NEON NEON NEON NEON Nails from the Planet NEON. COS NEON

Greetings from Planet Neon, where the nails are the neon and the skin colour is weird!  I've been experimenting with some new stuff to stick to myself lately and it's really hard to choose! I asked Instagram to pick something for me from this picture and I'm happy they choose the neon bar studs.  As I'm wont to do, I of course had to cover my nails completely with these things.  Success!  Even if my camera couldn't handle NEON NEON NEON and skin colour.  Onwards! 

Not that it matters in this case but I started with three coats of Loreal Don't Shy Away, a really pretty dark plurple jelly.  It's really shiny and nice when, you know, you can see more than half a mm of the polish.  I wanted a nice deep base for my studs to stick.  This is a case where I could have used nail glue but then I worry I would never have seen my nails again.  So lots of top coat and patience won.  I did the usual process, starting in the middle and working my way out.  I was lucky the studs mostly fit vertically on my nails.  You can certainly trim them, but it's hard to cut them straight and avoid them bending.  I did trim some for the edges though.  Line it up on your nail then use small, sharp scissors like these to trim them.  Just don't tell my mum I used good scissors to cut nails studs.  Shhhh.  But yeah.  No extra top coat!  Just gingerly touching things for a while.  We aren't going for practicality here :)

The Vedict: I LOVE how these came out.  No base colour bleeding issues, just nice, crisp colours.  And, like, eye-ball-bustingly neon rainbows.  Now I just have to figure out how to stick glitter on these as well.....

NEON NEON NEON RAINBOW NEON NAILS 2: THE BLACK LIGHTENING!

If you've been here a while, you'll know that if I come across a good thing, I'm going to keep doing that thing til I run it into the ground.  Turns out to be a good thing if you can put a twist on it.  My neon nails from a few days ago were really popular and I was just going to leave it at that until someone on Reddit mused about said nails under blacklight.  I have a black light bulb so it's the perfect excuse to do even more complicated neon nails.  SO.  GLAD.  I. DID.  Cos LOOOK:

I didn't say a lot about how I did the last nails because I didn't have the adhesion technique quite down pat.  Turns out, if you do three coats of a black polish - in this case China Glaze Liquid Leather - a bung a lot of top coat on it, studs pressed into it will stay.  I mean, you will lose a bunch off the ends but it's worth it.  Most will stay.  Oh, but do make sure you do whole nails at once, don't stop and start like I did.  That's how you get inconsistent spacing.  If you're not into that.  

The Verdict: I nearly died when I first shined the blacklight on these nails.  I mean, LOOK AT THEM.  Even the colours that aren't that bright just ignite.  I wish some of them were a little straighter but I think it turned out ok.  Dammit, now I have to think of something else to do....

REPORTING FROM PLANET NEON PART 3

Hot damn do I love neon studs.  I mean, look at how awesome they are and are.  And saying hot damn.  But mostly neon studs.  They have this awesome smooth texture and THEY FRICKING GLOW UNDER BLACKLIGHT.  The only way these could be more awesome is if they were somehow holo too but I think I can survive.  I really should come up with a new pattern....eh.  I have soooo many too, if you're interested..... NEONNNNNNNNN.

I've tried a few different ways to stick these on and the best I've found so far is it slather on the top coat and just make sure each stud is pressed down firmly, without having the base polish overflow.  I like black for the contrast to the studs, so I started this off with two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather.  Then, using Essence Top Coat - anything that isn't fast drying will do - I worked my studs.  Usual deal: start in the middle and do a column of studs, then work out each side.  I left the end pieces overhanging til I was done, then trimmed them off.  Same with the cuticle pieces.  Just use a small pair of scissors and you'll be right.  Oh, and HOLY BALLS, BLACKLIGHT.

The Verdict:  I think I like these 1.5mm x 5mm studs the most. Being so narrow they aren't affected by the curve of my nail and aren't so long that there isn't enough room for patterns.  WIN.

These particular size will be available on The Sparkly Shop on Friday!

31DC2014 Day 6: Violet! Or what happens when you don't know when to stop adding stuff

Dammit this challenge is hard.  Taking proper photos is just the really hard part on top of actually doing the nails cos you have to edit them, fix the colours, and then actually write the post.  Hence the placeholder posts.  I'm totes going to go back and do them proper, I swear.  Ok so Violet.  Not super feeling it, so hence the mature-shirt-for-older-ladies thing I have going here.  Oh well.  It's a thing.  Onward!

I don't really know what I was going for here.  I just kept sticking stuff on and it went ok I guess.  To start I applied two coats of Essie Bikini So Teeny then sponged on Essence Dark Night Starlight, Zoya Megan and OPI Planks a Lot, all purples.  I didn't realise my violets water decals were white backgrounded so instead of them, butterflies!  Oh course I needed to add glitter and studs too.  Urgh.  Not feeling it.  But it's here.  So yay!

The Verdict:  Yeah, this is the kind of thing you see in stores on vacation, you know, for the older crowd.  But the water decals are cool, even though they have a habit of dissolving if you go over them with Seche Vite one too many times.  Eh.