The Challenge Entry That Wasn't

I always wondered how nail bloggers got involved in 31 day challenges. Does one just find a challenge and starts doing it? Would one have to get an invitation to participate? Was there some sort of exclusive club I didn't know about that created all these challenges I saw floating around? I still don't know the answer to these questions but I was really happy when I came across the Oh Mon Dieu! It's The Rather Awesome 31 Day Challenge Giveaway!. As you may infer by the name, this is a challenge open internationally in which you can win prizes for completing each challenge and get up to 31 entries for the month, when completed. I came across it by the second day of the challenge and funnily enough, I had completed the first two entries unknowingly and figured I could jump on the 3rd day without too much trouble.

Excitedly, I thought of all the possible nail art I could create with the prompt Purple. One of my all-time favourite polishes is actually a purple by B Collection by Bloom called Dubai (no longer on sale) but a simple swatch wasn't going to do, so I created curved, black and gold french tips to spice it up.

Version 1: Two coats of B Collection by Bloom in Dubai on a base-coated nail followed by a coat of Seche Vite. Once dry, I painted Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Night Flight with the polish brush, let it dry, then applied OPI's Goldeneye for the gold and used one last coat of Seche Vite to smooth it all out.

I had a lot of BAD drag marks from using Seche Vite to dry the first two coats on all my fingers. I did it late last night and I didn't really noticed the marks until after I had taken the photos. By the time I was done editing the OK photos, I was too tired to fix them or do them again. Hence, version 2 was created this morning. Same steps as version 1 but iIapplied Dubai carefully and skipped the first coat of Seche Vite.  

I was really happy with the way it came out, even if all the tips had a different curvature/centre from each  other. Especially keen on the middle finger.

My camera was freaking out a little from all the shine on the nail and I couldn't really show a lot of crisp detail. So what would I do in these sort of situations? Bring out the matte top coat.  Doesn't that look cool?

I got some cotton fluff stuck on my ring finger, had to fish it out with tweezers, tried to smooth it out with matte top coat and hoped that it wouldn't be too noticeable.  

So we all love Goldeneye, right? When I was taking the photos for version two, I noticed there was a lot of green reflecting from this polish. I was wearing a green cardigan at the time so I took it off to make sure it wasn't that colour reflecting. In a much closer, the Goldeneye over black seemed to bring out a green tinge on what seemed to be translucent flakies. Night Flight is a green based black so that might explain the green. I wonder how Goldeneye would layer over other colours but that may be another post altogether.

I was really happy with the way this turned out and this curved french mani and colour combination are things I wouldn't have tried had it not been for the challenge. 

So why the challenge entry that wasn't? Well, when I checked out the prize pack that corresponded to Australia, I was a bit disheartened as there was nothing in it I didn't already own. This is not a critique on the prizes but it wasn't an incentive for me to enter the competition. The challenge bit was exciting but I know I won't be able to complete since I go back to uni in two-ish weeks. Maybe I'll start my own challenge... I'll like to see how that goes.

Have you been part of a challenge? Did you enjoy it? Any that you would recommend?

Till next time, 

Laura