Dots: They May Be The End Of Me

After having spent some time in the nail art blogsphere, I have discovered even the best bloggers have one technique they can't quite master. For most it may be the water marble, for some less it could be the perfect gradient, others have trouble with tape. I'm by no means saying I'm one of the best out there (but I will aspire to be one... eventually), but the technique that fails me every time would be dotting. Yes, dotting. The one that you can do with almost anything that's slightly pointy and that should be super easy. The one that looks amazing when done properly. For some reason that I'm yet to discover, I cannot make the dots into circles. They tend to go pear shaped (sometimes literally) and I get frustrated.

I decided to give one a go today since it had been a while since my last attempt at a dotticure and was determined to have a steady hand and lots of patience. The result wasn't half bad but there is still a lot of room for improvement. I started with three coats of OPI's DS Classic then used two different sizes dotting tools to apply Topshop's High Voltage for the pink dots and Ulta3 in Orchid for the purple shimmer dots. I applied a coat of Seche Vite to even all the layers out, once dry I topped it all off wit one coat of Essie's Matte About You.

It's not perfect but it's wearable. After so many failed attempts I'm OK wit that. 

One SUPER annoying tiny little thing that is happening lately is shrinkage from Seche Vite. It doesn't happen with all my fingers, it just happens on my index and it makes it look like I have bad tipwear. I'm thinking it may be because that finger is more curved than the others. 

I liked the pattern I managed to create with this finger and the dots were mostly all circular. Woohoo!

The more I look at it, the more I begin to accept it may not be such a bad job. I'll just have to keep practicing an try to keep my hands steady.

I'd like to know, is there a technique that you'd like to master but haven't qquite gotten there yet?

Till next time, 

Laura

The Nudes

No, there are no naughty pictures in this post but there are photos of a very new thing for me. Nude colours. 


I've always been a fan of bright pinks, scarlet reds, royal blues, deep purples, glittery blacks; whereas pastels, beige and pale brown tones usually went unnoticed and if I ever glanced twice while shopping, they would be put rejected for the more luminous shades. This doesn't only happen with polish but with clothes, shoes, homewares, anything that I would pay for basically.


However, after trying your Butter London Yummy Mummy, I thought I could give this look a go. I went to Target to see if I could score any bargains but I couldn't really find anything I liked within my low budget. To the rescue came that little underrated Essence Cosmetics stand. Essence released a Nude Glam collection for the northern hemisphere's spring for this year, which includes 7 polishes of the nude sort. The one that got my attention was Toffee To Go. It wasn't too pink, too brown or too shimmery and I thought it would be suit my skin tone.  

To be completely honest, I couldn't bear the thought of not having colour or sparkle on my nails, so I added  OPI Save Me from the Nicki Minaj Collectionas an accent on my thumb.


Here it is, my first (and almost) full nude. I used three coats of both Save Me and Toffe to Go. On the thumb, I used three coats of Toffee to Go with a wiggly-lined piece of sticky tape after letting Save Me dry. It was all toped off with two coats of quick drying top coat.

I loved this mani but... The Essence Toffee To Go was a pain in the ass to work with. It was streaky, the formula was thick (how can those two go together?) and it took forever to dry. If you were to zoom on my the above picture, you might be able to see a lot of hair marks on the polish even after I applied two (two!!) pretty thick coats of top coat.


Needless to say, this came right off and got replaced by another sort of nude mani. For this one I used three coats of  OPI DS Classic and a bronze foil for the accent nail.

I was a lot happier with this and, even though the foil didn't last more than two days, I would like to say this is more my kinda nude. 


One last one because I liked it that much.

That's all from me. So until next time,


Happy polishing!!