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.

Reddit Challenge - Green

I'm sure I could have done something fancy with this one, but I wanted to do a plain colour.

This is Rimmel Rags to Riches.

A friend gave this one to me a couple of months ago, and when I saw there was a green challenge coming up, I knew I wanted to use this one.
It is a light metallic silvery green. I used three coats to get coverage that I was satisfied with (you could probably stop at 2, but in case you hadn't noticed by now, I like my polish very opaque). each coat dried very quickly.

In other news ... I got back from two weeks in England yesterday!
No, I didn't make the last two posts from there - I did the manicures before I left and scheduled the posts.
Later this week, I'll show you my nails for the trip along with some highlights from the trip!

Reddit Challenge - Delicate Print

I knew this one called for stamping, so I went through all my stamp plates, and finally settled on something lacy.

I started off with three coats of Revlon Nude Beige, then stamped on the diagonal lace pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-323 using Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Pretty, simple and delicate!

Guest Post - Shilak

My Friend Miss Manpreet sent me a photo and writeup about a Shilak manicure she had done, and I wanted to share!

"So, I was in Prince George for my high school reunion and decided to treat myself with a Shilak. I went with a shimmery black. They applied 1 coat of Gel base and then 2 coats of the black. She then used the thin design brush from Sally Hansen in white and silver to create a design on my ring finger. She drew an eye shape with the white and then added on some silver dots. Loved them!"

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Colour

I have really liked blue lately, so I figured, why not choose blue for this challenge?

I started with two coats of Ardene's Elektronika - a very pretty dark blue creme that I've used quite a bit. I used this as a base for the star of this manicure ...
Color Club Total Mystery - a sheer blue base with a blue-purple shimmer. I'd put this as a subtle duochrome - you can see it in the bottle, and you can sometimes see it on your fingers. I like it a lot, it's really pretty. I wish I could get better photos of it.

Hard Candy Black Tie Optional

Everyone is going crazy over this polish.
I get it now.

After failing with China Glaze Whirled Away a second time (no pictures were taken, but it was bubbly, lumpy and did not dry for /hours/), I grabbed a bottle of Black Tie Optional from my local Walmart.

Now, everyone says they have a very hard time finding this polish, but I've seen it every time I've been at Walmart. In fact, when the Hard Candy display was mostly empty, BTO was one of the only bottles left.
I guess the nail polish fanatics in Vancouver don't care for the black & white glitter trend? or they don't venture into Walmart?

Anywyas ... The black and white glitter thing started with indie polish makers. They were hard to find and often out of stock - when they came back in stock, they would sell out very quickly. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Here is a not-so-complete list, because companies are still releasing new ones - I've seen new offerings from Maybelline, Claire's and a few others.

For this manicure, I applied two coats of Barrielle Joytini, a peachy-orange almost jelly polish. I got this in a box set of polishes at Winners. The box said "New York Style", but when I looked up that set, Joytini wasn't in it (though, there was an orange), and there were other shades I didn't get. I guess it was random polishes thrown in the box. Not too surprised, because that's what happens with other sets at Winners. I've only actually seen one complete set. Not a big deal, I grabbed the set, because I liked the shades I saw, not because it was a specific set.

After those coats were thoroughly dry, I applied  a single coat of Black Tie Optional.
How was it? 
It was PACKED with glitter, so you can apply it like any old polish. And yes, that is only a single coat in the photo. Unlike Whirled Away, there was no dabbing was required. It is also super quick dry, so I could  apply a topcoat and be on my way without fear of denting or smooshing. I will say I had to dig a little bit to get the big hex glitter, but nothing like Whirled Away, where you had to dig for any glitter.

Reddit Challenge - Half-Moon or Border

The challenge had a choice for this one, and I chose border - half-moons can be really nice, but I had something specific in mind for Canada Day, and the border fit better.

On each finger I did two coats of OPI's Nice Color Eh? - I used this one for last year's Canada Day manicure
Over top of that, I did two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, leaving a border around the top and sides of my nails. I considered closing off the bottom with a strip of Nice Color Eh?, but thought it looked nice without it.
After that was all dry, I stamped on some maple leaves from Bundle Monster plate BM04 (also used last year). Since the design is 3 maple leaves stacked on top of each other, I used the largest one for my thumb, and the mid-sized one for the rest of my fingers.
Unfortunately, I mucked up my pinky after applying topcoat :(

Revlon Selects 3D Jewel Appliques

Ok,
It's been a while since I did a review of a product sent to me by Revlon. I had bare nails and I didn't want to wait for nail polish to dry, so I reached for my pack of 3D Jewel Appliques. I received the Floral Fatale pattern.

This is a very cute and busy pink/white/black/silver pattern. Flowers and silver geometric shapes. It even has a bit of an iridescent shine to it.

The Review:

First up, I read the instructions - pick the right size, apply, fold over nail edge, file off excess. Just like all the other nail strips out there. Easy as pie!
Then I looked at removal. These are not real nail polish, so for removal, you simply peel them off starting at the cuticle.
My heart sank a bit at that, because I have weak nails, and peeling things off of your nails can really damage them.

I elected to apply a basecoat to help prevent damage.

Application was super easy - peel and stick, smooth down.
The only minus here were the small range of sizes. My index, middle and ring fingers are all pretty much the same size - it was tough getting ones to fit. I ended up using a couple of slightly too-small ones. Also, my thumb was in-between the largest and second largest size, so I had to trim that one down - which is pretty normal.

The excess strip filed away pretty easily, but I encountered a slight hitch ... I had stretched one of them to make it fit, but once I filed the end off, it un-stretched and I had a bare patch at the tip of my nail. It was small and the busy pattern on the applique hid it well, so I figured it was ok.

I wore it, went to bed, woke up and had my shower.
This is when it all started to fall apart. They caught in my hair, shifted and lifted. I'm not sure if this is because I used a basecoat, so your mileage may vary.

I peeled them off afterward and they came off really nicely - it looks like the adhesive is gentle enough that it shouldn't damage your nails. It only lifted the basecoat off of one nail. I'm just wondering if they elected to go for a gentle adhesive rather than staying power.

Verdict: they're cute if you want a cute complex pattern without all the work. Probably only good for a couple of days. I personally wouldn't buy them, but I think they'd be great for a lot of people - especially if they wanted a really fancy manicure for an event.

Reddit Challenge - Matte

This week's challenge is Matte.
I have two matte polishes, so I figured I would use those, rather than just using a matte topcoat.

I went with a simple two-tone diagonal manicure.

Avon Matte Concrete - grey. This can get a little thick - as you can see on my ring finger. But it's a really pretty shade of grey.
Avon Matte Red Velvet - shimmery burgundy with a bit of gold. This one is a bit easier to work with than the grey, it looks really pretty both shiny and matte.

I did this one freehand, but you can do this type of manicure really easily with tape (and you'll get straighter lines)

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Movie / TV

This one was actually pretty easy, because I've wanted to do this as a manicure for a little while ...

The movie I picked was "Oz the Great and Powerful"

Here is a picture where you can sort of see the manicure in question:

And, here is my version:

I started with one coat of Essence Sweet as Candy for a sheer base.
Then I drew a triangle on my nail with Zoya Envy - an almost-black pine green.
I went over top of that with China Glaze Winter Holly
Finally, I did a line of gold just inside the edges of the triangle - I used my Icing by Claire's gold striping polish.