Vampy Red Gradient with Nails Inc Victoria

I've been doing a lot of glitter mosaics lately and sometimes you have to do something a little different.  I've done some gradients in the past but never had too much luck, mostly because I thought I knew more better than the makeup sponge technique.  Turns out that it's the best for smooth gradients, I'm silly and should listen to the internet more.  Just as well I did because now I get amazing vampy red nails!

It seems that the trick to gradients is the base colour.  Light colours need white, dark colours need a dark base with a solid creme polish as the lighter colour.  Here, I started with two coats of Nails Inc Victoria, a beautiful deep, dark red jelly.  Once it was dry - seriously, let it dry otherwise you get dings like on my ring finger - I painted a stripe of Essie Fifth Avenue on a makeup sponge and laid a thinner stripe of Victoria next to it.  I then dabbed it on my nails, working up and down ever so slightly to get a nice blend.  I was having some difficulty building up the opacity in the red tip so I ended up just straight applying Fifth Avenue to the tips of my nails then blending it in with the gradient.  

The Verdict: I love this so much I can't really believe how well it came out.  It does take a while and a few layers of gradient-ing to get it smooth but it's so worth it in the end.  Mmm, vampy. 

Brace Yourselves, This is a Bright One!

Hot damn am I glad that Valentine's Day is over and I can finally stop staring at the collection of pink and red polishes on my desk that I never used.  Sure, it's nice to have all the holidays be inspiration for manis but it gets a bit old after a while.  Now it's all over and done with for, what, a month til Easter, I just had to have a go at a fantastic neon mani I originally found on Pinterest: Sparrow Nails' combination of China Glaze Purple Panic and Turned Up Turquoise Neon.  It's too blindingly bright for me not to!

To start, I painted all but my ring finger in Purple Panic, leaving it to be Turned Up Turquoise.  Two coats is enough with these frosty neons, which is nice.  I added a coat of Seche Vite to each finger because I'm impatient and it makes the taping easier.  I then used my striping tape, painter's masking tape, pinking shears and dotting tools to make the various patterns.  Once they were all done, I finished off with another coat of Seche Vite and a coat of Essie Matte About You.  I've been looking for it for months and months, always missing it but TBBS in Toronto FINALLY had it in stock.  So everything will be matte now because it's the best matte top coat I've ever used.  I've tried Joe Fresh, Nails Inc, American Apparel, all of them can't even a bit compare to how good Matte About You is.  It's just such a matte finish!  Totes worth it.

The Verdict:  I love how abusively bright this is.  It was a pain in the bum to photograph, as you can imagine, but it was worth the effort.  I'm also going to go on again about how good Matte About You is.  Cos it's really good.  Yay neons!

Overlaid Rainbow Gradients!

Oh man, it's getting super hard to keep coming up with ideas so I'm just going to keep on plumbing different techniques.  I'm super into sponge gradients these days so I thought I'd try my hand at overlaid gradients, in rainbows of course because they're the best.  And that way, I get to show off my giraffe ring!  We all win!  Well, we would have had I taken more care to remove the yellow polish stains from my fingers :/

To start, I applied two coats of my new white, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  Everyone seems to be using it these days and I can see why, it's one of the nicer, more even whites I've used in a while.  Next, I loaded up a makeup sponge with stripes of China Glaze Pool Party and Surfin' for Boys and American Apparel Neon Yellow to create the underlying gradient.  I'm getting pretty good at gradients these days, I find that I just need the two coats of gradient.  Makes things quicker.  After a coat of Seche Vite, I applied my criss-crosses of striping tape and liberally applied China Glaze I'm with the Lifeguard and Towel Boy Toy, with American Apparel Neon Violet.  I wasn't having much luck with getting opacity in reasonable time with the sponge (getting the tape off doesn't work well if the polish fully dries) so I cheated and just painted the stripes on.  Works if you don't look too close.  Finally, finally, a coat of Essie Matte About You because I'm obsessed with it.

The Verdict: Eh.  The underlying gradient didn't come out with enough colour delineation, the orange and green aren't great together and my clean-up job was terrible.  I want to try this again though, maybe with a black and white gradient over a strong red base colour.  Could be interesting.  No hate on Matte About You though. 

Essie After School Boy Blazer with Red, Gold and Silver 3D Glitter Cubes!

Even though it's August, super excited about fall because that means new nail polish yayyyyy.  I went on a bit of a rampage at my local beauty supply store.  They have so many new dark blues, it hurts my brain.  Not the best considering I thought it would be fun to lay out all my nail polish on our dining table and it looks like this... Anyway, it was the Reddit Toronto Monthly Meetup on Saturday so of course I had to do sparkly nails to maximise the attention I'd get.  Had to do cubes because they're the most sparkly. 

To start, I applied three coats of the absolutely gorgeous new Essie polish, After School Boy Blazer, a nearly black navy blue.  This polish is super shiny - ignore the weird finish in these pictures, my bottle of Seche Vite was misbehaving.  I went for three coats over two because I needed a nice thick base for my diamond shaped glitter.  I went with my usual technique, picking up each piece of glitter with an orange stick and gently pressing it into a thin coat of non quick-dry top coat.  Remind me to update that tutorial, it's a bit old now.  I found it easiest, when doing cubes, to start at the cuticle and build upwards, one cube at a time.  It's fun letting them meander up your nail.  Top it with two coats of Seche Vite - remembering to wrap those tips - and you're good to bask in all the attention you get when you hold a drink displaying your sparkly nails.

The Verdict: I LOVE how this came out.  Finally, I managed to not get the base colour to bleed over the glitter.  Sure, no one can really tell but I can and it bugs me.  The diamond shaped holo glitter is super flashy as well.  Really should have taken a Vine....

Honest Criticism: Essie After School Boy Blazer with Holo Stars

My favourite thing about the nail art community is that every single person is just about the nicest person I've ever met.  Everyone is so encouraging, so supportive, it just makes me so happy.  I'm not so rosy-glasses about myself.  I know I can't produce masterpieces every day so let's take a look at a mani I'm not so happy with, for a multitude of reasons. 

Things started off as usual for me - base coat, three coats of Essie After School Boy Blazer, a fabulous blackened navy creme, then the Love & Beauty Top Coat to apply my stars.  Even at this point, I had issues.  I was messy in applying my base colour which is never a good way to start.  Ideally you want to clean up the edges of the base colour with a brush and some acetone before you apply your glitter.  It gives you a better idea of where you should fit your pieces and I personally hate it when a piece goes over the edges of the polish at the cuticle.  When I actually got to the glitter, I didn't apply the first center column evenly.  Look at my middle nail: see how the middle line is wonky?  With these large pieces it's obvious when it isn't even.  It throws off the rest of the spacing.  I also got sloppy in pressing down all the pieces so even after two coats of Seche Vite, I had bits sticking up and catching.  And then the Seche Vite was bubbly.  But it is sparkly....

The Verdict:  The colour combination isn't amazing, the base colour isn't applied or cleaned up neatly, the stars are wonky and stick up in places and the top coat has bubbles in it.  I'm not asking for sympathy here or fishing for compliments: sometimes manicures turn out better or worse than others.  For reference, this is what I consider a good mani.  Even though the base colour bled onto the glitter on my index finger >.<

Also, I'm on Instagram now at @polishallthenails.  I wouldn't hate it if you followed me.  Sorry and thanks, depending on your reaction to self-promo-ing.

Review: Essie Twin Sweater Set with Art Deco Studs

Brace yourselves, I'm quite a mix of strong emotions today.  Ahem: WHY DO YOU HATE ME RED POLISHES.  I LOVE YOU AND YOU MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MY HANDS ARE BLEEDING AND THAT I TOOK PICTURES WITH A POTATO THAT CANNOT REGISTER COLOUR PROPERLY.  THIS RED IS BEAUTIFUL AND DARK BUT IT LOOKS THREE DIFFERENT SHADES HERE AFTER I SPENT 20 MINUTES TRYING TO FIX IT.  ONE OF THE SHADES IS BLEEDING.  THIS IS A LOT AND I WISH YOU WOULD BE NICE TO ME.  Also, studs are pretty cool, and I kiiiinda made it on the popular page on Instagram and I'm really excited about it :D

First things first, the polish.  Essie Twin Sweater Set is a crelly polish from the recent fall collection and it's just gorgeous.  I'm really into the browner reds these days and this one, despite needing three coats to be opaque, is shiny and awesome.  I couldn't just, like, leave my nails be, so I cracked out the wheel of nail studs I ordered off ebay x time ago.  I like to order things for $2-3 dollars from China on ebay sometimes.  You never know when it will show up and packages!  I placed a big blob of top coat - not Seche Vite - on my nails near the cuticle and pressed each stud deep into the polish.  I'd already put a coat of Seche Vite over the three layers so there was room to press, gently.  I kinda wreck it by immediately going to bed before it was really dry as I lost a couple but the ones that got to dry are still on.  THEN MY CAMERA JUST MADE IT LESS THAN SATISFACTORY.

I know you might be thinking that this isn't that bad.  But look at the difference in an INSTAGRAM PICTURE:

THIS IS HOW IT LOOKS IN REAL LIFE. RED.  SHINY.  NOT BLEEDY.  URGH.

Polish good, my photography and clean up abilities, not good.

So, something exciting happened to me last night.  I've been instagramming a bit lately and it's been paying off in the form of an account @fashinaddictx0 - with 686k users, no less - posted a picture of my recent mermaid nails with a credit to me that made it onto the popular page!  It's so exciting and I'm so happy everyone likes my work.  So after all the shouting, I just want to say I love all you guys <3<3<3

Yay!

Ocean Mermaid Nails!

I was contacted by someone from Glitties.com recently, offering to send me glitter to review.  Of course I'm up for that!  My jam is making patterns with glitter so I was super happy to see so many different glitter colours in the same size and shape.  I'm like a crackhead for holo glitter, so the gold, silver, turquoise and light blue 3mm hexes were of course going to be my first choice.  SO SPARKLY. Let's take a look at my latest mermaid nails, shall we?

Working with large pieces of glitter like this can be tricky: you have to make sure no bits stick up, that you work right to the edges of your nails and that your top coat covers evenly.  I've found that starting with three coats of your base colour - in this case I used Essie Dive Bar - gives you a nice deep base to press your glitter down.  I started each nail with a column of glitter down the center, starting at the cuticle and building up.  I then built out each side, using pieces I cut in half with a pair of sewing scissors as necessary to get a clean edge around each cuticle.  You know, the usual.  For the ends of my nails, I just trimmed off any overhanging bits.  It's best to finish off with at least two coats of Seche Vite, making sure you wrap your tips with each coat.  BAM, SPARKLY.

The Verdict:  Love the glitter, love the holo, love the colours.  Happy Laura!  Even though I picked off a bit that was sticking up and annoying me then went home and fixed it at lunch.  SPARKLY!

Review: Nfu-Oh 51, SO STUNNING

One of the first polish brands I became obsessed with was Nfu-Oh.  They had the most fabulous holo and flakie polishes in unique bottles and the only place to get them from was a questionable site.  I eventually couldn't stand it any longer and had to order 61 and 51, the holo and flakie, respectively.  I've had both of them proceed to sit in my drawer for 18 months because I could never do them justice.  Every time my base colour would be wrong, or not smooth enough and it would be unsatisfactory.  Finally, finally, finally I found a way to make the multichrome flakie 51 match the brilliance in the bottle, and all is right in the world.  Let's take a look at one of the most breathtaking single polishes I own, shall we?

Nfu-Oh 51 is blue jelly with strong multichrome flakies of all sizes.  In the bottle it has to be one of the top ten most stunning polishes ever because no matter the lighting, it's like a bottled rainbow.  Where I've come into trouble in the past has been the base colour.  Black is too harsh and isn't the right tone and Revlon Royal, while being the right shade, is the wrong consistency and doesn't work somehow.  Finally I tried it over two coats of Essie After School Boy's Blazer - a very dark navy blue creme - did I finally get the result I wanted.  This is two coats over the Essie and I couldn't stop looking at my nails all day.  In the sun it's a glittery copper over blue.  Inside it's red, no wait, green, no, blue, just all the colour shifts in all lighting.  I can't say enough good things about it - now I have the right base.  LOOK AT IT:

The Verdict:  I've loved this in the bottle for 18 months and I'm so happy I was able to do it justice.  Yay, I did something I'm happy with that isn't a glitter placement wooooo.  Don't worry, I have another large hex mermaid glitter locked and loaded because I wanted to show off to my new Instagram real-life friends at the shopping trip we did yesterday :)

Proper Red, Black and Silver Mermaid Scale Nails!

So I got some incredible circle glitter in the mail the other day from an eBay store.  White pearl, black matte and three different colours of "dazzle" glitter - what more could a glitter-crack-addict want?  This of course means I had to try an experiment: mermaid scale nails.  I've tried this mani before but getting the glitter to sit flat and stay has always been an issue.  This glitter is too gorgeous not to try though.  Let's take a look at my proper rainbow fish nails, shall we?

I had absolutely no idea how this was going to turn out so I started with a glitter that would blend well with my red dazzle glitter, Essie Toggle to the Top, a red glitter jelly.  Super sparkly and nice.  Starting at the cuticle, I placed a row of glitter, making sure to press each piece into the freshly-applied top coat.  I then placed another row, making sure to have each piece slightly overlap the one beneath it.  I found that after two rows, it was time for more top coat, so I repeat the process until I got to the end of my nail.  I then covered each nail in two coats of Seche Vite, to get it all sealed in as much as possible. 

The Verdict:  This is not a mani designed for longevity.  I did this in the late afternoon and only managed to not start picking it off until about 11pm.  I'm not really a fan of super textured nails.  However, it held up fine.  As long as you wait for it all to set for a while before you go ripping off clothes or putting shoes on, it stayed on fine.  And it's sparkly!  Oh so very, very sparkly.  And it looks like scales!  For realsies!  So experiment successful? Yeah....

The Sparkliest Nails I've Ever Done, But in Red! Cos Why Not!

Ok so considering I did what might have been my most sparkly nails ever the other day and that I have that same glitter in two other colours, there is hardly surprising I'm going to do the same thing again.  I just like looking at this glitter.  It's just so interesting in it's dazzle finish, and so sparkly.  It's much better to talk about the sparklies rather than how angry I am at my inability to take photos of red things.  Look how blown out my fingers are here!  Admittedly it's better than my last attempt at red nails but still bugs me.  Oh well, sparkly!  

I've found that when working with circle glitter, it works better to pair the glitter with a matching base, rather than a contrasting one.  It helps hide any placement issues and from a distance just helps it look all over sparkly.  Which is generally the goal.  My glitter is a deep, rich red so I started off with three coats of Essie Toggle to the Top.  Turns out it's just about a perfect match.  I went with three coats because this glitter is just so big and thick.  You want a nice thick base to press each piece down into.  Working with my usual slow drying top coat, I applied a thick stripe down the middle of each nail, laid the centre column of glitter and worked out to each edge, trimming pieces to fit as necessary.  There's a video at the bottom, if you're curious about the trimming.  Sparkly!

The Verdict: Of course I love how this came out.  I'm even happy it doesn't look like I've been in a fight in my cuticles.  I had to do this to show off to Lindsey (my now IRL friend I met on Instagram who also does nails) because who would I be if not someone to maximise any and all attention, especially in person? Sparkly!