GOT Polish Challenge: Yellow/ Peach

As much as I love the colour yellow, most of us would know how hard it is to work with the formula of this hue of polish; there's always streakiness, bold patches, multiple coats to get the colour even, bad formulas, you name it. I'm glad the GOT challenge included the prompt yellow because it's bright and I have a Golden Oldie one but I hadn't brought out because of some issues mentioned above. It was even better when peach was also included because I had the perfect colour to go with my yellow. 

Not knowing where I was gonna go with this design, I started with three coats of Nubar's Lemon, a ...er, lemon coloured polish that I got in Nov 2012. I love the colour and the formula is quite buttery but it gets a lot of bald spots and it takes foreeeeever to dry. I didn't use any quick drying top coat because I'm not a fan of super thick nail art so I just let it air dry. The tackiness of the polish made me think of the way some people apply foils without glue so I figured it would be a good plan to bring them. I've had most of my foils since I started posting on this blog so if that doesn't fit the theme, I'm not sure what would.

I attempted to apply a Marble foil onto the polish but it seemed the tackiness wasn't the right type to get the foils tuck but it would catch any piece of fluff. Hmm... I free handed a nail foil glue chevron, let it get tacky and stuck the foils. It turned out a lot better than I expected but it wasn't perfect. I feel I need to mention, the wrinkles on the foils came from me rubbing the glue with the brush once dry to put another layer on but it created ridges. part of the charm, right?

Then I remembered I wanted to use Sinful Colors' Hazard as my peach polish. I got it sometime in Dec 2012 and it has been one of those polishes I reach out for when I need something quick, it's almost a one coater and the formula is OK.  Then again, I free handed the chevrons and let them dry. 

The edges of the foils seemed a little too rugged in comparison to the peach lines so I brought out my Topshop Nail Art Pen in White and tidied the edges. It wasn't perfect but it looked better. Once I was happy with the design, I applied two coats of Picture Polish's Revolution to seal the design and the foils.  

Now this design reminds me of two things. The first one being old school pencils, you know the yellow ones with pink rubbers on top; I'm glad I didn't draw the foil edges black or there would have been a lot more resemblance. The second one would this post of mine where I swore to recreate the mani and show it when it came out better. So here it is, unintentionally and not entirely the same, but done. 

I'm quite happy with the result and the fact that I pretty much winged it. Most of the time, when I wing it it turns out baaaad. Anyway, there are some other awesome designs below, so check them out. 

Until next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: Freestyle

This post has been sitting in Blogger waiting to be written up for a few days but I wasn't that keen on the manicure. I wanted to do something amazing for the last day of the 33 Day Challenge so I brought out the foils and tried to create a skittle. Tried, the final result was very underwhelming even from far away. I present to you  a foiled, studded tape mani. Woot!

I started one coat of Ulta3's Black Satin, let it dry then applied one thin coat of nail foil glue on my ring and taped-up middle fingers. I let that dry and did applied a rainbow foil at random to give it a slight grungy look. I topped this two fingers off with one coat of Picture Polish Revolution and finally applied the studs with a drop of top coat. I topped all my fingers off with one coat of Seche Vite. 

The studs moved around when I was applying the last coat of Seche Vite so I had push them back into position with the brush and they ended up a little crooked. :( I'm not gonna go into too much detailed about the taped middle finger but let's say it took me three attempts to have a passable design. 

As underwhelming as this design was, I am super happy to have participated in this challenge. I have seen some amazing nails art, discovered some new blogs and met some lovely people that are encouraging and just absolutely great. I have also managed to push myself through (most of) a challenge and created designs I wouldn't have otherwise. There's also my new found love for nail art, which I want to be the focus of this blog from now on. 

Anyway, check out the other participants' last mani for the challenge. 



It was a pleasure lacquering with you all!

Till next time, 

Laura

33 Day Challenge: 3D

Oh yes! Day 11 of the challenge has come. I love sticking stuff to my nails and when I came across this manicure at the beginning of September, I knew I wanted to recreate it. And recreated it I did. Everything minus the zebra nail. I also did this a couple of weeks ago, which means I won't be late for the 3D prompt. Yay!

I used two coats of Sinful Colors in Blue By You and one coat of Seche Vite as a base. On the ring finger, I applied one coat of Ulta3 in Clear and got myself sticking differently shaped rhinestones at random. I made sure the 6 or 7 colours I used were distributed on the nail and that I didn't end up with the same colour rhinestone adjacent to each other.

I got really picture heavy in this post but there is another version of the manicure after the break.

Practice Makes Perfect

Yes, practice makes perfect. I've learnt that in many occasions and that's the reason I'm posting this fail of a manicure. 

It all started with CoverGirl's Always Naked. I bought four of their new Outlast range at Coles for $13.30. That works out less than $3.50 each and an absolute bargain so I went for colours I didn't have. 

I first applied two thin coats of Always Naked and a coat of Seche Vite. The formula was pretty good but it was taking forever to dry. I managed to put a few dents in the polish before I put on the topcoat so I decided to cover them up with something colourful to go with the nude/bright trend I've seen floating around. I brought out my trustworthy Dollar Nail Art foils and chose the one called Marbles to create half geometric moons. The application was less than perfect, I'm not sure if it was the glue not drying properly or my skills but it didn't look pretty.

Anyway, I decided to bring out my black stripper and try, try to cover up the edges. At this point I knew I had made a mess but I thought maybe if I seal my tips with similar-to-each-foil polishes it'd look better. No, no it didn't. I topped it all off with a coat of piCture pOlish Revolution. This was the end result.

I actually debated (in my head) whether to post this mani. I mean, it looks pretty terrible but decided I'll put it up anyway and keep practicing so in a few months (hopefully), I can come back and show you the good version of this mani. I could do one of those Now & Then posts that are floating around the blogsphere. 

I'm keeping it short and looking at my nails from afar. They're not too bad that way.

Till next time, 

Laura

Rainbow Foils and Waiting on Revolution

I love foils. Love how shiny they are, the variety of colours and effects you can achieve with them and mostly I love the fact that they are super easy to apply. Yes, they can take a LOT practice the get right, but once you get use to applying them they can look amazing. 

Last year I got a heap of them from eBay and Dollar Nail Store and was using them fairly regularly. The only problem, as most people that have used foils would know, is the fact that they wrinkle up like crazy and some of the shine can disappear when any sort of topcoat is applied. If you were like me and wanted to keep the shine/holo/3D/smooth effect, you would go without top coat and only sport the foils for a few hours.

Luckily, piCture pOlish has just come out with a new glitter base coat, Revolution, which also works to seal foils without wrinkling them. When I read about it in More Nail Polish, I almost fell backwards on my chair and ordered this base coat as soon as possible. Unluckily for me, I'm still waiting for my packet as I ordered the day before ANZAC Day. 

I couldn't really wait any longer and I brought out the foils anyway. I'm only going to bed after this, so if they get ruined, their memory will be held in this post.

Rainbow foils. Aren't they pretty?

You may or not be wondering, why I stamped on them without showing you the foil by itself. Well, I thought all the practice I had gotten would carry over even if I hadn't done it for a while, like riding a bicycle or ice skating. Turns out that wasn't the case and the foils looked terrible. I figured a good way to cover them up would be by stamping them. I was pleasantly surprised to see that indeed the mani looked a million times better with the stamp. I used Bundle Monster's BM209 plate with Konad Polish in Black. The stamp also makes them wearable for the day as it makes the mani a tad more subtle.

This is what the foils looked like without the stamp. Still very pretty colours but it was a baaaaaaad job. I might have to keep practicing until Revolution arrives. Very likely afterwards as well so I don't waste any precious top coat.

Anyone else crazy for foils? And so happy Revolution has finally arrived? I certainly will be when the mailman knocks on my door (hopeful with fingers crossed) tomorrow.

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!!