The Neverending Pile Challenge: Pastel

I almost thought I wasn't gonna post on the second day of the challenge because I had the idea that I didn't have any untried pastel polishes. Pastel colours don't really complement my skin tone so if I buy one of these hues, I do it for a reason and I will use it. After I had a good look in my stash, I came across a Nails Inc polish that I had bought as a gift but for some reason or another, I never ended up giving it away. So it sat on the rack for year and a half without even having been opened until today.

I present to you Little Miss Sunshine by Nails Inc, a peachy, nude creme that has a very nice, quick drying formula for a lighter polish. It got it opaque in three coats but it would have been fine with two if I had done been a little more careful with the application. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting much from this polish from previous experience with this type of colour but I was pleasantly surprised and couldn't stop looking at it for a while. As mentioned,  three coats and no topcoat for the swatch below.

I always get itchy fingers... (that was me trying to be funny, just in case you missed it) when I have plain nail polish and this time was no exception. The image that I thought of when I saw the colour on my nails was one of the many manicures that float around on Pinterest of metallic overlapping triangles over a nude base. I've seen them a lot (but I cannot find one of them right now!!!) and I knew exactly what colours I wanted to use. 

I brought out the striping tape and created one long triangle per nail with OPI's Goldeneye, let that dry and repeated the same process with Essie's Nothing Else Metals. I topped it all off with one coat of HK Girl Top Coat. 

Unfortunately, Some of the Goldeneye polish came off with the tape when I tried to create the purple triangles, then took too long to remove the tape when I was working with Nothing Else Metals, all which left the triangles a little rough. I tried to patch up the missing bits taken off Goldeneye with a dotting tool and it sort of worked but there was nothing I could do with NEM.  I'm tempted  to tag this as nail fail but it looks nice and sparkly from afar and I've learnt that next time, because there will be a next time, to make the triangles longer to help with the overall look and work within appropriate tape removal times with each polish.

I went for the best angles of the mani hence the lack of photos and different poses. :)

I already have the next prompt's mani ready to go and I'm roaring to dive into this challenge fully.

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Ruffle Mani

I've seen ruffle mani plenty of times but, even though there are some very talented ladies out there that can do wonders with this technique, I have never been enticed to recreate one as they seemed a lot of work... Yeah, that's my lazy side popping out. I figured a simplified version would be more suitable for me and it wouldn't put me completely off doing another in the future. I don't even know if I've done the ruffles right but here's my take on the prompt. 

I started one coat of Jacob's Dream from the The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Collection from Essence (one of my longest named polishes) that was given to me by Tasha in a swap sometime before Christmas 2012. It's almost a one coater so I tried applying a medium coat slowly and smoothly hoping I wouldn't have to do two coats for the base. That, people, is exhibit B of my laziness. After the first coat I applied one coat of HK Girl Top Coat to help Jacob's dream to dry quickly.

Once that base was dry I created the ruffles with OPI's Goldeneye, acquired in January 2013,  letting it dry and then using Jacob's Dream for the following ruffle and so on and so forth. I used the brushes from the polish bottles and I thought the were easy enough to control, however, looking at the unevenness of the ruffles made me realise otherwise. I finished it all off with one coat of the same top coat used above to even the six layers of polish out. 

I created this mani last night and I knew I had to brig out out to the sun but it's not my usual mid-afternoon sun that makes everything look really good but the midday sun that washes everything out with its glare. But I guess that shows how sparkly this mani actually was.

I like this first attempt at a ruffle mani (if that's what we are calling it) but I know it's not my best work. I guess I'm gonna have to try it again...

Till next time, 

Laura

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