Reddit Challenge - Summer and Galaxy

This is proving to be a busy few months!

I have two weeks for you again.

First up is Summer ... I actually received an email from Butter London with a video tutorial on how to achieve this look using their summer shades. I picked 3 similar shades from my collection and went at it. I'm not that great with my dotting tools yet ... but I'm sure I'll get better at it.
Super bright and super cute!

1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White
1 coat of Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Blue dots with an unnamed blue from an Ombre set I bought.
Pink dots are Sinful Colors Dream On

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After I took off the above manicure, the nails on my left hand started to peel really, really badly, so I had to cut and file my nails down to nubbins ...

Next challenge is Galaxy - I wanted to do a single galaxy on all my fingers - I think it worked.

This was done using mostly Essence polishes, so I'll just list the shades.
2 coats of  Black is Back
Using a sponge, I dabbed on (in order) Choose Me!, Walk on the Wild Side, Let's Get Lost, Grey-t To Be Here, and Date in the Moonlight.
On top, I dabbed a bit of KiSS Big Break Blue #3 (glitter in a very sheer blue jelly base) from their blue Gradation kit.
Then I finished it off with Quo silver glitter from their "Nice" Christmas nail polish pack.

phew!

Reddit Challenge - Pink Two Ways

This week's Reddit Challenge is Pink - in honour of Valentine's day.

Someone at work wanted to see a water marble, and I wanted to try another sponge gradient, so I decided to do both at once.

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Pink Blink

For the sponge gradient, I painted Pink Blink, Sally Hansen HD Digital, and Avon Vintage Vamp in slightly overlapping stripes onto one side of a makeup sponge, then I dabbed it on my nails.

As usual, it worked way better on one nail (middle finger) than the others ... which is why I haven't posted any yet ... but it still looks not bad!

For the Water Marble, I used the same colours. At first, I tried to do a heart shape, but my bullseye wasn't small enough to pull it off, so I just swirled it all around.


I've used Pink Blink for several manicures - it's a baby pink creme.
Sally Hansen HD Digital is a bright pink, slightly sheer shimmery thing - I loved the way it swirled in the water marble. There was a lot of depth to this shade.
Avon Vintage Vamp is from their old line of polish - it's a burgundy creme that leans toward purple.

The two techniques didn't quite go together as well as I had hoped, but it's still cute and very, very pink.

Reddit Challenge - Winter Nails

I had a really pretty blue to white gradient in mind, and wanted to try a sponge gradient. Problem is, the colours I chose were all way too sheer, so I had to improvise.

I started with two coats of Zoya White to create a solid base.

Working one finger at a time, I dabbed on some NYC Turquoise Seas at the cuticle, then dabbed some of it off with a sponge. I bought this polish so many years ago when I had turquoise in my hair, and a lot of turquoise in my wardrobe. It's a really pretty shimmery sheer turquoise.
I added some Sinful Colors Cinderella in the middle. I am still in love with this blue. I keep looking for more, because I'd love to have a backup bottle.
Then I finished the gradient by dabbing on some Sally Hansen Polar Bare, a white jelly polish.

While the polish was still a bit sticky, I added a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate - iridescent glitter - to help blend it even more.

I like the icy look of this manicure.

Next week is glitter ...
I found out that some people are using white glue as a basecoat when dealing with glitter polishes - it sort of turns it into a peel off nail polish. I think I'll give it a shot!

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 Weeks of Nails - "Earth Appreciation"

52-week challenge  - this week is "Earth Appreciation"

I was a bit stumped on this one. I didn't want to draw little recycling symbols on my fingers, so I figured "earthy" would be good enough.

 

 I used 2 coats of Revlon's Chocolate Truffle. I love this brown - it's so pretty.

 After that, I brushed on a layer of Sinful Colors' Show Me The Way. That wasn't quite doing it for me, so I tore up a cosmetic sponge, dabbed some polish on that and went over the green with another layer. Much better.

Finally, I lightly dabbing the tips with Wet n Wild Jade, just to give a slightly different shine. (it's a bright green with a gold shine to it).

Topped it off with OPI topcoat.

I like the combination of the creamy brown and the glittery / shimmery greens. The sponging added a fun texture to it - I'll definitely try it again.

Next week is "Cartoon Mani" ... I am plotting.