New Year's Eve Nails!

 Alrighty everyone, it may be Jan 2nd but I was hungover yesterday so you get my New Year's Eve nails today!  Much like the glitter challenge, New Year's Eve presents quite the quandary for me as I have to choose just one set of nails, they can be as balls-out-sparkly as I want and there will be partying.  I clearly have no choice but to break out the rainbow glitter, again.  Cos it's New Year's!  I can't not do this thing.

As I talked a friend of mine into hosting the night, I felt I should go help.  And, by help, I mean physically be there, sit on her floor and put glitter on my nails while chatting and watching the I.T. Crowd.  I played around for a while and eventually came up with this diamond pattern.  Using my usual technique, I started with two coats of Rimmel Black Satin then laid a column of glitter down the centre of my nail, inching them around a little til I worked out how many I could fit.  I then just build out the pattern on either side.  You may notice, though, that my other nails don't match.  I'd just started on my ring finger when we noticed it was 7pm, and the party started at eight so it was time to improvise!  For me, that usually means loading up a heavy coat of top coat and sprinkling different glitters on it.  I then proceed to pretend I'm being all cool with my different patterns!

The Verdict: Application isn't quite as good as I'd like but man, did these get me tons of attention at the party.  Which is of course, my favourite thing.  Even from guys!  Aww yeah, everyone loves the glitter.

As a side note, the pictures you see here are a result of my patching up my nails after a hard night of partying.  Glitter mosaics are pretty fragile but super easy to fix.  I'll have a full guide on how to fix them here shortly.

Tutorial: How to Fix a Glitter Mosaic Manicure That's Seen Better Days

Alrighty, so you've seen me do quite a lot of glitter mosaics manicures.  They do take a while to do and if you don't do your nails most days like me, you want them to last as long as possible.  One of the best things about them is that they're actually really easy to fix up, if you have the same glitter handy and a little time.

A perfect time to show you the process of fixing my nails is the manicure I did for New Year's Eve.  I did my nails before the party and over the course of the evening, they...had a bit of a rough night.  I'm very hard on my nails - I get tip wear really easily and my nails weren't in the best shape after a week in New York.  So instead of looking like this:

I woke up to them looking like this (brace yourself):

Sadly, this is rough I am on my nails.  Look at that dirty great chip on my index finger, the tip wear, the missing glitter pieces *shudder*.  IT'S OK, I CAN FIX THIS.  How do I know it'll be ok? Cos the first pieces of all five fingers is the final result *OMG TWIST*.

The first step you need is to take your base colour and refresh your tips.  Make sure you wrap the polish all the way around the ends, and a little bit under your nails.  I find everything wears better this way.  It doesn't have to be super neat as we'll be putting glitter over it and a ton of top coat.  Once done, you should have something that looks like this:

Ok, looks a little better now, huh?  Next, you want to find the glitter you originally used.  You can see I'm missing some of the pink glitter off the tips of my nails, and my little finger isn't looking too good.

Getting even better now.  I've added a little pink in there, and refreshed the glitter on my middle finger.  You just use the same technique you did originally, a little top coat and a toothpick.

The final step is the same as every other mani - a ton of Seche Vite and a paintbrush dipped in acetone to clean up the edges.  I've tried a lot of other top coats but keep coming back to Seche Vite as it seems to penerate deeper layers of polish and smooth everything out.  The paintbrush is also the easiest way to clean up your mani.  Just sweep it around the edges and you'll get a nice curve around the cuticle and no stray splotches.  100% acetone is the best, IMHO, because it's just so much faster than regular remover.  Find a small paint- or makeup brush and just sweep it around the edges of your polish, it's easy to do.

Once you do these, you get this!

The Verdict:  Man, looking at these pictures now I still want to clean up bits but it's too late now.  But look, sparkly!  Hope this helps :)

Matching a Mani to the Sparkliest Bag I've Ever Owned

While travelling in New York over Christmas, I kept an eye for...something.  Something unique, something you don't see often, something that stood out.  While wandering around Brooklyn, I found the thing that I was looking for.  It may not be practical but oh man, is it sparkly.  Covered in a perfect gold-red-fuchsia-pale pink gradient of flat sequins, this bag had to be mine.  When I got it home, I of course had to honour it with a glitter gradient of my own.

I wanted to bring in the silver reverse side to all the sequins so I started this mani with two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City.  I'm not really sure why now as I've tried to put glitter on this before and it never quite looks right.  Anyway, on I went with my usual technique, using Sally Hansen Invisible in very thin layers to stick the glitter on.  Again, I've had luck lately in first laying a strip of glitter down the centre of my nail then building out either side.  Once done, I added two coats of Seche Vite.  I was then silly enough to take a shower before taking photos so that's why the tip of my ring finger's a little mangled.  Once I fixed it, using my glitter fixing process, it didn't look too bad.  So much fun taking photos with this bag though.

The Verdict: Love the bag, would love the mani more if the pink didn't bleed quite so much.  Yay for sparkles for everyone!

Blue and Red Harlequin Nails

I'm in a ridiculously lucky position right now.  The company I worked for for three years fell apart and with a combination of the savings and resulting payout, I don't have to work for a little while.  Not forever, but enough time for me to get enough sleep and to fully dedicate as much time as I want to doing my nails, among other things.  This is how I had the time to do the ridiculous manicure I'm about to show you, and why I'm publishing this at 5.30am. 

I was sorting out my desk when I came across a pot of red holographic diamond shaped glitter I haven't really known how to fully utilise.  It's the only one I have in this size so I couldn't do the geometric shapes I've done with some other colours in the past.  I think I've always known what to do with it, but it's tiny, and fiddly.  Bracing myself with a lot of episodes of The Good Wife and a google search for the best colour complements to red, I began.  To start this manicure, I applied three coats of Urban Outfitters Babyboy, a slightly dusky baby blue.  Then, using my usual technique I added the glitter.  I found the best way to get the glitter even was to do a straight strip down the centre of each nail and built out each side.  You have a bit of wiggle room to shift the pieces around if they don't line up exactly.  I don't even really know how long this took, but I love it so much it's worth it. 

The Verdict: I love this both close up and from a distance.  The red glitter is holographic so it's super sparkly.  From a distance it almost looks purple but with red flashes, even in really dim light.  I love it so much it's been 24 hours and I can't take it off.  It's going to be hard, that's for sure.  I'll keep patching up the pieces that fall off, see if I can't make it last for a while.  Made me cross-eyed!

Fun with Glow-in-the-Dark American Apparel Polishes!

I finally decided to jump aboard the glow-in-the-dark train that's been tootling around lately.  Sure, it's a gimmick but who doesn't like glow-in-the-dark stuff?  I recently came across two new American Apparel polishes - Moon and Neptune - and just had to find the right way to use them.

To start, I applied three coats of Orly Dayglow, my go-to white polish.  These two polishes are quite sheer so I wanted to give them the best shot possible with a white base.  Next, I applied two coats of the white glower, Moon and the blue, Neptune, to alternating fingers.  Application was fine with both these polishes, not to mention interesting to look at the polish itself on the brush.  The glowing particles almost look velvety, never seen that before.  Once done with the two coats, I added the black glitter.  I wanted some kind of pattern for the glow test, what better than large hex glitter.  I used my usual technique and it didn't take much time at all to get the pattern on.

Keep going, nearly time for glowing!

Ta-da!  Glowing!  This was after charging my fingers under a lamp for half a minute - so glowing!

The Verdict:  I like these polishes.  They'll always have to go over a base but they glow brightly enough for me and don't do something silly like take forever to dry.  Will certainly keep me entertained when I go to bed!  Yep, that's a thing.

Green and Gold Art Deco Nails

I do enjoy a good bandwagon-jumping-on party!  When I saw the gorgeous art deco nails Whitney at dressedupnails.com posted on Reddit, I knew I had to have a go, warnings about the amount of time it takes be damned!  I'm made of time! Yeah...really should have listen there cos these really do take an extraordinary about of time to do!

To start, I applied three coats of a polish I've been meaning to use for a while, OPI Goldeneye from the Skyfall collection.  It's such a beautiful gold, I have no idea why I haven't used it sooner.  Look at the macro shot below, haven't seen a foil that pretty in ages.  Once it and the extra coat of Seche Vite I added on top cos I'm impatient was dry I set to work with my striping tape.  I've only used it for stripes before so I had no idea what I was in for, trying to get tape ends to line up properly.  I didn't do anything special with the tape, just copied the designs from Whitney, embellishing where I felt like it.  On top of the tape I applied two coats in quick succession of Revlon Posh.  I should have gone with a darker, hunt green like I was originally going to but alas, Posh will have to do.  

The Verdict:  I love art deco everything so this one is a winner for me.  It's funny how the lines look drawn on the green rather than the green over the top but I'm ok with that.  Thanks for the idea Whitney!

Weekly Challange: Inspired by a Book - The Dark Tower Series

 I find challenges based around an "inspiration" tricky.  I have a lot of movies, books, TV shows, music that I enjoy but rarely find inspiring.  The Reddit weekly challenge for the past week has been specifically for books and it finally hit me - I had to do nails for Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.  I've read that series over and over again and have always loved it.  There's a ton of really interesting art work featured in some editions of the books as well as online so using this picture as inspiration, let me present my Dark Tower nails.

I'm not super good at nail art yet but I like to give it a shot from time to time.  To start, I applied two coats of China Glaze Electric Beat for my sky background.  Then, using a combination of acrylic paints and nail art polishes, I drew in the field of roses, the tower, the setting sun and the spiralling clouds.  For my thumb I had a go at painting a larger rose with the same combination of paints and polishes.  Once it was done, I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.  It may not be my best work, but I'm happy.

The Verdict:  I'm happy with how this came out, especially with the clouds in acrylic paint.  It was much easier to apply and have it be opaque than polish.  This all reminds me, I really should read that series again....

True Rainbow Fish Nails

I do a ton of posts with glitter.  That's fine, I love glitter.  What does tend to happen though is that I stick to the little glitter.  There's actually a reason for this!  I hate any manis that don't sit 100% flat.  If a piece of glitter sits up or catches, it's coming off.  The tiny glitter is perfect in that it doesn't catch, always sits nice and smooth.  I was sorting through my bag of glitter (I have a Sephora gift bag that's filled to the top with pots of glitter :D ) and realised I have a really great set of glitters that work in a nice rainbow gradient.  I've been having more luck with getting glitter to sit properly lately so I gave it another shot.

So the trick with working with larger pieces of glitter is to make sure that every piece you apply is tamped down all the way around.  I've had success with first applying two to three coats of a base colour - I usually use Rimmel Black Satin because it cleans up well - and a medium swipe of a non-quick-dry top coat, like Sally Hansen Invisible.  You don't want to submerge the piece of glitter, but you want the top coat to swell up around the sides of the piece.  Make sure you trim any pieces of glitter sticking off the ends of your nail too.  Finally, slap on as many coats of Seche Vite as you can stand.  I've used three here.  Sounds like a lot but Seche Vite dries so fast and seals the tips so well I'm ok with it.  It's been 24 hours with this mani on and I've only lost one piece of glitter so far.

The Verdict: I love how this looks.  It could only be improved with holo glitter but not everything can be holo, dammit Laura! Some people might think I've gone over the top with trimming all the glitter to fit but this is how I like my nails to look.  It's so sparkly and rainbow-y, it's worth the effort.

Black, White and Gold Zig Zag Nails!

As much as I love the glitter mosaics, every once in a while I feel the need to do something different.  I stopped in at a craft store on the way home tonight as they tend to have all kinds of supplies I might be able to shoehorn into a manicure.  Along with a new, tiny paintbrush, I picked up painter's masking tape and metal craft scissors with a zig-zag blade.  Oh yes, I'm going to have fun with these!

I spent a good couple of hours watching The Mitchell and Webb look and staring at the scissors, trying to decide how best to use them.  I finally decided to try zig-zag strips as it's something I've tried to do by hand before but stopped because it was taking too long.  To start, I applied three thin coats of L.A. Girl Delicate, a shimmery white creme.  Once it and the coat of Seche Vite were totally dry, I cut thin strips of the painter's tape and laid them on my nails.  I then added the black and gold over the top, Rimmel Black Satin and Revlon Gold Coin respectively.  

The Verdict: I'm really happen with how these came out, especially with the gold accents.  I'm also super happy with how my index and ring fingers are holding up.  They both have breaks but are holding together with the tea-bag method.  It actually works really well - you cut a tiny piece of tea bag and stick it over the break with nail glue.  Hang in there, nails!

Rainbow Glitter Zig-zags, Take 2

One of my more popular posts were the rainbow glitter zig-zag nails I did a few months ago.  It's good, but every time I look at it, all I can see is how uneven some of the glitter is.  It was annoying me so I decided to recreate it, BUT THIS TIME BETTER.

Although it doesn't make much of a different, I started this manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Navy Baby instead of my usual black.  Gotta mix it up sometimes, you know? Then, starting with my thumb, I added the glitter using my usual process.  Unlike my original version, I did four pieces of glitter before changing directions, made it a lot neater.  After my thumb and ring finger I was starting to go a little cross-eyed so I spaced the glitter out a bit for my remaining fingers.  I like it though, makes the two accent nails stand out more.  It's fun to see the different patterns contrast against each other.  Anyway, if you're wanting to do this, make sure you have the glitter rotated so there's a pointy bit at the top, not a flat bit.  Makes for good zig-zags.  Man, so sleepy today, forgive me if this isn't a 100% sense-making. 

The Verdict:  Ahh, nice, even rainbow zig-zags at last.  I also got to feature one of my many giant rings.  I had a thing a while back for giant rings - I even created the subreddit /r/largerings - and it's good to hold something other than a polish bottle from time to time.  Yay sparklies!