Candy Corn and Sugar Skulls

First Halloween manicure of the month.

Not sure I'll do another one until Halloween itself - I just really wanted to try this one.

Candy corn is my favourite Halloween treat, and sugar skulls are very pretty.

I saw a whole manicure of sugar skulls dinner with different coloured fimo flowers, but I only have the yellow ones - so I figured they would go well with candy corn nails.

Then I saw a manicure that used OPI's spotted topcoat over orange, and thought it looked great. The polish was super limited, and I'm not sure if it was available in Canada at all, so I don't have it.
Thankfully, you can recreate this look by floating black polish on water (as if you were going to do a water marble) and then spritzing it with rubbing alcohol, before dipping your finger(s) in.

Polishes used:

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

essence wanna be your sunshine

NYC Pumpkin

OPI Black Onyx

essence tattoo nail art pen

Claire's fruit Fimo wheel - flowers

Deep Breath

Saturday is the premier for Doctor Who series 8 - Peter Capaldi is taking over as The Doctor, and they're doing a feature length episode (called "Deep Breath")

Of course I had to do themed nails to match!

I don't have my usual tools, so these aren't as great or clean as I wanted, but I still like them

Polishes Used:

essence Black is Back

essence Flame Fatale

essence nail art Tatoo pen

essence French Tip pen

Color Club Blue-topia

Orly Galaxy FX Gravity Bound

China Glaze Holographic Cosmic Dust

China Glaze Frostbite

Ardene Tigers Eye

- Thumb is a TARDIS, as usual.
- Index finger is continuing companion, Clara - based on her Christmas outfit, which I believe carries over for at least part of the new episode.
- Middle finger represents the 12th Doctor's new costume.
- Ring finger is, as usual, a Dalek, because even though I don't think they'll be in this episode, they're a huge part of Who (and I love doing Dalek nails …)
- Pinky is simply Orly's Galaxy FX polish, mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to add!

Update

So, of course, shortly after I get organised and start posting again, something comes up.

We have had to bounce around between people's homes, because our bathroom is being renovated!

I didn't have internet for a week.
My nails have been bare for a whole week after that …and we've just been so busy.

Tonight, I am determined to sit down and polish my nails.
Hopefully I will have something to share later tonight or tomorrow.

At least I get a pretty, new bathroom.

Pop!

This is an older one, but it's so bright and fun, it's great for summer.

This manicure used Nabi 3D Rainbow Effects holographic polish. They're not super strong, but they give a nice linear holo effect in bright light (you can just barely see it in this photo). I always wanted to get more of these, but the place locally that sold them stopped carrying them.

The glitter polish is by Hard Candy. It's called Mom & Pop. It has peach, pale green, pale yellow, pale pink, white, and silver holographic glitter.

3 coats Nabi 3D Rainbow Effects in Green

1 coat Hard Candy Mom & Pop

They go with my ukulele really well :D

Radiant Orchid

I had some technical difficulties with this one - I originally tried to update from my phone, and it refused to save (the original is still sitting there "saving")

This year's Pantone colour of the year is a lovely purple called Radiant Orchid. I love the colour, so I had to check my collection to see if I had anything in the same family.

Turns out, I have two!

The one I chose for this manicure was Violet Voltage - it's on the lighter side and has a pink shimmer.

I will show the other one (Pep-Plum, also by Sally Hansen) another time.

I had a lot of people think I used stickers or stamps for this one - but it was all freehand. Nail art pens are a godsend.

Polishes used:

2 coats Sally Hansen Violet Voltage

3 coats Revlon Nude Beige

essence black nail art "tattoo" pen

Original idea found at Dressed Up Nails

I'm Back!

I know I've been gone for a while. I have been painting my nails the w whole time, but there are very few I've been willing to share. Nothing was working quite right.

I've got a few saved, and I seem to be back in the groove, so I want to start sharing again!

I'm going to trial updating without the use of flickr, just to make updates easier for me, but I'll still upload things there later, to have a gallery all in one place.

I will be keeping my nails short going forward, because I'm trying to learn ukulele, and long nails don't help!

So, without further ado, here is this week's manicure!

Polishes used:

3 coats Essie Sunday Funday

3 coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White

essence black nail art "tattoo" pen

Design originally found on Pinterest

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I'm stuck in a bit of a nail polish rut ...

Everything I've done lately hasn't turned out the way I want, or it gets ruined too quickly.
The second part is usually my fault - thinking I have more time than I really do, but I've had a couple that have dented or scraped off nearly 24 hours after application.

I'll have some more posts hopefully soon - even if they're just swatches.

Galaxy FX Gradient

Here is the second ORLY Galaxy FX polish I bought - Intergalactic Space.

I wanted to try a glitter gradient with it - I wasn't sure if it would work, since the polishes are all so packed with glitter, but I had to try.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Firefly, from their Lustre Shine collection - two coats on all nails except my ring finger. This polish is a very pretty bronze to blue/green/grey duochrome. The colour shift isn't very strong on this one, but I still like it. If I was wearing it on it's own, I'd probably go for 3 coats, because it's pretty sheer.

I applied Intergalactic Space to the tips of my nails, then a second coat starting about 2/3 of the way up my nail. On my ring finger, I simply applied two coats.
This is a pretty complex polish - It's a grey jelly base with blue microglitter, small purple and bronze hex glitter, with a light scattering of medium round white glitter.

I love this one, I don't know how to describe it.

As with Gravity Bound, this polish is packed with glitter, so it can be a little bit goopy if you don't work quickly. Some reviews complained that the white circles were difficult to get. I only wanted them on my ring finger, and I had to wipe the circles off the brush while I was doing the gradient. There aren't many, but I probably could have had one per finger if I wanted to. Maybe I lucked out and got a good bottle?

Also, I just realized this manicure is pretty much perfect for ...

Periwinkle Fairy

Two favourites combined in this simple manicure.

China Glaze My Secret Peri-wink-le - I've worn this one before, and I still absolutely love it. A beautiful pale blue-purple shade. Two coats.

Topped off with China Glaze Fairy Dust - scattered holographic glitter. So, so pretty.

ORLY Galaxy FX

I saw these on a trip to Sally Beauty Supply, and grabbed two of them right away.
ORLY's Galaxy FX are jelly (or crelly - creamy jelly) polishes that are absolutely jam-packed with glitter. Oh my God the glitter.

This one is called "Gravity Bound"

The polish is a dark blue jelly base with fine blue glitter, small purple hex glitter and large white hex glitter.
This is two coats.

The polish is very thick, so it can be a bit goopy if you don't work fast.

Because of the glitter, it's a bit gritty as well. I had to apply two coats of my fast-dry topcoat that normally smooths everything out in one coat.

The polish is gorgeous, and I couldn't stop looking at it. It really does look like it was inspired by outer space - a nebula and stars.

Only drawback?
I guess the thick glitter and two coats of topcoat caused the polish to just pop right off:

Thankfully, this was after about 4 days of wear, so no big deal.

The other one I picked up is called Intergalactic Space - which I will post photos of another time. I have something in mind I'd like to try with it.

Valentine Mix

I'm pretty late posting this - but this is what I did for Valentine's Day:

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day - both TheHusband and I feel that romance should be spontaneous, not expected.
But It's a good excuse to do fun nail art, so yay!

Thumb, middle and Pinky finger all started with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Over top of that, I added two coats of Sally Hansen Digital (from their HD line from a few years ago). Digital is, as you can see, a hot pink. It's fully of shimmery frosty goodness. I'm not a big pink person, I was actually planning on using red for this manicure, but I hadn't used Digital yet, and I thought I should.

On my thumb, I used a dotting tool to create a pattern (from an image I saw on Reddit), and applied a gold heart charm.

On my middle finger, I used my trusty Claire's striping polishes to add racing stripes down the side of my nail.

On my pinky, I added random dots using a dotting tool - first in black, and then white over top.

For my index and ring fingers, I started with a base of OPI Black Onyx.

On my index finger, I applied a coat of Claire's High Maintenance - a mini polish that is a fuchsia jelly base filled with fuchsia glitter.

Finally, on my middle finger, I created a french tip using Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Digital. I cleaned up the line using the Claire's white striper, and applied a black heart jewel.

It was a bit time consuming (and I actually redid my middle finger - I had it completely different, but it didn't fit in at all), but I liked it for a couple of days :)

Let's Talk About Gwen Stefani

So, one thing I'm a fan of, that I don't talk much about, is No Doubt.

Loved them since Tragic Kingdom came out (I was 13!). After listening to that album to death, my cousin and I had to find their other albums that were available at the time (No Doubt, and Beacon Street Collection), and I've picked up every album since - including Gwen's two solo albums (

When I saw in the Sally Beauty flyer that Gwen Stefani teamed up with OPI to put out a line of polishes, I knew I needed to at least check it out. I went to a different local beauty supply store - one that actually supplies for salons, so the prices are MUCH better. I grabbed two bottles.

I painted all my nails with two coats of 4 In The Morning (a song from Gwen's second solo album, The Sweet Escape). It's a beautiful satin-finish black with a hint of shimmer to it. Satin finish isn't quite matte, and it's not a gloss. Unfortunately, you can't really use a topcoat with it, so I had some tip-wear within a few hours (cooking dinner and all that), but it didn't get too much worse over the next few days.

On my ring finger, I applied a coat of Lay Down That Base (missed opportunity to use "Underneath It All"?) - a special baecoat included with the next polish. I left an outline of the black.

After Lay Down That Base was dry, I applied two coats of Push & Shove (from No Doubt's latest album of the same name).
This is a special polish - it's an ultra shiny chrome silver. Back in the day, Sally Hansen released a line of chrome polishes. This is that but both better and worse.
The finish on it is amazing, super shiny and smooth. It does show every imperfection in your nail, and apparently, it doesn't work over other types of basecoats - maybe use a ridge-filler and then Lay Down That Base?
Anyways, it's also worse than Sally Hansen's old line, in that it's advertised as one-day wear. You aren't supposed to use a topcoat on it. Other bloggers seem to have had good luck with applying a topcoat, so next time I use this polish, I'm going to give it a shot.

The other shades are:
Love.Angel.Music.Baby - a satin finish gold
I Sing In Color - a dark oxblood shade
Hey Baby - a hot pink
In True Stefani Fashion - holo glitter. This one has square glitter!
Over And Over a Gwen - classic red - this one only comes in a box-set with nail studs and gems.

There is a mini box-set that includes Love.Angel.Music.Baby, I Sing In Color, Hey Baby, and 4 In The Morning - I may pick this up, but I kind of want the full size bottles. I just can't justify buying anything other than the satin finish gold, because I have something like all the other shades already.

Triforce

A friend gave me a bottle of polish in a present. It was L'Oreal The Temptress Touch

This is a gorgeous spring green with a bright gold almost duochrome effect.
After I applied it (3 coats, it's pretty sheer), I thought it needed something, so I went through my gem wheel, applied some studs and painted over them with Revlon Vincent Van Gold.

I thought it worked - especially while playing Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

I got a lot of compliments on this one from gamers and non-gamers alike.

For Audrey / Pop Rocker

My sister bought me Hard Candy's Pop Rocker for Christmas - it's like Black Tie Optional (which she also grabbed for me), but with the addition of pink bar glitter.

I figured I needed to use Pop Rocker, so I needed to find a good base colour.

I went with China Glaze For Audrey - their ever popular perfect Tiffany blue. Two coats to get a nice even base. I finally picked up this polish using a Sally Beauty gift card I also got for Christmas. It's so pretty.

Topped it off with one coat of Pop Rocker - you have to dig a bit to get the larger sized glitter chunks, but, like the other Hard Candy glitters, you get awesome coverage without really trying.

With the Pro FX Epoxy Bond base coat and Quick Dry top coat, this manicure lasted over a week before I even started to notice tip-wear.