Revlon Selects News and Wild Child

First up -
As you may know, I was selected as one of 500 people to receive a box of goodies for review under the Revlon Selects program.
Now, when I entered the contest on facebook, figured it was a one time thing and thought, it would be cool if they sent more stuff later, but never really expected anything else.
Well, yesterday I got a lovely surprise in my mailbox - a square box with a Revlon Selects sticker pasted on the side. I opened it up and much to my delight were two full size bottles of nail polish and a box of nail strips. Apparently they selected a group of people at random from the first batch of 500 and sent out another box.

I got a bottle of Revlon Colorstay polish in "Nude Beige", new Revlon Chroma Chameleon polish in "Gold" (a very popular green-gold duochrome shade) and a box of Revlon 3D Jewel Appliques in "Floral Fatale" (hot pink, white and black floral design with a silver geometric pattern. - they're a bit textured, hence the "3D")

Stay tuned for some photos of the products in action!

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In other news ... A manicure!

I found this one on clearance at my local Shopper's Drug Mart and decided I wanted to get it.

It was really hard to get a photo of this one that shows all of it's elements.

The base is a black jelly polish filled with gold micro glitter.
Then, it has tiny silver holo hex glitter. In the bottle I have, this was all settled at the bottom and I had to turn the bottle upside-down and shake like mad to get it blended in at all.
Finally, it has a light scattering of small hex glitter in orange, teal, lime green, gold, purple, blue ... there might be other colours, but I'm not sure.

Since it's a jelly and I didn't want to use too many coats and muddy up the glitter, I did a base coat of Avon Licorice - a black creme - to provide a base, before adding a couple of coats of Wild Child.

The coloured glitter was a bit difficult to get out of the bottle, you'll see I only have one on my pinky and two -3 pieces on my other fingers. My thumb got 5 total. But it's enough as long as you shake the bottle before each coat. I checked out google images to see if I could find any other pictures of it, and you couldn't really see the coloured glitter in any of them.
Too bad, because this is a gorgeous polish, but since it was on clearance, I assume it has been discontinued.

Reddit Challenge - Spring

I've been MIA this last week, because my work schedule has been so weird that I haven't had much time to do anything, let alone my nails.

I managed to squeeze out some time to do the challenge this week. The theme is Spring, and as soon as I saw that, I knew which manicure I wanted to do.

Cherry Blossoms!

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I used this tutorial from Nails by Kayla Shevone, and it was really easy!

I started with a base coat of Fascino Blue and then went over it with two coats of Sinful Colors Mint Apple.

Once that was dry, I used my Quo by ORLY striper polish in Black to draw the branches. I didn't do anything specific, I just kind of placed them wherever looked good.

After that, I used my Claire's detail polish in white to create the flowers. This polish has both a striper brush and a 'pen' tip, so I could do the dots. I did the dots one by one, because when I tried to do groups of three, the polish flowed into itself and created a blob - so, I did single dots where I wanted to place the flowers on each finger, then went back and did the second dot for each flower on each finger, then the third..

Finally, I dripped a bit of Sally Hansen Pink Blink and Avon Mocha (which is pink ... ??) onto a bit of plastic and used a bent bobby pin to dot those colours over top of the white.

Everyone keeps asking me if they are nail stickers.
The next question is "how much time do you spend doing that!?"
Usually about an hour from removal to final topcoat.

Oh, and bonus kitty legs in the background of the photo - she was sleeping there, but as soon as I brought out the camera, she got up. She does it every time.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Book

This was another tough one - I have a lot of trouble with imagery apparently.

I was going to just do Harry Potter, but it's been done so many times, I didn't want to end up with exactly the same thing as someone else.

Granted, this design does use 3 designs from other manicures, I haven't seen them all combined into one.

I give credit for this one to a co-worker. He found out I do my nails and have this blog, and when I told him that my next manicure was supposed to be inspired by a book he said,
"can I pick the book?"
and I replied,
"sure, why not?"

Without further ado - here is my Interview With The Vampire manicure:

I haven't read the book in ages, and I haven't seen the movie in ... well, probably longer, but I figured a vampire theme would be easy.

For my thumb, I did a coat of Sally Hansen's Burgundy Child from their No Chip 10 Day line (long discontinued), which I went over with a coat of OPI Comet Loves Cupid. I (for some unknown reason) don't actually have a proper vampy red. I went over the middle of that with OPI Black Onyx and used my Quo by ORLY black detail polish to even it out. Then I went over that with my Claire's White detail polish to create the teeth.
Burgundy Child is a very deep plum colour with a bit of shimmer. I really like it, but rarely wear it.

For my index finger, I did two coats of Zoya White and stamped on some roses from Bundle Monster plate BM-323 using Comet Loves Cupid and Burgundy Child. I was hoping it would swirl together, but it didn't at all. The Comet Loves Cupid was quite sheer over the white, so it came out almost pink. Oh well.

For my middle finger, I used 2 coats of Essence Modern Romance. I created vampire bites using a q-tip first dipped in Burgundy Child, then Comet Loves Cupid. I added black dots in the middle of the splotchy marks and then did blood drips (again with the burgundy then red over top)

For my ring finger, I did 2 coats of OPI Black Onyx and stamped on the diagonal lace pattern from Bundle Monster Plate BM-323 using my Claire's White detail polish (it's more opaque than the Zoya).

And finally, for my pinky I did two coats of Zoya White, then I scraped most of the polish off the brush of the Burgundy Child and dragged that over the tip, then I did the same for Comet Loves Cupid.

This was all rather time consuming, because I did all the base colours first, then decided to change the order of them, then I kept messing it up. Since it took so long, I gave up on my left hand and just painted them all black (except my pinky, which is the white with red streaks).

I really like each nail - I think the index finger would fit better with a deeper red, but it still looks good. If I was to do it again, instead of the roses, I might go for the theatre masks from Shany Plate SH02, to represent Louis and Claudia arriving at the Théâtre des Vampires.


Next week's theme is decal / transfer - looking forward to an easy week! (I'll probably jazz it up a little, but after this week, I need something easy!)

Reddit Challenge - Earthbound

The theme this week was "Inspired by a Game"
I've been playing Earthbound lately, so I figured it might be fun to feature the four main characters.

Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo ... (I guess that's sort of backwards, Ness is on my index finger)
I didn't think I could do their whole bodies, so I went with just their faces. I think Ness came out the best (too bad there's a shine on his mouth)

Image of the gang for reference:

I did a water marble on  my thumb, because in the game all of the battle backgrounds are weird psychedelic swirly things:

(imagine that animated)

Colours used:
Claire's Scented Lime (for the background - say 'fuzzy pickles'!)
Zoya White (to block out the face shapes and for Jeff's glasses)
Essence Modern Romance (nude with shimmer - for the skin)
Claire's Scented Banana (for Paula and Jeff's hair and the water marble)
QUO by ORLY Instant Artist Black (for the outlines and black details)
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Red (Ness's cap and the water marble)
Claire's Jazz (blue, for the bill of Ness's cap)
Wet n Wild Lavender (for Paula's bow and the water marble)
Sally Hansen Sun Kissed (for the water marble)

phew!
I only actually did my right hand ... I didn't have the patience to do a lumpy mess on my left hand, so it's just solid green.

The other challenge this week is Tribal ... but I think I can only do one fancy pants manicure in a week, so click here to see my last tribal one.

Next week is black and white for Reddit and Movember for the other challenge. hmm.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Reddit

I've actually only been on the nail polish board on Reddit, so this was a bit tough. I was going to go with the main colours of Reddit (blue orange white) and do something with that, maybe draw the alien.

Then, I volunteered to help someone out by taking a series of photographs of how I do my nails, step-by-step, including any sketches or inspriation.
Well, I figured this was good enough - it was a manicure I've been meaning to do, and had a sketch of (I never do that), but just never got around to it.
Reddit inspired me to go for it.

On my thumb and ring finger, 1 coat of OPI Black Onyx

Other fingers 2 coats of ORLY Rock The World - I really like this one, it's a wine colour with gold shimmer.

Then comes the detail ... using my Claire's white detail polish, I painted blocks and stripes on my thumb and ring finger, and large french tips on my other fingers.

I painted over most of the white with Clare's Scented Banana and ORLY Rock The world. Then I used QUO by ORLY Instant Artist Black and Claire's White detail polishes to clean up the design.

The design is actually inspired by something - a dress I think? I haven't been able to find it since I did the original sketch.

It was a lot of work, but it turned out well!
There are several layers in some spots, so I'm not sure how long it will be until this chips.

52 Week Challenge - Water Marble

I actually gave my nails an entire week to breathe ... sort of.
I wore the black rock star manicure for a few days, and took it off on Monday when I posted the blog entry.
I used my Revlon Calcium Gel Nail Hardener to see if it would make any difference. My nails didn't peel any further, so I guess that's good.

Anyways, super early post!

I spent a long time looking at my collection of polishes to find which colours I wanted to use on my water marble.

Here is what I went with:
OPI Steady as She Rose - dusty pink with a hint of lavender. I used it with my needle marble manicure.
Icing by Claires KTDID - metallic purple / maroon shade.
Sally Hansen Golden-I - gold glitter polish (super dense)

I started with 2 coats of Steady as She Rose over top of my Quo by ORLY rubberized basecoat.

I used Brita filtered water brought to room temperature - I had grabbed a couple of those little paper cups they give you at takeout sushi places for your soy sauce.
I taped my fingers around my nails so cleanup would be easier.

Into the water, I added 1 drop of my Zoya white - just to get started without wasting my colours.
Then I did 1 drop each Steady as She Rose, KTDID, Golden-I, and a final drop of Steady as She Rose to create a nice "bullseye"

I dragged a toothpick through the polish to create a design.
Once I was happy with the design, I lowered my finger in, and used a toothpick to pick up all the excess polish on the surface of the water.

I smudged my pinky a bit, which sucks, but I didn't really want to take it off and do it again. Cleanup was a bit of a pain - the gold is not easy to get off (you can see it's still a little messy), but I couldn't imagine what it would be like without the tape!

Pretty and surprisingly easy! I don't think I'd do it often, but for a special occasion? Definitely.

52 Week Challenge - Rock Star Manicure

Apparently to do a "rock star manicure", you do a clear coat and while it's still wet, you pour loose glitter all over it, then seal.
Yeah ... no. I don't have any loose glitter in the house, and I'm not about to go buy some. That stuff is evil.

Here is what I did instead:

First, I filed my nails pretty short, because I like short nails with dark polish. I was going to buff them too, but then I realized when I try to take this manicure off, I'm just going to dry out my nails and make them rough, so I'll buff them before the next one.

I used Quo by ORLY Strong Bond rubberized basecoat - I'm hoping this creates enough of a barrier that the glitter is easier to remove.

Two coats OPI Black Onyx.
One Coat Claire's Glitter Topcoat. I used this one for my glitter syrup mani. It was hell to remove.
Then, I dabbed on some of the black & holo polish from the Claire's Precious Metals set. You can't see the black glitter very well, but that's ok.

Cleanup was surprisingly easy - the only "tough part" was a few pieces of the large glitter that pooled at the edge of my nail - I used a bit of remover to soften it, then lifted it off with a cuticle trimmer.

I wasn't going to put a topcoat on, because the Claire's Precious Metals polish is pretty thick, and I didn't think another layer would be smart. It dried quickly and solidly enough that I figured I could chance it. I went with my Color Club topcoat, because it's not too thick and it dries quickly. I'm glad I did, because it brightened it up a lot.

I really like the holo glitter polish. I'm glad I didn't try the loose glitter ... I don't think it would have turned out as nice.

After sharing last week's blog post on Facebook, my mom suggested a Jem and the Holograms manicure for the rock star theme - since glitter is so hard to remove, I didn't want to do another full manicure, so I did some bonus Jem inspired polish on my thumb (pardon my dry cuticles, I *just* finished removing the black):

Started with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Pink Blink - 1 coat, just to give a bit of a base.
2 coats of Claire's High Maintenance mini polish. It's a sheer pink base with pink glitter.
Then I dabbed on my Claire's Precious Metals holo polish.


Next week is a Water Marble manicure. They're so pretty, and they look easy enough, but for some reason, I'm afraid to try them!

52 Week Challenge - Flag Manicure

Thank Mom - I don't know why I didn't think of this flag myself!

Yarr!

*ahem*

I picked up a new basecoat to see how it works - Quo by ORLY Strong Bond, a "rubberized" basecoat. It's supposed to help prevent the polish from chipping.

2 coats of OPI Black Onyx

Then ...I just so happened to have a stamp plate with a version of the Jolly Roger on it.

This specific Jolly Roger (a skull and two crossed swords) was flown by English pirate Calico Jack Rackham. It was also featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Barbossa's flag.
(What's really sad, is that when I saw the plate, I knew it was Calico Jack's Jolly Roger, because I'm a little bit of a pirate nerd.)

The stamp is the centre image on Shany plate SH14. I stamped it onto my thumb, middle and pinky fingers using OPI Skull and Glossbones (yep, I couldn't resist).

Topped it off with OPI topcoat.

I'm still getting the hang of stamping, so of course the last one turned out best (my pinky in this photo). I've learned that the key with stamping is to be quick!

Next week's challenge is a Pride / Rainbow manicure