31DC2014 Day 6: Violet Nails

I wanted to try these nails after I saw this technique done on Instagram (I don't remember from who, though). It's called a pond manicure; I think it turned out cute!

Polishes used:
Butter London Molly Coddled (light purple crème)
OPI Care To Danse? (light purple jelly)
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On (white crème - original formula)
OPI Polka.com (pink, purple, & teal glitter)

I painted my nails with two coats of Molly Coddled (which has the most perfect formula, by the way). I then took the biggest dotting tool I had (the green one from this set), and dotted little white flowers in random spots on each nail. Next I fished out the purple hex glitters from Polka.com and placed one in the center of each flower. Then, using CTD?, I put one coat of that over each nail. I did that two more times, except I didn't paint CTD? over the third set of flowers; I added my top coat after that. Doing this creates a pond-like effect, hence the name pond manicure!

I'm not really too happy with how these turned out, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I think the technique is super cute and is definitely worth trying again! I just think it would have worked better if I had a darker jelly polish to work with. Oh well, next time!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 5: Blue Nails

Blue is my all time favorite color. Well, specifically cobalt blue and/or royal blue. So it's probably no surprise to anyone that I have a pretty good selection of blue polishes to choose from, especially for this day of the challenge. Even though I have so many blues in my collection (seriously, it's probably about half of my entire collection), I had my mind set on only using two of my favorites.

I wanted this manicure to be bold and striking; I felt that these two colors paired together would achieve that pretty well!

Polishes used:
Essie Butler Please (cobalt blue crème)
Zoya Blu (baby blue crème)

Before I started, I cut out lots of little triangles from strips of Scotch tape. I painted all my nails with two coats of Butler Please and waited for them to completely dry. I placed the triangles randomly on each nail, and then painted over all of it with two coats of Blu. I finished with two coats of top coat, since the two coats of Blu gave my nails a bit of a raised effect that I wanted to smooth out.

I don't do tape manicures that often, and that's mostly because it takes me forever to cut enough pieces for all of my nails. But I always love how it turns out when I do! My tape manis always look super graphic and bold, which is my favorite kind of nail art!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014 Day 4: Green Nails

I swear I'll get the hang of blogging sooner or later! In the mean time though, I have more of my 31 Day Nail Challenge to share! Here's what I came up with for day 4.

Polishes used:

Color Club Kismet (light green holo)

Formula X Surreal (medium green holo)

Sephora by OPI Is It Payday Yet? (light green crème)

I used the drybrush technique to achieve this look. I started by painting my nails with two coats of IIPY?. Then I took Kismet and wiped almost all the polish off of the brush. Using what was left over, I brushed Kismet over my nails (well, I say brush... It's more of a press and drag motion); doing this with very little polish on the brush will achieve a really cool distressed look when you're done. I repeated those steps with Surreal, then IIPY?, then Kismet and Surreal one more time. I know a lot of people dry brush each color only once, but I like the added depth it gives when I layer each color over each other a couple times.

The early days of the 31 Day Nail Challenge are always my favorite. I love playing with different nail art techniques, and since the themes are so simple, it really makes those techniques stand out that much more!

Thanks for reading!

NOTD 2/10/15

First, let me start off by apologizing for my little five-day absence, I'm still getting used to this whole blogging thing :). Second, I need to put it out there that this is not my idea. I saw it on Instagram from @tartofraises and @u_nona (both AMAZING by the way) and wanted to try it for myself! And let me just say, I am OBSESSED.

Seriously, I had never in a million years thought to add gel polish to make 3D nail art.

Polishes used:

Essie For The Twill Of It (purple / green duochrome)

Gelish Top It Off top coat

I had already worn FTTOI for a day before I did these, to ensure the polish was completely dry. Last year in my art class, we did a series of eight pieces for our "Senior Thesis." I did little "murals" with polish on fake nails, and had purchased a gel top coat and a UV lamp to seal in my paintings in the middle of doing them in case I messed up (that way I could use a non-acetone remover to redo what I needed to without messing up the rest of the painting). I remember when researching if gel polish would work with regular polish, I found that it would, given that the normal polish has time to completely dry. That being said, I knew yesterday that I wanted to give these a try, and I'm so glad they worked out the way I had hoped!

First, I got my supplies ready: gel top coat, rubbing alcohol, mini UV lamp, cotton pads, and a nail art brush (I used the 00 size from this set that I got from Amazon). I quickly wiped down each nail with rubbing alcohol to cleanse the surface. Then I got my nail art brush, dabbed out some gel top coat onto some tin foil, and started blobbing random spots onto my nail. I worked in the sequence of doing one hand at a time, doing my thumb first, my index and middle fingers next, and my ring and pinky fingers last. After blobbing enough spots to my liking, I stuck the nails I just did under the UV lamp for three minutes to cure. I found that the spots weren't as thick as I wanted them to be after just one application, so I went over each one again and cured it for another three minutes. After curing, I wiped each nail down with more rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad. I did this over and over again until I got my desired effect on each hand.

The only thing I didn't do was add top coat. Well, I did yesterday, but that was when I was wearing FTTOI on its own. Adding top coat on top of the gel would smooth it out a bit, making the 3D effect less noticeable.

Overall, I'm SUPER happy with how these turned out. I love how it looks like there are little water droplets on my nails! The texture is really cool, too; I can't stop running my nails over each other haha. I'm definitely going to try some more designs with gel polish in the future!

Thanks for reading!

NOTD 2/4/15

Let me just start off by saying that this is one of my favorite manicures that I've done lately, if not ever. I've been feeling very uninspired lately when it comes to nail art, but I'm super happy with how these turned out!

Polishes used (all from Color Club):

Miss Bliss (pink holo)

Cosmic Fate (orange holo)

Kismet (yellowy-greenish holo)

Angel Kiss (light green holo)

Over The Moon (blue holo)

Eternal Beauty (purple holo)

Beyond (dark gray holo)

I started by doing a gradient across all five nails with the six rainbow colors, like I did in day nine of the 31 day nail challenge:

I used a different pink than from the one in the challenge, though. I used Miss Bliss instead of Halo-Graphic, which is also from Color Club.

After doing the gradient across my nails, I let them dry completely and then cut six pieces of striping tape for each nail. I placed the striping tape how I wanted on the nail, then painted over it with Beyond. I then immediately took the striping tape off and made any touch ups that were needed. I did this one nail at a time because I think that it's easier when you're using a lot of striping tape on each nail. That way you can still move the rest of your fingers!

What I really love though, is the holographic shimmer. The Color Club Halo Hues all have a really strong linear holo to them, but because I used two coats of top coat (Essie Good to Go, by the way), the holographic effect was dulled a bit. Even so, they look AMAZING in direct sunlight, just like all holos do! :)

Thanks for reading!