Nail Art Challenge #19 Harvest

A skittle manicure in the colours of the North Eastern fall.

This manicure was inspired by crunchy leaves and festive knobbly decorative gourds. I wasn't 100% sure that the colours were going to work together (or look at all good on me) until I finished, but in the end I was extremely happy with the transition.

I'm generally way more into cool colours, but I have been playing with bronze tones as neutrals a lot lately as an introduction to warmer colours, and I feel like pulling this off gives me a lot more license to play with warm tones.

Random bonus shot:

Prior to the above mani my nails were possibly the longest they've ever been without the assistance of silk wraps. The polish colour here is two coats of Starlight Polish Phoenix which shows a flame orange sparkle in the bottle and in sunlight but mostly looks like an acid green sparkle in pictures.

I kept them this long through helping someone move, and then broke the last quarter inch off of the ring finger getting out of my car. :/

For the best really as using a smartphone with nails this long is intensely annoying.

Nail Art Challenge #17 - Rock Some White While You Still Can!

A clean and simple manicure in piano-key white to ride out the last week before Labor Day.

I just took this mani off and re-polished my nails last night, so I figured it was high time to post the pic I took over a week ago!

The original plan was to do...something...? with this once the white dried, but it was so clean looking and I was so busy with wedding stuff I decided to leave it alone and let it speak for itself.

This is hands down the best white I've found so far and I achieved great opacity in two coats with a bit of additional touch-up in places though I'm still on the lookout for something that will be 100% opaque in two coats.

I don't know which product is responsible for the current state of my nails but I've been using the Orly Bonder Basecoat with the Gelous coat as a second layer for a while now and it's REALLY REALLY working.

I spent much of Monday moving a friend into a new apartment. At that point my nails were one week's growth longer than the pic above and I packed, lifted and carried all day with pretty much nothing but tip wear and a little bit of cracking/crumbling along the sides to show for it!

Nail Art Challenge #16 - Supermoon

A softly marbled, glow-in -the-dark(!), cling-wrap manicure inspired by the face of the full moon.

It took me a while to figure out what to do for this fortnight's challenge. My original plan had been to do a half-moon manicure but obviously I just did one. I didn't want to go too white because the next challenge is Labor Day/white themed.

I ended up Googling pics of the Moon and realized how beautifully marbled it looked, so I thought that may be something to work with. I'd never done a marbled manicure before so I wasn't sure how to approach it. I knew I'd seen what I was looking for, but all I could think of was sponging, which would be too even. 

img source http://www.oocities.org/~cphilg/astro.html

A bit of nail blog searching later and I stumbled over saran wrap or cling film manicures (link is to a Google image search) and I knew I had it!

I've linked to a tutorial here but basically you do a base layer of one colour which you let dry. In my case this was a dark taupe. I wish I had something a bit cooler grey but you got what you got. Once that layer is really dry you apply a coat of the second colour (white, here) and while it is still wet dab at it with a piece of crumpled plastic wrap until you achieve the desired effect. I ended up going back in a few times with the white as it is very sheer and I wanted a really diffuse uneven effect.

Some people just topcoat it there, but you can also put a coat of something sheer over the top for added depth. I used a yellowy glow-in-the-dark polish to smooth out and soften the design... and also because glow-in-the-dark makes everything better! I couldn't get a pic of the glowing that made any sense, but here is a brief video from my instagram.

I'm beyond psyched at how this came out. I think it is probably the closest I've gotten in any of these challenges to nailing PRECISELY what I had pictured at the outset. This technique was quite easy and also works spectacularly well to make lapis, turquoise, and tarnished copper effects so I will DEFINITELY be revisiting in the future.

I hope you all had a fantastic view of the Supermoon on Sunday, I ended up going out for a late run with my Fiancée and while we usually don't like getting caught out after dusk it was absolutely worth it to watch the moon rise. We even got to catch a small group of bats on the wing.

Nail Art Challenge #15 - Creature Feature

An ultra vampy and completely freehand retro half moon gel manicure in shades of glittering starlet gold and sugar-sweet fake blood.

I went to an outdoor festival from Thursday of last week to Tuesday, and I knew it was going to involve a lot of stress on my nails. I've done this trip every year for about fourteen years and I usually I chop my nails off beforehand for simplicity's sake, but they were sooooooo long this time I just couldn't bear to. I opted instead to do a home gel manicure and hope for the best.

I had not yet used the gold glitter so I knew I wanted to do something with that, and when I saw the cherry color next to it I thought immediately of those ultra vampy 60s & 70s Dracula's Bride types, walking the line between menacing and seducing the protagonist with their long almond shaped nails practically dripping with blood.

The Iconic Vampira

The length is somewhat annoying (especially with my touchscreen smartphone) but they held up like champs despite a lot of wet and mud and physical labor. In fact I'm STILL trying to decide whether to trim them down! I love having the Red Carpet Manicure home set for exactly this sort of situation, but be forewarned, doing home gels takes a LOT of time, patience, and fussy attention to detail.

It probably wouldn't have taken something like two hours if I hadn't opted to do it completely freehand, but I'm never happy with the moon shape I achieve using stickers to mask it off. This method does have the very large advantage of having every layer completely cured before you move on to the next, so its easier to fix mistakes without messing up the base colour. The wine colour is VERY translucent though, so it took many layers to build up the depth of colour to my liking which caused a bump I'm not terribly fond of at the edge of the moon shapes.

Nail Art Challenge #14 - Light Up the Night

A dramatic inky black manicure with a fireworks inspired set of feature nails.

I was going for an explosive firework effect on the ring finger with trailing sparks on the middle and pinky fingers. Sadly any shot I could get in focus completely flattened the fire of the micro glitter, but hopefully the inset gives you a little better idea of the twinkling "spark" effect of that polish. It really is quite pretty in real life.

The Midnight Glitz (middle and pinky fingers) is a combination of large black and pale gold larger sized hex glitters with flat black and holographic micro glitters. Below is a swatch sample with two dabbed layers. I feel a little better about my shots after doing an image search of this polish as it seems NO ONE can get a good picture of it. This is as close as I've seen anyone get.

I always find pairing base colours with (non rainbow-y) multi-coloured glitters to be a challenge. This one seems  to work best with a dark metallic grey.

I don't know how well it would work over a brighter polish and I'm not terribly thrilled with the larger glitters, but it was EXACTLY the combination I needed to coordinate with the larger holo in this manicure. I wish I had used a layer of it under the polish I used for my ring finger. It looks pretty sexy in the bottle so it might be cool on its own if you can manage to build up enough layers.

I will definitely be either thinning the base of the large scale holo glitter or seeking another like it. I love the glitter but the base is like jelly.

Bonus shot: I FINALLY did my toes too.

Lemon Meringue Pedi- Shoes by Børn

Double extra bonus link: This is a shot of all the products I used to achieve the Light Up the Night manicure, including the non-polish pre prep and post mani quick dry stuff.

Nail Art Challenge #13 - Under the Sea

A carefully matched Ombre Manicure in increasingly deep aqua/jade tones.

I guess it's pretty clear I have a thing about this colour! I don't think you could buy a set that close all at once.

I love wearing manis like these and it came out better than I could have hoped, but I'm not looking forward to the upkeep on these fussy satins! I've had the two darkest satin colours *over a decade* and boy was that obvious when I started using it. That dark jade colour fought me every moment. The only polish here under a year old is the glittery accent colour.

I'm glad I got back to these posts, the odd thing is that I actually DID the last two manis but didn't get a chance to take pics of them before they got too messed up.

Nail art Challenge #10 - MomMommaMomMommyMumMomma WHAT?!?!

A no nonsense, in your face, but still somehow incredibly cheery mani in a bubble gum pink creme and a midnight blue jelly with silver hex and micro-glitter for Mother's Day.

If you've ever met my Mom this combo probably makes a great deal of sense.

I've already had to touch this up a fair amount but that could be due to a number of factors.

I have been trying the Orly Bonder base coat lately because my CND Stickey is getting low, but I don't think it has the staying power.

I like that the Poshe topcoat doesn't shrink on me like the Seche Vite, but it doesn't seem to have the gloss or strength.

It could also be the Sinful Colors as it's not the best quality polish. Though I can't complain too much considering the price.

You may or may not have noticed that I COMPLETELY SPACED on the May the Fourth be With You mani (pun intended) so I'll be making that up at some point. Wedding stuff happened, work is INSANE right now, and I simply lost track of time. Sorry!

Nail Art Challenge #8 - Showers/Flowers

A springy ombré manicure in shades of soft lilac.

I'm so excited to see the violets and hyacinths finally starting to bloom around here so I decided to go all out purple this week and break out a pre-packaged ombré set I had bought over the winter.

Overall this looks pretty good, but I'm not thrilled by the base shade. The colour on my thumb (which I usually call muddy or mauvey lilac) is one of the very few shades that REALLY don't look good on me. I had been hoping it would come out brighter, but such is the way with internet buying. I will probably re-use the darker shades and the glitter but the lighter ones I suspect will get pretty dusty, though I did use them in the Muppet mani.

It's lucky I just happened to be really bored sitting in my car for a little bit this afternoon and used the opportunity to take a few shots in natural sunlight because my regular camera doesn't capture this colour family well AT ALL. This is fairly true to colour on my monitor if *slightly* washed out, on my camera this shifted to a very blue periwinkle->indigo ombré.

The polishes are not really great quality and if you ever wondered what people were talking about when they mention Seche Vite shrinkage, my middle finger is a fantastic example. The colour actually shrank at BOTH ends despite adding a layer of the Gelous on top. It's very hard to get the proper coverage without flooding your cuticles. I am going to have to remember to glob on more and cleanup with a fine brush and remover afterward.

I still feel that the Seche is worth it for that shine and the fact that I was able to pull my laundry out of the dryer within half an hour of finishing. It also completely smoothed over the fact that my nails are kind of a peel-y mess under all of that polish.

Nail Art Challenge #6 - Celebration of Spring

A dead simple active length manicure in an eye catching tender new leaf green.

Not very arty as nail art goes, but that green was just so beautiful I had to let it shine.

A little late I know, I'm sorry. I got the painting done last night but the silver polish I was wearing prior took SO LONG to remove I ended up finishing up after bedtime and I cut my sleep pretty tight as is.

I went to bed so fast afterward I was dead sure I was going to have to fix sheet marks today! Have I mentioned lately that I love Seche Vite?

I got the creme polish from Color Club in a Birchbox shipment sometime last year and I'd been pretty dubious about trying it, but looking at it now this mint colour looks so amazing on me I'm tempted to find some matching clothes. Sadly I dont think it's going to be very durable but I'd love to revisit it, so I may try it again with a couple of layers of Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat as that really seems to extend a mani. I got surprisingly good coverage in two fairly thick coats due to time constraints, but I think this would do better with three thin coats.

The glitter topper (macro shot here) has perfectly matching satin green glitter in bar, tiny dot, and hex combined with a superfine holo glitter, in a very slightly green tinted base. The base and glitter makes it look a touch darker than real life in this pic. I really love glitter polishes with satiny glitter (rather than reflective) so I will definitely be revisiting this colour as well. I have one other shade in this line and may go back for more.

Nail Art Challenge #5 - Pick a Muppet, any Muppet

A Muppet-Tastic mani made up with monster blue, shades of lilac, lilac and blue glitter, and googly eyes.

I am a MASSIVE Muppet fan and from moment one I knew I was doing my very favorite Muppet, Gonzo. Not the most amazing likeness but I think it does the job in a gestural sort of way. Once I remembered I had a stash of googly eyes there was no stopping me!

The polish fought me a bit but a great deal of that was simple time constraint. I didn't want to put a layer of topcoat between details so I knew I had to do it all in one shot.

Initially I had been worried that chopping my nails so much shorter was going to lose me working space but I think this scaled out pretty much perfect. I only did this on the left hand as two Gonzos just doesn't make sense. *laughs*

I think the lilac and blue hex glitter was just the right detail to pull it together as a full mani. I had real doubts at how this was going to turn out as I was doing it but in all I'm really happy with it!

Did I mention the googly eyes?

Added bonus, this massive sinus infection (oh, I apparently had a massive sinus infection, by the way) has me so clogged up I didn't have to smell any of the remover or fresh polish!

Nail Art Challenge #4 All is Full of Love

A stark Enamel White/Piano Black manicure inspired by the video for Bjork's All is Full of Love.

I thought of doing something more classically Valentine themed but just couldn't get the video out of my head. I decided instead to go really really stark and mechanical to match the gorgeous robots in the video and try a new technique while I was at it.

If you are not familiar with either the song or video they are both quite stunning.

All is Full of Love - Bjork (Director:Chris Cunningham)

Between dings, smearing, hairs getting stuck in my topcoat (twice!), and new tool learning curve I'm amazed this came out half so well as it did. This one fought me pretty much from beginning to end.

The colour and very slightly translucent finish of the Essie Marshmallow is just what I was looking for, but I would really like a white that is non-streaky in less than four(!) layers. I am too fidgety to dry, much less maintain nail polish this thick. Every second that I go without a fast dry top coat is another opportunity to get dings, and boy howdy did I ding this up. Luckily the colour was forgiving, but fixing mistakes never comes out quite right.

As far as the black, this was my first time using a striper brush, that was certainly an experience! I can't say as I'll be reaching for that tool again any time soon. I set the initial positioning by laying down tape to get the line straight which worked out pretty well, but it was not down flush (only as a guideline) so I had to pull it up to avoid  the black bleeding under. Even with a target line figuring out and maintaining the right position of my hands to get the brush at the best angle was incredibly awkward. And that was with my GOOD hand!

The black polish got sticky on the brush very fast so it was hard to work slow enough to keep things neat. I used topcoat over the white so I was able to use a file to clean up the black a bit once it dried, but even then the final layer of topcoat somehow smeared the black. *sigh* I did do the full design on both hands and the right came out shockingly good, but I had a lot more problems with smearing on the black on that hand.

You wouldn't think such a simple design would be so fiddly but there was very little room for mistakes here. In the end I'm pretty happy with how it came out, though I do think it would look much better if the white was not as built up. A vertical line probably would have been more flattering to the length of my nails but that would be too close to my last challenge mani.

I expect I will be removing this pretty soon as the white is not holding up well. The Poshe polish is easier in some ways but doesn't seem to hold up like Seche Vite. I think I may have to take down the length of my nails a bit as well as my typing accuracy is questionable even in the best of circumstances.

Nail Art Challenge #3 - Fashion Week

I'm not gonna lie, I really wish I had been able to put this challenge off until a bit later in this week as I really have not been terribly keen on the collections I've seen so far.  Luckily something about this particular look by Custo Dalmau caught my attention just in time.

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/slideshow/F2014RTW-CUSTOBARC/#7

Overall it's a bit much but the base lines are pretty cool. I have done a vertical fuchsia and nude look before and really enjoyed it so I thought it'd be cool to revisit and tweak.

Also I want those purple aviators something fierce.

Like seriously. Reflective purple aviators. Now.

I translated that look into a curvy vertical neon and nude (almost a putty, really) with black triangular accents.

I resisted the urge to tape it off in favor of free-handing and in retrospect I'm regretting that. I had texture issues with all the coloured polishes and that made it very difficult to clean up my lines. In the bottle and in the pic the fuchsia is perfect, but in real life it is noticeably more purple. Still a great colour for me, but not exactly what I was aiming for. The coverage on the Ulta nude is outstanding and it leveled beautifully, but the thickness made it difficult to manipulate the line.

I was originally planning to go much larger on those triangles and add a bit of purple at the base if possible, but no battle plan survives contact with the enemy (Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder 1800-1891). I keep planning out designs and then realizing that even when my nails are on the longer side I have very little space to execute them.

Okay, I just checked and the nails on the swatching wheels I have are nearly the size of my thumbnail! No wonder I am having problems with my design scaling.

What? I'm a child of the 80s.

I do really like the use of transparency in fashion lately and was originally thinking of doing something in a sheer and black windowpane like this gown from Christian Siriano (one of the few pieces so far that's really stuck with me this season) but just couldn't figure out how to do it justice without the giant pile striping tape that is currently on order and certainlytakingitssweettimetogethere.

*ahem*

I also really liked the tone on tone marbled look on some of Siriano's other dresses and it gives me some ideas for experiments in water marbling.

In all I'm not terribly thrilled with this particular look, but I learned a few things and have some ideas for the future so I'm calling it a positive learning experience.

Darkest Winter

2014 Nail Art Challenge #2 - Darkest Winter

A crisp clean semi-ruffian manicure in shades of glass flecked taupe and glittering white.
My aim was to echo and elevate the salt and sand grimed snow which is now blanketing my late January Northeast winter wonderland.

I will also be using this manicure for the Lacquer Legion January theme of Reinvention as this was the THIRD design I had attempted for my winter theme in as many days, and it is about as far from my original plan as you could imagine.

I may show you guys a pic of the first attempt someday, but I wouldn't put money on it. The first step came out absolutely gorgeous, and I should have left it RIGHT there.

A Ruffian manicure involves kind of a "short sheeted" look where the base of the nail shows a different colour from the body. This look was created by the CND team for the 2010 Ruffian show during Fashion Week.

So glittery!

Apparently a proper Ruffian covers the full side, I didn't do that, which was silly of me because it probably would have been WAY easier. The white here is very sheer for this application so it ended up pretty thick, but I think the topcoat smoothed things out pretty well. The taupe covered well in two coats, the white will take at least three for any kind of real coverage.

Please 'scuse the bit of cuticle mess above. This was taken while I was still waiting for this to dry, and it seems taking off navy polish will leave a fair amount of cleanup!

Just a shot which I thought would be neat while I was still doing the base layer.

All other pics here are of the left, here is my right. As you can see I don't do too bad for my off hand.
I did the same ruffian treatment on the ring-finger of my right and it came out pretty okay, but not *quite* as clean as the left. Practice practice, of course.

That taupe colour was INSANELY matte before top coat! I almost wish I could have kept it like that but I knew it was going to be a day in between base and finish and I haven't really tested out the matte topcoat I own.

I recently picked up a bottle of Rimmel's Lasting Finish Pro in Rags to Riches (a cool shimmery olive) and I picture that going REALLY beautifully with this taupe. I am really happy with both the white and the taupe and am falling hard for glassfleck finishes so I fully expect to reach for these bottles again, thought the bottle in the white is a bit tall and narrow and feels tippy.


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A Fresh Start

2014 Nail Art Challenge #1 - A Fresh Start

An ultra simple minty springy mermaidy manicure on freshly chopped nails. I knew I wanted to use a bright springy green creme colour for this but I've worn that green before and I just picked up the blue. Happily the glitter has a subtle green flash to it which coordinates beautifully.

The blue seems to be quite brittle and I'm getting a lot of chipping on corners already. I think part of it is that I may do a bit too much typing to keep my corners at all square (squoval?). I think I'm going to turn this into a French with the green on the tips to see if that will extend it. I may use that for my January Lacquor Legion entry (January's theme - Reinvention) but I do also have another idea for that I may be fiddling with. I have a couple of weeks to decide.

I've also finally gotten my camera up and running! Nothing too sexy, just a several year old Canon Powershot, but unlike my iPhone it does macro shots which is obviously better for these hand pics. I think I need to set up a tripod and timer for the outfit shots though as everything I've tried to take so far looks like ghost photography.

Weird factlet about me: that's actually the shortest I can cut my nails right now. After growing them for a while as the "quick" of my nail-bed will actually grow out past the tip of my fingers. This is called an extended hyponychium. Right now this is only happening on my thumbs and pointers but the longer I keep my nails long the more of them it affects (never the ring fingers though *shrugs*). If I want them any shorter I have to cut them back gradually as the nail bed retracts.

Bonus info: if you ever want to have a queasy stomach for a bit I recommend that you do a Google image search for scientific/medical terms having to do with nails!

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