The Neverending Pile Challenge: Most Expensive

I like to think I am quite thrifty when it comes nail polish buying but every so often I feel like splurging if there is something amazing that I can't get any dupes for cheaper. When I started blogging, I'd see swatches of holographic polishes and I'd just look at the my screen trying to keep my mouth closed. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any holos at the local Target so I had to go hunting for the only brand I knew had good holos and I knew where to get from. Yes, it took a plane, bus and tram round trip to get the $19.95 Layla Hologram Effect polish (I had other plans for this trip but I was utterly excited to go shopping for polish). Yes, I was unaware if the price when I gave it to the checkout lady and didn't want to seem like a cheapskate and put it back on the shelf before walking out. As awkward as that experience was for me, today I can be glad that Coral Glam is part of my stash. 

This wasn't an untried as such. I had put it on on a couple of fingers  before to marvel at the beauty of the holo but had never worn it as a full mani. And man! I forgot how pretty this was. It's subtle enough on the shade but once it comes out to the sun that flame is strong. 

By the way, I used a base coat for this ad three coats of  Coral Glam to reach opacity and cover up all the drag marks that I manage to get during application.

I'm not good at leaving nail polish alone so I added my first ever DIY nail decal with a three of unused polishes. I used Konad Special Nail Polish in Black for the outline and coloured in the flower from MoYou's Suki 04 plate with Revlon Parfumerie's African Tea Rose, Sunlit Grass and Apricot Nectar. I thought the green polish was an unused polished but turned out I had used Essence's The Green & the Grunge before. Once I applied and cleaned up around the decal, I topped the whole mani with one coat of HK Girl Top Coat.

I know the decal isn't the best but I'm happy with the way this turned out. And you know, one can always look at the holo instead of the decal. :)

I really like this polish and I am glad it has come out of the untried  stash considering all the effort that was required to get this little bottle.

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Skittle

For today's GOT Polish Challenge theme, I brought out all older-than-a-year supplies (minus topcoat) to create a skittle. This design is a variation of one I had done back in Sep 2012, so the whole mani turned out to be an oldie but goldie!

I started with two coats of Revlon's Fire Fox, which was reviewed and praised here, and let it fully dry. I then stamped a flowery motif from a set of Konad-dupe plates from Born Pretty Store with Konad Special Nail polish in Black and top coated all my nails with HK Girl Top Coat. Once dry, I applied three Dollar Nail Art black studs on my middle finger and surrounded them with some gold studs I got from from BPS. I walked around the house for a while with my pinky and index finger bare for about an hour as I didn't know what to add to tie up the skittle and make it look coherent. I finished by adding a small L shape with the same gold studs I'd used on my middle finger.

I got Fire Fox, the set of plates and the studs some time around September 2012 and I actually recreated a similar mani, which I did not photograph or have any record of, but I'm pretty sure it went something like this.

What I liked the most from that similar mani was the way Fire Fox shone through the very opaque stamping polish. Look at all that pretty shimmer! I really couldn't stop looking at it.

I didn't secure the studs with any topcoat so they have already come off and taken chunks of the red polish with it so I'm gonna go paint my nails for next week.

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Favourite Pattern

Day 29 of the 33 Day Challenge is here. I seem to have gotten on the 'creating OK nail art bandwagon' again and I'm pretty glad because I'd been looking forward to the favourite pattern prompt for a while. I didn't even have to think about this one. I  love houndstooth anything, even this Lady Gaga ensemble (I wouldn't wear any of it but it's cool) and I'd been wanting to do a nude/neon houndstooth manicure for ages after seeing it in a blog (the name, I cannot remember and I can't find it on Google) and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. However, I didn't own a good nude or an opaque enough neon colour to recreate what I had seen but thanks to my little haul last week, I have finally created a mani inspired on that one I saw many moons ago.

I started with two coats of My Island Home (MIH), a great-nude-for-my-skin-tone, textured polish from Face Of Australia, and let it dry for about an hour before I started stamping. It didn't need to dry for that long but I find the texture shows a lot better when the polish has fully dried. And I wanted to be absolutely sure I wouldn't have to redo the base from stamper pressure smudges. I have ruined bases many times that way and it looks like I have learnt a lesson. :)

For the houndstooth pattern I used the BM-322 plate and one coater polishes. From green to orange I used: 

• Essence in The Green & the Grunge
• Sinful Colours in Blue By You
• Max Factor Mini in Purple Haze
• Konad Special Polish in Red
• Essence in Flashy Pumpkin

Hold on, wasn't this supposed to be a nude AND neon manicure? Well, yes but... The one coater-ish neon pink I have didn't stamp that well and it looked like a greyed out pink over MIH. Plain black houndstooth was gonna be boring so I created a sort of rainbow effect with two of my new polishes and some old ones I knew were one coaters and had the potential to stamp well over the nude. I even gambled a little and brought out the shimmer Blue By You because I wanted sparkle. Look at it below, it worked and it looks so pretty in the sun.

Sun. I finally had the opportunity to do my mani early in the day and come out to the sun to take photos. I get to sit on the grass, enjoy the birds singing, the wind in my face, listen to the peace and quiet of the outdoors and not feel guilty that I'm procrastinating uni work. Yay for summer holidays!

On with the manicure... I didn't use any topcoat because I LOVE the texture of MIH but it makes me sad the stamping will come off quicker because of that. 

Did anyone notice that the pattern on the index finger is upside down compared to the rest of the fingers? Applying the colours to the plate to create the rainbow was sort of automatic but when I thought about it and was about to stamp the index finger, I thought I had it the wrong way on the stamper and redid it. I only noticed it when I was taking photos. I'm gonna say that's an accent finger. That'll work. ;)

I also noticed this mani fitted that prompt for Friday very well but I have no idea what I'm gonna do for that one. I'll have to do some brainstorming. Until then, check out the other ladies' manicures.

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: A Mani Using Two Patterns

Day 18 for the challenge. A few things pop into my mind when I think about that number:

1. I didn't know I had enough creativity to get through to this day 
2. I don't know how I'm gonna come up with my own ideas when the challenge is over
3. I'm posting this the day it is supposed to go up
4. My right hand is an awkward poser or it needs to find its own poses

I didn't want to take off my last mani (if you're in a desktop/laptop and have a keyboard, press the right arrow key to get to it and the left one to get back to this one, you know you want to try it...), so I brought out my right hand to play. Yeah, that means I have different designs on each hand. :)

I started with two coats of the super-buttery, non-streaky metallic polish called Crazy Fancy Love by Essence. It's actually a greenish rose gold multichrome but all the stamping doesn't really let its greatness shine through. Once I let this beauty dry, I stamped a what-I-think-may-be reeds pattern from the plate BM-406 with Ulta3's Frog Prince. I didn't know this could stamp as well as it did but I wanted a green and that was the opaquest one I had so I gave it a go. I stamped the roses with Konad Special Red Polish and the plate BM-323. I sealed it all off with a coat of Seche Vite before cleaning up.

I usually clean up before top coating a mani but I figured if my left hand strayed, the brush would remove the topcoat and not the stamping. Looks like that was the case but the cuticle edge was messy. Better than a half stamped hand?

I think the above photo is a right hand pose, if I tried it with my left my fingers would be super crooked.

Check out what the other talented ladies have come up with for this prompt.

Till next time, which I know I will be late for.

Laura