Flakie Comic Nails

I wanted to do comic book nails again, but I thought it might be fun to add some flakies to it.

Two coats Color Club Love Links - this is a red with just a hint of orange. I picked this one up a while back on clearance from a local nail supply place. I was going to buy OPI's My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, but spotted this bottle for $1.99. It looked pretty close in the bottle, except the OPI had a slight shimmer to it. I was mostly looking for the shade, and I love a bargain, so Color Club won.

I added a coat of Icing By Claire's Rave Royalty - I really wish this one photographed better. The flakies are an iridescent orange-gold.

I applied a black outline using It's So Easy black striping polish and the "shine" detail using Claire's white striping polish. I think I could have left out the white, but it still looks good.

Catching Up

Since I got back from the UK, work has been crazy, with terrible shifts, and when I'm not at work, we've been going out a lot.
It's just been a crazy summer, and I haven't been able to keep up here.

I've still been doing my nails though - so here's what I've got:

Polka Dots:

This was a base of Sinful Colors Rain Storm
Dots were done using two sizes of a dotting tool and China Glaze Holographic in Cosmic Dust and Galactic Grey.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Polka Dots"

Neon:

I started with Sinful Colors Snow Me White to give the neon a solid base.
Three coats of Ardene Neon Yellow - this is a highlighter yellow. It's ridiculously bright.
Over top of that, I dabbed Icing By Claire's Shredded. This one is pretty neat, it's not really what I'd call flakies, but it's shredded black glitter. The clear base has a slight blue tint to it, so it unfortunately changed the yellow a bit. I tried to do a sort of gradient with it, and reversed the gradient on my ring finger.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Neon"

Secret Periwinkle:

oops! this was my 100th manicure on here.
um ... I'll try to remember to do something fancy for 150?
I bought China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, because periwinkle is an awesome colour. Not quite blue, a hint of lilac. This is a really nice polish - 2 coats. I will be wearing this often.

Green Mermaid:

Three coats of Wet n Wild Fast Dry Sage in the City.
For my ring finger, I poured out a small amount of hexagonal glitter on to a piece of tin foil, and added a dab of topcoat next to it (not fast dry!). I applied a coat of the same topcoat to my ring finger, and then used a toothpick dipped in the topcoat to pick up the glitter and applied it one-by-one to my nail. This didn't take as long as you'd think - but I don't know that I'd have the patience to do my whole hand. I had to apply two coats of a thick topcoat to seal it off, and even then, there was some texture.
This was also a giant pain in the butt to take off, even with the foil method.

Jeans:

My friend bought me a bottle of Maybelline Color Show Denim Dash - it's a pretty blue polish with fine silver glitter that dries matte. I used two coats for this manicure.
I added a stud to my ring finger, to look like the button, or the rivets on jeans.

Gorgeous Bling Bling:

In honour of the cooler weather these last few days, and inspired by the pumpkin body lotion I just bought from Bath and Body works, I decided I needed to use an autumn shade on my nails.
This colour is essence Gorgeous Bling Bling (what a terrible name!), but it really is a gorgeous colour. Rusty orange with teeny tiny orange-gold flakies.

phew. OK, I'll try to keep up with this a little better.

Revlon Selects Nail Polish Reviews

It's been a while, but I finally sat down and played some more with the Revlon Selects products I was sent.

The Nail Art polishes are dual-ended polishes where one side is a base coat and the other is an 'effect' of some sort. I believe the first ones were crackle sets. They also come in Neon (with a white base coat to make the neon shade pop), Moon Candy (flakies!!) and Expressionist (with a smaller detail brush)

I received an Expressionist and a Moon Candy - I'll be reviewing both!

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The Moon Candy polish I received is called Orbit.
This one was hard to get a good photo of - my camera did not like it at all (but oh, if you saw it in person, I know you'd love it!)

The base colour is a super dark purple creme. It's even and opaque in one coat - I've heard the Moon Candy polishes are like this, but I wasn't really expecting it to be THAT solid.
I love it. I honestly don't know what else I can say - it's a great polish.

The other side is a purple/blue/green flakie in a clear purple base. A lot of people complained that the flakies were hard to apply and hung off the edge of the nail. I can definitely see this - I dabbed the polish on, because that's how I'm used to applying most glitter and flakies, and the flakies were a bit on the unruly side, but I was able to place them easily enough.
The manicure was a bit lumpier than I'm used to, so I ended up having to use two coats of my topcoat.

I can't stop looking at the colour shift.

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The Expressionist polish I received is called "Vincent Van Gold"
I guess my camera doesn't like dark purples very much, because this one was hard to photograph as well.

The base colour side is dark purple with a blue shimmer - super pretty. I used it on it's own first, and it was a little too sheer for my taste.
For this manicure, I first did a coat with the base from the Moon Candy polish, then applied the Expressionist polish over top. I think this one is sheer, because it's a shimmery polish - I'm sure the ones with the creme polish base will be similar to the Moon Candy base polish.
Anyways, the colour is gorgeous and the application was nice and smooth.

The detail polish is a bright gold.
For the design, since I was doing this later at night after a busy day, I wanted something simple, so I opted for stripes - I did two vertical on one side of my nail, then two horizontal near the top of my nail.
I only had to do one coat to get solid coverage, which is essential with detail polishes.
The brush isn't as thin and long as some of the detail polishes you can find, but it's nice and flexible. I actually find the slightly shorter length to be a benefit - there is less room for wiggling if you've got shaky hands! It's easy enough to shape the brush against the mouth of the bottle to get a thinner line if you want it.
I think the thicker brush will allow you to do dots a lot easier - I'll have to give that a shot some time.

Reddit Challenge - Decals

A nail blogger I've been reading for a few months - Rebecca Likes Nails - is having a 2-year blog birthday giveaway ... head on over and enter!!

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This one actually took me a couple of tries - I wasn't happy with either, but here's the one I'm sharing:

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Heat Flash - a bright neon coral (it matches my site!)

On all but my ring finger, I topped it off with Icing By Claire's Rave Royalty - a gold/orange flakie (I'd say it's more like shards) that has the occasional flash of green. The polish is in a very sheer coral base, which does show if you put it on bare nails, but there is no way you could build it up to opaque. I had to dab the flakies on rather than use it like a normal polish, but I love it!

I added the decals to my ring finger. The decals I have are a little too thick and my nails are a little too curved, so they don't lie flat. They're cute though! I actually got them at a dollar store, so I guess I couldn't expect much.

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I bought a few things at Michael's craft store the other day, and I got a 40% coupon for a single item this week. I decided to go buy a Recollections 3 Drawer Organizer Cube also known in the online nail polish world as a "Melmer"  (It's like a smaller version of Ikea's Helmer cabinet, and it's from Michael's ... so Melmer).

I got it put together in about an hour, and put shelf liner in the bottoms of the drawers (a tip I saw over at A Polished Touch) and started to fill it up.

I have to figure out how I want to put the polishes in ... by colour or by brand? I should let my husband organize it, he loves that sort of thing.

It doesn't look like my polish will even fill up one drawer - and some people have multiple Melmers!!
I'll take some photos when I'm done and share in another post.

Revlon Selects has Arrived!

I got home today, and a small box was sitting on my table with a Revlon Selects label!
My husband said that the mail man had crammed it in our mailbox - it's bigger than our mailbox, so it was a little dented, but everything made it in one piece!

Included in the box is:

Revlon PhotoReady Primer+Shadow in Metropolitan - lovely brown/taupe/gold eyeshadow shades

Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Suede Lipstick in Backstage - a shimmery wine shade

Revlon Nail Art Expressionist polish in Vincent Van Gold - shimmery purple and gold polishes

Revlon Nail Art Moon Candy in Orbit - dark purple creme and blue-green flakies in a clear purple base

Revlon Diamond Collection Nail File (I got a purple one!)

I look forward to testing these all out and posting my reviews.

I'm going to wear the eyeshadow to work tomorrow just for fun.

52 Week / Reddit Challenge - Candy Corn

I combined the challenges again this week - Reddit was "orange" and I'm Simply Complex was "Halloween"

My index and ring fingers are two coats of Zoya White, then I added a coat of Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and finally Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow on the tips. My favourite Halloween treat - Candy Corn!

My thumb, middle finger and pinkie are a coat each of OPI Black Onyx, Joe Twilight (black with flakies - it's a little sheer, which is why I did the OPI first, but it was an awesome find at Superstore!), and finally Essie Shine of the Times (clear base with flakies). I love the green-orange colour shift.

Once that was all done, I added my GOSH Matte topcoat.

This is another one where I was in a rush, so I wasn't able to clean it up - I did it last minute before I had to start prepping for trick-or-treaters!

Another double post

I really wasn't sure how the Galaxy manicure would turn out, and I've been busy this week, so I didn't actually get a chance to sit down and make an attempt until tonight.

I decided that while I was at it, I would do the "bling" manicure for next week. More on that later.

I could not believe how easy this was to do and how pretty it came out:

2 coats OPI Black Onyx.

Then I put a bit of Sally Hansen Pink Blink onto a palette (my temporary tape-on-a-lid palette!), and used the edge of a makeup sponge to dab it on in patches
I did the same thing with Sally Hansen HD in Laser - only this time I did it over my whole nail. It's too sheer to show up much, but it toned down the pink very nicely and added a nice bit of shimmer.
I went in with OPI Nice Color Eh? and dabbed it over the pink in smaller patches.
I finished the sponging off with Sally Hansen Heat Flash in the very centre of each nebula.

After it was sufficiently dry, I dabbed on a bit of Claire's Glitter topcoat for the stars.
Then topocat to smooth it all out and voila!

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Now ... the "bling" manicure. I bloody hate that word, and I'm really not into having raised things on my nails - so I skipped adding jewels.
Unfortunately, you can't see the sparkly / iridescence in the photo at all, but here's what I did instead:

I painted all my nails with Sally Hansen Heat Flash - 3 coats on all my nails except my ring finger, which received 2.

I obtained a few tiny vials of hex glitter when buying some cheap-o clear polish to use for a project. One of them is an iridescent coral, so I thought I'd try placing it on my ring finger to look like scales.

Heat Flash is a quick dry, so I didn't expect to get anywhere with that. I did a small amount of topcoat at the very top of my nail, and planned to do further small blotches as I placed the glitter. Well, the glitter was too small, the topcoat was drying too quickly,and I was too impatient, so I just slapped on some topcoat and dumped the glitter on top. I really knew I shouldn't have done that, but thankfully I didn't get much glitter outside of my workspace, and it was fairly easy to clean up. I honestly think I'm just going to chuck the rest of it in the garbage.

Anyways, I added one more coat of topcoat, then I went over it all with Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times.
It resulted in a super shimmery iridescent feature nail.
Good Enough.


And yes, I totally cheated and have a galaxy manicure on my right-hand and the neon glitter on my left-hand.
Hah!

52 Week Challenge - Gradient Nails

This week is a gradient manicure - there are three main styles:
The first is the ombre, which I did about a month ago - a different shade on each nail creating a gradient across the hand. The other two are very similar - it involves creating a gradient on each nail. The syrup mani, which involves multiple layers of a sheer polish and the sponged or layered gradient like what I did for my Earth appreciation mani.

I decided to do a layered gradient - I tried sponging, but it didn't quite take with the nail polish I chose.
It was really hard to get a good photo of this one - I took about a dozen in different light.

I chose these colours, because I wanted to wear the manicure to a steampunk concert. I dressed up, and I figured why not have my nails match my look?

Started with Color Club Boho Mojo, 2 coats for the base - I've used this one before in a couple of manicures - obviously I like it!

I painted and sponged on OPI Shim-merry Chic from their Christmas '09 collection - I did this in two thin layers, one starting lower than the other to help the gradient along. I like this one - it's a sheer brown with red-green flakies and blue, green and orange iridescent glitter - fun! I grabbed the 'mini merries' set on sale after Christmas. I wish I had realized how pretty Shim-merry Chic was at the time so I could have picked up a full size bottle. Oh well! I'll just have to use my mini sparingly!

Then I finished off the tips with Color Club Nouveau Vintage, which is a nice shimmery bronze with some red-green in it as well.

Next week's is a Rock Star manicure ... not too sure what makes a manicure a "rock star" one ... hopefully google is my friend!