40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Orange Purple Green + Negative Space

This week I got a winning combo. I love negative space manis and the selection of hues was one of my favourites. As I read the prompt for the first time, I started recalling what exact polish I wanted to use for each colour. Orange  would be Revlon's Lady Luck, Purple would be the beautiful Plume and Green Room for er, the green, the last two from Topshop.  I know the orange looks like pink and the purple leans more towards the blue side  but I figure that this is more on the pastel side of the spectrum.

I started with no base. I know, right? What craziness is this, more on that a bit later. With some stripping tape in place, I painted on some shapes and stripes with some Max Factor's Purple Haze to give Plume a base as the latter can be a bit sheer by itself. Then painted on Green Room covering the purple with tape and finally applied Lady Luck using the same technique. Applied HK Girl Top Coat to smooth it all out and seal it in.

I managed to smudge on of the thin purple lines just after topcoating it but with the help of my trustworthy (and very frayed) striper brush I managed to fix it pretty well. It's hardly noticeable now. Can you tell which one it was? Hehe.

The photos above show my second attempt. My first mani (below) was actually freehanded but it felt too rough to put it up on the blog. I liked the fact that it had more polish and less free space but I figured it would take me forever to clean it up or do it with tape so I just enjoyed it for what it was and reattempted it. And because I was in such a hurry to get the next one done, I forgot to put base on. That's my story.

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: Mexican

I had high hopes and lots of inspiration for this prompt. I don't think I've mentioned it but I was born in Mexico and lived there for more than half my life (just!) before moving to Australia. This should have been my scene!!! I thought of a lot of possible designs I could create and settled for one idea  but the execution was poor. Actually, it was OK until I added top coat. Have a look for yourselves. 

I based my design on my home state's traditional dress called 'China Poblana'. The (short version of the) legend says there was a Mongolian princess that was kidnapped at the age of 8 by 17th century Portuguese explorers and eventually taken to Mexico to be sold as a slave. Due to her beauty, she was originally going to be sold to the viceroy of New Spain but a higher bidder came out of Puebla where she was finally taken. She was given the Hispanic name Catarina de San Juan and was sort of adopted, but remained a slave, by the Soza family and was taught how to saw, among other things. Even though the origin of  the dress is very hazy, most versions of the story say that Catarina was the designer of the dress, which was a fusion of her natal Mongolian attires and Mexican influences. When the patriarch of the family died she was sent to a convent and after she died at the well into her 80's, she was worshiped as a saint in Puebla until the church banned popular saints. There are as many variations to the legend as there are variations of the dress and I don't claim to be an expert. That's the story I remember from school and bits I researched on the world wide web.

Back to the nails, I used a heap of polishes and tools so I'm just going to list them.

Light Green:  Ulta3 in Jelly

Dark Green:   Ulta3 in Frog Prince

Red:             Revlon in Fire Fox

'Skirt' glitter: Rimmel in Disco Ball 

White:          Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On

Yellow:         Ulta3 in Honolulu

Gold:            Sally Hansen in Golden-I
Light Brown:  Essie in Hot Coco

Topcoat:       Seche Vite

Smallest and small dotting tools and striping tape from eBay. Sticky tape from the supermarket. :)

This is one of the many versions of the dress. 

Source

I also included my thumb to represent the ribbons that are braided on the hair. I find thumb shots awkward so please excuse the following bad photo.

Before I added a topcoat of Seche Vite, there was a bit of texture on my index and ring fingers, which looked a lot better than the smooth versions. I added a final coat of Rimmel Pro Matte Finish to try and save it but it just made my mani chip very quickly. :(

I'm not sure what to think of this mani. I kinda like it because it made me think outside my comfort zone, especially the index that represents the shirt, but it doesn't look great altogether. If I hadn't applied topcoat, I would've been happier. I guess that teaches me to photograph every step of the mani!!! 

Check out the other talented ladies of the challenge.

Till next time,

Laura

Revlon in Fire Fox

It's been a little bit over a year since I started posting in this blog with Tasha. Going back to uni last semester put the blogging from my part on hold for almost four months but it has now become something that I thoroughly enjoy. It's had the added benefit of breaking my imaginary writing wall that stopped me from putting two sentences together correctly. Maybe I wasn't that bad to begin with, but at least I can write often about something I really like.

In the last year , my collection has grown from 67 bottles, including top coats, to more than 330, not counting base, top coats and other treatments. In the last year, my favourite polish has also changed from time to time. I've loved Bloom in Lisa II, B Collection by Bloom in Dubai, then came various Topshop polishes and finally Penny Talk by Essie. Every colour in my collection has something special and I really love them all but there's always that polish that you keep going back to for a while. Also if you've been reading this blog, you may have noticed I'm a B I G fan of Rimmel Pro Matte Finish Top Coat. I absolutely love that soft, chalky finish of suede in all my polishes.

In the last couple of weeks, my go-to polish has been a beautiful red, suede finish polish by Revlon called Fire Fox. I don't think there could have been a more aptly named polish because this one is one firey, foxy suede polish, I'll explain why I think a little later. 

If applied carefully, a coat would be enough but I went with two for full opacity. No top coat. The formula is slightly thin but the brush offers enough control to have a very smooth application. 

I'm in love with this colour right now. It's been a while since I've had a period of red nails, which about ten years ago was what I wore for 95% of the time. Fire Fox has been in my stash since September, when I picked it up at Cosmetic Fragrance Direct (usually located within DFOs in Australia) for $5 but you could say I've rediscovered it.

I almost, almost prefer this polish in its shiny version. When top coat is applied, this polish transforms into what looks like a bright red jelly with scattered shimmer, which has sooooo much depth. That's why the Fire name fits so well, it lights up from within when a tiny ray of light hits it. Photo below was done with flash as the sun didn't wanna come out play today.

I wish I could have photographed it better but that's the best I can do without sun. :( Either way, shiny or semi-matte, this polish is amazing. I 'd recommend it if you can find it. It's worth every cent.

Do you find you rediscover polishes in your stash? Or do you stick to a favourite? 

Till next time, 

Laura