Dry Marble with Face of Australia Pastels

 Browsing through YouTube I came across this video from MissJENFABULOUS. I had actually seen it when it first came out back in June but I was browsing through her channel. Yes, I'm a fan of hers and she has some cool ideas.

So as a good 'Monkey See, Money Do'-er that I am, I brought out my lightest coloured polishes and created this mani.

Excuse the lobster-coloured hands and shiny cuticles, the colours of the polishes are the best I've captured and my cuticles have been way too dry from work. 

Polishes used: 

White (as a base): Rimmel London I <3 Lasting Finish in London Clouds

From left to Right: All Faces Of Australia from their Pastels Collection. After Dinner Mint, Boys 'N' Berries, Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy and I'll Take You To The Candy Shop. 

Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

I'm really happy with the result and the technique is super easy. Including drying time and clean up, this mani only took me about twenty minutes. I also need to say, even though the formula in Face Of Australia polishes isn't generally great, I'm really loving these polishes for their slow drying time. Basically, it means that I can play around with them to create nail art (like this marble) and if I stuff it up, I can take it off without too much trouble. I'm seeing the positive on these polishes... Plus they were $1.65 each when I bought them. :)

What do you reckon? Would you try this technique? Maybe other colours? Oooh, I might try this with some metallics...

There's something really exciting (for me, at least) that I wanna show you guys in the next couple of posts. It might involve a long time lemming... Stay tuned.

Til next time, 

Laura

Saran Wrap? Sugar Spun Nails? Not quite...

I watched this video a little while ago and really liked the effect it created. It reminded me of sugar spun nails without too much of the mess. I set off to try it it today with colours different  from below but I turned into a grey, green mess. So the polish came off my ring finger and tried again.

This is what I turned up with. You can see the lines from the fan brush but they're not too defined so it looks like I tried to take some of the polish off rather than put it on.

Polishes used:
Gold: Topshop in Gilted (2 coats)
Ring Finger: Base: American Apparel in T-Shirt (1 coat)
                  Purple: American Apparel Metallic in Violet Panache (3 coats)
                  Pink: Ulta3 in Tahiti
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

For the ring finger, I had to use a base as the American Apparel metallic polishes are on the very sheer side and would have taken a lot of coats to get it opaque. 

I'm leaving short and sweet today. Going back to work has left me really nappy...

Till next time,

Laura

End of Semester Manicure

Well... Technically the semester isn't over and still have about four pieces of assessment due in the following two weeks but I couldn't wait to post again. 


I've been wanting to do this fish braid technique for ages but I didn't find the time or I had disastrous attempts at it. As always, I found on YouTube on MissJenFABULOUS channel, and I loved it. Here's my attempt.

I got home on Friday night, after having three assignments due that day, and started making the braid on my ring finger which took  F O R E V E R and painted the rest of the nails on Saturday morning.  

Polishes used:

Purple: Dubai by B Collection by Bloom
Pink: Cologne by B  Collection by Bloom 
Gold: Goldie by Bloom Cosmetics
Top Coat: Rimmel Pro Matte Finish

I've also learnt the very important lesson of cleaning up the cuticles and how much better it can look when the polish is fairly even. I grabbed an old eyeliner brush and tried it out. It's OK but i don't think it will stand the polish remover for much longer. So it'll be my quest to find a good one.

I'll leave it short and sweet for today,

Till next time. 

My First and Oh-Not-So-Fabulous Marble

Wow!! It's been almost a month since I wrote that first post. I think the blogger in me needs a little more discipline. Mind you, I could argue that I like to be informed about what I am doing and that the last month has been spent 'researching' other nail blogs, looking up for countless hours YouTube videos for inspiration and sussing out the market so this nail hobby is as least detrimental to my bank account as possible. 


So, to show some of my findings, I'll start with something that caught my attention in YouTube for two reasons.The first one being the endless possibilities that this technique can create and the thousand of tutorials found in said website. As you may have guessed from my title, I'll be showing my simple version of the marble.

Ta dah! Here it is. I started with my pinky and finished with my thumb, hence the different pattern in my smaller finger. I firstly tried to use Ulta3 polishes for the marble but the colours would not disperse! Not by shaking the cup, moving the polish with a toothpick or even, may I say? My finger. By the time I finished playing with it I ended with these colourful lines as a pattern and I thought I would give it a go anyway. If you look closely at the pinky it looks like an eye, a very colourful eye though, and that's why I decided to leave it.  

I wanted to keep trying and get the actual marble effect on my nails. From all those YouTube videos that I've watched, I gathered China Glaze and Sally Hansen are really good to try out in this technique. Not even OPI makes the cut, apparently. I was lucky enough to own one (just one) China Glaze in 108 degrees and one Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet.They a both have very fine glitter but they are noticably different. Phew!

So the process started and went quite well from there. I even managed to create a pretty flower pattern without planning it! 

  

This was a messy process and most bloggers/creators recommend that you sticky tape the skin around your fingers to prevent polish sticking. However, a few others recommend using Vaseline around your nails for an easier, one-quick-wipe sort of clean up. I used the Vaseline as it was easy enough to spread on my fingers, gentler, more accurate and quicker. Once I was done with a toothpick in the water, I would remove the layer of the jelly on my finger and it worked wonders. I did forget to spread it past my distal phalanx (yes, I just Wikipedia-ed that name) on my ring finger, so i had to clean it up with acetone. 


So here it is, once more. I think I am proud of this creation.

I will try this technique again with different colours and patterns, possibly as a accent... Wait, can you hear that? I think YouTube is calling me for more inspiration.

Till then, happy polishing!