On Bribing Artist Friends with Brunch to Get Them to Do Art

Oh, it's fun to bribe your artist friends with french toast so they'll do art on your nails that you can then blog about!  I have a wonderful friend Erica who comes round to our place most Wednesdays and I just had to get her to paint me a teenie-tiny rocket with a space cat.  I have a cat called Rocket and if I ever get around to making my own line of glitter polishes, for sure it'll be called Rocket Polish.  With a cat in a rocket for a logo.  So that had to be the nail art I requested!  She's an excellent artist, you should go look at her work :D

I needed a nice spacey deep blue so I started off with two coats of Sally Hansen Navy Baby.  Erica then painted the rocket ship, rocket cat and other spacey things with acrylic paints.  I managed to top it off with a coat of Seche Vite without smudging the design, so I'm happy.  Look, space!

The Verdict:  Of course I love this.  There's a space kitty in space, it's perfect.  I might try brewing a little less coffee next time, but that's all part of the fun :)

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: 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 :)

Review: OPI Incognito in Sausalito with Glitter Triangle Half Moons!

I get asked a lot about how often I do my nails.  It's every day.  Unless I'm sleeping.  That means though that you guys don't get to see all the nails I do.  I have to like how the photos came out, how well I cleaned up, etc for me to actually post it.  So these nails were from a little while ago and I think they'll do for today.  Let's take a look at OPI Incognito in Sausalito, shall we? 

I'm obsessed with any blue polish, and that goes double for navies.  Even though I have Essie After School Boy's Blazer which is exactly the same as the OPI, of course I had to have both.  The drawback with the OPI is that it's that kind of blue that stains all around your nails.  I was worried that it would stain my nails but the base coat seemed to hold it off.  That's why the edges of my nails look blue.  No matter how much I tried, clean up was a nightmare.  So be careful, guys!  Anyway, it's a gorgeous, shiny, navy when it is on your nails and worked really well with my glitter triangle half-moons.  They look like pansies!  This is pleasing to me.  Usual technique for applying the glitter, just paint on your slow drying top coat and stick your glitter on.  I found doing a line down the middle still works well here.

The Verdict:  Love the colour of the polish, not a fan of the staining.  I think I might have to stick with the Essie for now.  At least it's sparkly!