33 Day Challenge: 3 Favourite Polishes

It's the third last day of the 33 Day Challenge and I'm gonna make this super quick because I am tired but didn't want to miss another prompt from this challenge that is about to finish. Here we go...

Narrowing down the stash to bring out my three favourite polishes wasn't an easy task, they are all so pretty and each has its own qualities. I decided on the ones that were my first favourites of a certain type and that I still love. I started with a coat of Essence's Snow White (my first and only jelly), let it dry and stamped Essie's Penny Talk (my first one coater metallic that has been featured in this blog plenty of times) using the plate BM-417 and then created a french tip gradient with Snow White and B Collection by Bloom in Dubai (the first polish that lasted about 10 days on me with top coat and had an awesome formula, no longer on sale but I have three bottles of it :) ). Topped it all off with one coat of Seche Vite to smooth out the gradient. 

These nails were super hard to photograph because of how shiny they were and my camera was freaking out when I was trying to take photos in the sunlight. I brought the nails into the light box but the shine was still too much and I couldn't figure out what settings would work. 

Anyway, this is what I came up with and I'm in love with this stamped jelly sandwich. It's shiny, the colours work well and I came to realise I hadn't done something similar before.

Quick note, this is how the jelly sandwich looked like in the sun. Yep, I cropped the only half decent photo I took but it shows some of the pretty light that was reflected from my nails.

Don't forget to check out the other particpants' manis for today's prompt.

33 Day Challenge: Chinese

It's day 13 of The Crumpet's 33 Day Challenge and here I am, still sticking to it. For today's prompt, Chinese, I was inspired by so many things but unfortunately I had no time to execute any of them so I went for something simple that stuck to the theme. I also want to start using my ever growing collection of nail art supplies. I've stalled my polish shopping lately but now I've moved on shopping on eBay and Born Pretty Store for anything that can be stuck to my nails.

To tackle the challenge and start using some of these supplies, I came up with this mani. 

Which was roughly based on this vase. I googled Chinese vases and this one screamed out at me. I'm not sure of the authenticity of the claim that this is Chinese but it seemed to look like other Chinese pottery I have seen.

Source

I started with two coats of Essence in Grumpy over a base coat and once dry, I stamped over it with Essie's Penny Talk using one of the new Bundle Monster Plates, BM-404. I got some eBay-bought flower water decals ready and started layering them on the blue and gold base but they were too see-through to show up on the darker blue base. I quickly painted my ring finger an thumb with two coats of Sally Hansen in White On and applied a coat of Seche Vite on all my fingers. I could just have applied it on my ring finger to get the white drying quicker but I thought I might as well do them all at that time.

Once that was all dry, I started overlapping the flowers and leaves on the white base and applied one final coat of Seche Vite to seal in the decals.

I really like how my thumb turned out but I didn't want to show another awkward thumb photo, so I tried two thumb poses. I like this one better...

... but this shows a lot more detail. I think. What do guys reckon?

 

You can sort of see the blue base on my ring finger under the white. I also managed to bump it on something so the blue flower looks  somewhat shapeless. 

Considering my past experiences with water decals, none of which have been documented in this blog... thankfully, I'm pretty happy with the way this mani came out. It makes me wanna play with all the new sheets I have just received. Stay tuned.

Check out the other talented ladies' manicures.

Till next time, 

Laura

essence Snow White Glitter Sandwich

Going through Tasha's stash has given me quite a few lemmings. One of them was Essie's Jelly Apple. I loved the colour (my favourite polishes have always been red) and the jelly finish (which until now, I never owned). When swatches starting popping up on the WWW of essence's Snow White collection and its polish of the same name, I knew my lemming would be satisfied for a very low price. 

I patiently waited for Target to stock the collection but it took a few months before the display was up. I guess the release of Twilight was more important than Snow White (not on my books...). It took a few attempts and visits to two local Targets to get my hands on this puppy. I actually ended up buying three bottles, but at $3.50 each, it is still cheaper than buying one discounted Essie online.

Swatch below is done with one coat and no top coat. Isn't pretty AND shiny? I also love the fact they have a wide, flat brush that makes the application of this extremely-easy-to-work-with formula even easier.

I couldn't stop admiring the colour but after a few hours it got kinda boring and I thought 'Why not paint myself a glitter sandwich?'. I used my favourite glitter topper, American Apparel's Supernova. It's doesn't need to be dabbed on too much for an even coverage of its different size glitters and it's pretty colourful. Only applied one coat on the photo below.

I let it dry for a bit to avoid any drag and applied a second coat of Snow White. What happened to the colour of the glitters really impressed me. The glitters were either light or black and no actual colour showed thru. I'm still no connoisseur of colour theory and a lot of my experimentation is trial and error. Either way I was very happy with the result. It sort of reminded me of strawberries... 

 At the end, I added a matte top coat but wasn't too impressed. For once, I liked the shiny version better.  

Til next time, 

Laura