40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Teal

The needle drag technique. When it works, it can look pretty amazing. For me it was a whole new experience, so new I had to look up how to do it properly. I attempted a few times with white bases, coloured bases, a needle, a toothpick. None of it really worked. Then I decided to create the needle drag on a clear base, just in case it turned into a scrape rather than drag, and cheated a little and used a stripping brush to create the dragging effect, needles weren't just doing it for me. So I came up with this.

I started with a Ulta3's Clear as it's a fairly slow drying polish then dropped three dots of L.A. Girl's 3D Effect in Teal Dimension, a beautiful glittery teal, and dragged the stripping brush over every dot to make 'petals'. I had the idea on my head of making flowers and I didn't end up to far from it. To create a better flower shape, I added a little rhinestone to the place where petals met and topcoated the whole lot with HK Girl Fast Drying Top Coat. Not happy leaving it at that, I added three gold beads to balance the symmetry on the finger. I didn't topcoat those and I probably should have, considering I lost a bead while photographing these nails. 

I'm a bit bummed about the photos. Since I have moved and my old photo set up (i.e. my parents' backyard) is no longer readily accessible, I have to find a new place and lighting to make nails look good. The colour temperature and background in my bathroom turned out awesome but there is not enough lighting and my lamp casts funny shadows behind my hands, as you guys can see. I might have to go out to the street to make sure I get good photos . Who cares if I look like a random taking photos of my hands when everyone can see. Haha!

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Orange

I'm back on the challenge after a two week hiatus, I'm not super excited about these nail but I knew I had to get myself back on the GOT wagon. 

I actually didn't think I had Golden Oldie orange so I had to have a double look through the rack, which led me to realise I had this beautiful colour Tangelo by Ulta3. I'd also been wanting to do these nails by Pshiiit for a while so today was as good of a day as any to try it out, or so I thought.

I started the base with one coat of Sally Hansen in White On and one of Seche Vite, let that dry and taped off the triangles on the free edge of my nails. I used one coat of Tangelo and ripped off the triangles asap before adding some lines along the inside of the triangle with Sally Hansen's Lustre Shine in Lava. Once all these layers were dry, I used my  black Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen to create the edges and patterns. Topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

After I finished this manicure, I realised my Golden Oldie orange was actually Carrot Top and not Tangelo. They sit next to each other on the rack and Tangelo was the closest to me. Would I call that lazy? Maybe. Then I had to check when I had gotten Lava, turns out I got it about 10 months ago so it doesn't really fall in the category of the GOT. BTW, neither of the two oranges showed to be colour accurate in the photos.

To add to the nail fail of today, I noticed there were some cracks on the black paint. I can't quite remember if that has happened before but I'm sure I will remember now.

So that's my go at orange tribal nails. I know I haven't them any justice so I'm tagging this post as an official Nail Fail. :) Let's hope I can come up with something good for the rest of the challenge.

Till next time, 

Laura

Revlon Parfumerie in Espresso

I'm kinda bummed. I did this awesome mani for the GOT challenge last night and it was so sparkly I knew I had to wait until this morning to take photos in the sun. I'm not great with alarms and mornings so my plan of photographing nails went out the window. I went on with my day and by the time I was ready to snap some pics, I had some major tip wear on all my fingers. No crying over spilled milk, right? I'll recreate it again later when I feel super uninspired.

After that little episode today, I decided to keep showing you guys the Revlon Parfumerie polishes I bought recently. I chose Espresso out of the 23 I now own from that line, a black creme with green undertones that is opaque in two coats, the formula and drying time are fairly average. From the name, one could gather that this would smell like coffee and being a lover of the brewed beverage scent I was super excited to try it out. When the polish dried and the scent popped through, I could only smell rubber-burnt sugariness. Not at all what I was expecting... or pleasant, to the point of being nauseating. 

I also had some issues with bubbling but that could be contributed to me not waiting for my base coat to dry or the second thicker coat I applied on some fingers.

The one good thing I can say about this polish is that it dries fairly shiny. I am showing it with a coat of Seche Vite out of habit but it's OK without it. I think the top coat had better smell than the polish and luckily it toned it down a bit.

I know swatches of a black polish wouldn't make for a very interesting post so I added some of Ulta3 in A Lister on the tips for the glitter gradient and combined some of Essence's Let's Get Lost and Essie's Blue Rhapsody on the stamping plate. I used MoYou's plate 4 from the Sailor Collection and I think the design didn't quite come as crisp because I tried to mix the polish on the plate and not beforehand. Lesson learnt.

I never say 'don't go buy that polish' because everyone has different tastes but this not worth the money for a black creme that we all know can be bought for way cheaper than $15.95 they retail for. Unless you are into smelling burnt rubber... then maybe, but that's probably not healthy. 

I really don't know what I am going to do with it, if anyone wants to try it let me know. I'll be happy to send it anywhere in the world.

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Stripes

When I saw the 'stripes' prompt for this challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I did it, but it didn't turn out quite the way I was imagining in my head. I took photos of it and all but I don't think I'm ready for it yet. I'll leave it for later... I started again with naked nails and brought two older polishes that I knew I liked and went well together. 

For the base I used two coats of Ulta3 in Bouquet, a lovely fuchsia crelly with lots of blue shimmer which was purchased at the beginning of 2012 for about 50c. I then brought out the striping tape and created an unintentionally uneven diagonal stripe pattern on middle and ring fingers. I used Sally Hansen in Bejeweled for the textured stripes and created a glitter gradient with the same polish on the rest of my fingers. I topped my pinky and index with a coat of Seche Vite.

Bejeweled was one of the first swatches I did in this blog back in June 2012 but it was so terrible I redid a swatch here. It's always been one of my favorite polishes because of the combination of colours, how quickly it dried, the relative easiness to remove this super packed glitter and the texture. I liked the way the glitter didn't sit smoothly on the nail and I believe this is the polish that started my luuuurve for textured polishes, even though this isn't labelled as one.

This was a bit of a rushed job but I'm still happy with the way it come out, I can't stop running my fingers over this textured stripes. 

Check out the rules for this challenge and other striped manicures below. There are some real winners in the.

January's Tri-Polish Tuesday

I'm back on The Crumpet's Tri-Polish Challenge for this month. The rules have changed slightly from last year allowing a little more flexibility. Different polishes can be used as long as one sticks to the month's colours and only one mani has to include all three colours, the rest of the month's manis need to include at least two colours. Also, as the name suggests, instead of doing the manis on the last two weeks of the month, they will be posted on Tuesday. 

Why not start with the one with all three colours? I wanted to do a mani that would mirror the colours and curve from the pinky and index fingers on the middle and ring fingers. So this is what I came up with...

Polishes used:

Orange:  Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed
Yellow:  Ulta3 in Honolulu
Red:      Essie in Silken Cord
Black:    Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out

I used a dotting tool to create the leopard spots and striping tape to create the concave lines. The lines on the middle and ring fingers were free handed. Topped it all off with two coats of Seche Vite. 

This is a very out there mani for me but I really like the combination of colours and the way the lines on the pinky and index fingers frame the spots. However...

I did a mani with leopard spots a little while ago here and I remember them being a very easy to not get wrong. I don't think some spots are terrible but there could have been a bit more separation between the black edges to have a little more definition. Like the from my index finger

I'm looking forward to creating more manis for this challenge so much, I already have a few things lined up.

Till 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: Geometric

This idea I had of catching up on the challenge this week sort of went out the window and I happen to be running a day late with the prompts that I haven't skipped. Anyway, the prompt for day 23 for the challenge was geometric. I'm trying to stay away from just stamping as much as I can so I was a bit short of ideas. I had this triangular origami box lying around and I thought that would be a good, simple idea to recreate. OK, so the execution wasn't great and I managed to take a chunk of polish of the green part on the index finger as I putting the bottle of topcoat back in its place but I figured it was still decent enough to put it up (and I didn't want to miss another prompt).

I started with two coats of Essence's Piece of Forever, let it dry then used striping to create a triangle. I painted W7's It's Pink, Max Factor's Purple Haze and Ulta3's Frog Prince outside each side of the triangle and used a Topshop black stripper for the inside lines. I topped it all off with one coat of Seche Vite.

This is the box I based the mani on, I couldn't figure out how to photograph the whole box in my tiny lightbox so I'm just showing you the colours. It's also a bit crumpled from handling it for photographs, so excuse the wrinkles.

I wasn't overly happy with the mani but it was fun to wear for a few hours. Yes, I have taken it off already and started on tomorrow's mani, which means that I may be on time.

33 Day Challenge: 3 Colour Gradient and Pattern

I'm back on the challenge which means I have a lot more free time to play with polishes :). I was a bit conflicted with the three colour gradient and a pattern prompt for day 22 of the challenge because my gradient attempts can be a bit of a hit and miss and I had just done an awesome one a couple of weeks ago. I created a three colour gradient last night but it turned out to be a miss and I couldn't recycle the last one because it didn't have a pattern plus that's not really the point of a challenge, is it?

I stuck to what I knew would work for me and chose three Topshop polishes for the gradient and striping tape. I started with a two-coat base of Queen of Green (QoG), which you may have guessed is the green closest to the cuticle. I then sponged on, from cuticle to tip, QoG, Wisdom and Zodiac and smoothed out the gradient with a coat of Seche Vite. I  wanted to put a little extra effort on the pattern side of the prompt so I tried to create some triangles with striping tape but as I was putting on the tape on my ring finger, I knew the triangles (some just polygons) weren't gonna be regular shapes. I applied one coat of Ulta3 in Black Satin over the tape and sealed it with one last coat of Seche Vite.

I wish I had done the green strip a little bigger so the difference between Zodiac and QoG would a little clearer. QoG is a silver based pastel green shimmer and Zodiac is greenish gunmetal grey shimmer with gold bits in it and they are both beautiful but I couldn't quite capture the beauty of them.

Or did I?

I really like the way this mani looks but it was a pain in the ass to clean up. Have you ever tried to clean shimmer polishes? The shimmer goes everywhere and it sticks to the skin like nothing else. I used PVA around my cuticles to avoid some of the mess but the cuticle lines weren't as clean as I'd like them so I took out the acetone. Bad move. After I managed to get as much of the shimmer of my fingers as I could with clean up brushes and cotton rounds, I still had silver bits all over my fingers. I had to use a nail brush to scrub up my fingers and use some cuticle remover to get rid of the stray shimmer. Lesson learnt: If I'm playing with shimmer polishes, I need to be ready to do a lot of clean up.

I just realised tomorrow's prompt is geometric but hopefully I can come up with something good and get my nail mojo back. Till then, check out the other timely participants of the challenge.

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

33 Day Challenge: South America

I think this will be the shortest written post I've ever done. I'm exhausted and have no words left in me.  I actually planned ahead and did this mani on Friday because I knew I wouldn't have time to do a creative mani today.

Today's prompt for the 33 Day Challenge is South America and I went with a theme that is appropriate for every country on that part of the world. Soccer. I painted the uniforms from Brazilian player Pele and Argentinian Maradona, whom never played against each other as Pele had his peak a decade or so before Maradona. It's general consensus that they both have been the best soccer players to come out of their respective countries, if not in the world. There's obviously fans out there that will disagree but that's what I grew up so I'm sticking with it :). 

From what I've read Pele invented the position he played which was numbered 10, Maradona ended up playing the same position and that's why I have 10's all over my fingers.

Polishes used:

• Ulta3 in Honolulu
• Essence in Grumpy
• Ulta3 in Soft Hydrangea
• Models Prefer in Hickory Dickory
• Daiso green striper
• Topshop black and white striper
• Seche Vite for quick drying 
• Rimmel Pro Matte Finish as topcoat 

This is the shiny version but I wanted to imitate the semi-shiny fabric of the soccer jerseys, hence the matte topcoat.  

I was really happy with my idea and I think it's been executed OK (just look at how straight that striper-drawn 1 is on my ring finger!) but checking out the other ladies' manicures makes me think this is a bit rough. Hopefully, I can come up with something amazing with my favourite brand... Hold on, I don't have a favourite brand and neither do I want to choose one!!! They're all great!

BPS Fox Studs Reviews AKA 33 Day Challenge: Animals

I'm killing two birds with this post mostly because the timing of my latest Born Pretty Store delivery could not have been better. I may have also singularised today's prompt of the 33 Day Challenge from animals to animal... Not a big deal, right?

A few weeks ago, I asked to review these beautiful fox studs from Born Pretty Store and I knew I had to use them for this post. I was eagerly hoping they would arrived before today and they did. Phew!!! I found it a bit challenging to think of what to do with these apart from just sticking them to my coloured nail polish. I ended up coming up with this mani that I would like to call 'Night Fox' (it's fun naming manis...). 

This studs are absolutely beautiful, just look at them. They're these dainty little detailed studs, 6mm to be precise, and because they're a sort of abstract fox face there's so much you can do with them. Another wonder about this is that they don't sit flat on the nail as they are so slightly bent so there's no snagging on clothes, hair, fluff, etc.

I think they are made of an alloy metal that is used for most studs as these are really sturdy but light. There are only five in the pack, not quite enough for a whole mani, but they are great for accent fingers. Looking at the photo above, I just realised one of the studs has silver ears compared to the white ears of the others. Hey, that's more variety for me from one pack!

I stuck the stud with clear polish but I'm pretty sure nail glue would have been better. It didn't stick very well with my method and it fell off after a few hours. They can be reused so it really depends whether you are planning to reuse them or not to choose your adhesive. 

Now for the polishes used in the mani, I started with two coats of Ulta3 in Black Satin, followed by one coat of Max Factor Nailfinity in Extra Frost, which gives the black that lovely night sky look without too much effort, and sealed the base with two coats of Seche Vite. I painted the grass with a green stripper before using Layla in Metal Chrome to stamp the moon and free hand the what-I-thought-looked-like stars. I dotted the paws and tail with the same polish before I finished the mani off by creating the tip of the fox tail with a white stripper. I decided not to topcoat the mani because I wanted to keep the texture on the grass and the fox tail. Oh yeah, I stuck the stud with some clear polish right at the end.

You can get the studs by clicking here for US$3.48. Don't forget to use our code to LUCKYG10 to get 10% off full priced products of Born Pretty Store site.

I'm pretty happy with the way the mani came out and I was surprised that the free-handing that I did was fairly quick. All that behind the scenes practice might be paying off. Check out the other talented ladies' manicures for today. 

Disclosure: 
Affilliate Link. 
Fox studs were sent by Born Pretty Store for honest review. 
All other products featured were purchased by me.