrity Bash which made a light medium blue purple.
4. Finally I added ~30 drops Black Creme shaking every 5 drops or so until I had obtained a darker grey purple color.
5. After testing the color I added a little Sally Hansen Hard as Nails to thin the resulting mixture. It applies fairly smooth but does leave bald spots on the first coat, though that may be the brush as much as the polish.

Results:

I haven't named this polish yet, it is a cross between slate grey and eggplant. Its fairly dark in artificial light and much more purple in sunlight.

I found it pretty hard to photograph this color,
it is more dusty purple less blue in person. 

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments.