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 :)

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.

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!

Neon Rainbow Zig-Zags Using American Apparel Neons

Ever since I found proper pinking shears the other day in a craft store, they've been sitting on my desk, begging to contribute their zig-zaggy goodness.  I was in the mood for something bright so I five American Apparel Neon polishes and one China Glaze and went to work.

To start, I added two coats of L.A. Girl Delicate.  I wanted a white base so I wouldn't have to do a million coats of the neon.  Once that and the coat of the Seche Vite were dry I cut a thin zig-zag strips of blue painters tape.  I added three strips at a time, making sure each strip was the same height and spaced the same across my nails.  I then added three of the colours.  If you look at my thumb close up, I placed tape where the orange, green and purple are first and applied the red, yellow and blue.  I added another coat of Seche Vite and did the same for the rest of my fingers.  Once they were all super dry, I covered the stripes already in place and added the other colours.  A final coat of Seche Vite and I'm done!

 

The Verdict: I'm really happy with how this came out.  It's eyeball-bleedlingly bright and I even don't mind the white showing through, it reminds me of some erasers I had as a kid.  Personality, you know?  It's also crying out for a Pinterest-friendly infographic as it's not hard to do.... yay Rainbows!

My Most Complex Rainbow Glitter Mosaic Yet

It's no secret that when I get bored, I troll ebay for glitter.  I set myself a $10 budget, search for "holo hex glitter" or something, sort by buy it now and lowest price + shipping and go nuts.  I got a new package in the mail today and turns out we all have different definitions of "rhombus" as my rhombus glitter was distinctly hexagonally shaped.  Whatever, it's an excuse to the most rainbowy nails I've ever done.  They're so sparkly they're actually casting little rainbows on my keyboard as I type this.  Sure, they took a long time to do but look how sparkly in these static images!

To start, I did my usual base, two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  It cleans up well and doesn't do weird things to my glitter so it's a good base.  Then, using my usual technique and Sally Hansen Invisible top coat, I got to work with my glitter.  I've been having a lot of luck lately with starting with a column of glitter straight down the middle of a nail then building out from there.  I can usually find half pieces of glitter in my little pile to fill in around the cuticles.  I do love a neat line of glitter.  In case you're wondering what I'm holding, yes, that's my fabulous peacock bracelet I never wear because it's the wrong shape for my wrist but like having around anyway.  Makes for a good sparkle complement. 

Oh, and if you do do this (heh, do do), I did a walk-through on how to fix glitter mosaics after you've had them on a few days.  It's here, if you're interested :)

 The Verdict:  I know a lot of you don't have the time or the inclination to do a manicure as complicated as this, and that's ok.  I like to spend my evenings watching movies or TV so it's not like I'd be doing anything else.  Just don't post the "Ain't nobody got time for that" gif and I'll be happy.  That gif dogs me where-ever I go.  I have time for that!  One day the general public (not you guys, you're awesome) will accept my glittery lifestyle!

Year in Review Part 1: Glitter Mosaics

Since my super sparkly glitter nails are still holding up and they took so long I can't bear to take them off, I'm going to do what I've been putting off for a while, and that's to do my 2012 year in review post!  Yes, I realise it's the 30th of January but I've done 390 posts on this blog and I want to reflect a little.

There's too much here to fit in one post so let's start with the first part of my three part reflection.  Gotta start with glitter, right?

Top Glitter Mosaics of 2012

 5.  Most Complex Glitter Mosaic

My most recent and most complex glitter mosaic comes in at number five.  It's sparkly and took forever but the holo glitter I usually use is even more sparkly and is a better colour combination.  I can still see where there glitter surface is uneven, which annoys me, but as a whole, it's still awesome.  

Full post

4. Harlequin Glitter Nails

Another recent post, I was really happy with how my red and blue harlequin nails came out.  This also, unsurprisingly, took a long time to do and nearly sent me cross-eyed.  It's at number four because I love a good rainbow but makes it on the list because while the colours are clearly separate up close, from a distance it looks purple, with pretty red flashes.  I love that I got the glitter to line up so neatly, it makes me happy.  

Full post

3. True Rainbow Fish Nails

I usually stick to using small glitter because I HATE it when pieces of glitter don't sit completely flat on my nails. That's when I cave half a day in and end up picking it off.  Anyway, I have a large collection of little pots of glitter and decided to give the larger pieces a go, because they work so well together, colour wise.  I even had the time to trim the glitter so it sits properly at the cuticle and nail tip.  Yay rainbow fishies!

Full post

2. 3D Geometric Glitter Nails

Diamond shaped glitter is always tricky to work with because it so easily sticks up and catches on things.  I was playing around with it one night when I realised that I could make cubes out of it!  I wasn't sure about making a full coverage mani with it so I let the cubes meander around my thumb and ring finger.  Turns out, that works pretty well!

Full post

1. Stained Glass Glitter Nails

I've done a ton of different manis with this holo glitter but the one that started it off were my stained glass glitter nails I did for my friend's birthday.  All night people commented on my nails, asked if they were stickers, basically showered me with attention which is pretty much all I ask for in life.  I can see things I want to fix here, but it's sparkly so it's ok. 

Full post

Yay glitter!

Rainbow Scratch-Off Art Nails!

I might be a little behind the times but I've just gotten in to Tumblr in a huge way.  Pinterest was getting a bit same-y so I've been trawling the tumbles for nail ideas.  Sooo many I really should start writing them down.  Anyway, I saw this amazing spin on laser nails where instead of stripes of colour under the black, it was a smooth gradient.  Since I can do gradients now, I had to give it a shot.  My tumblr is polishallthenails.tumblr.com/, by the way.  End shameless plug!

I wanted super bright colours for my gradient so after applying two coats of L.A. Delicate - any white will do - I painted squares of China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, Sun-Kissed, Sky High-Top and Pool Party on my makeup sponge and went to town.  Turns out it's no more difficult to do a four-way gradient than it is to do one that goes top to bottom.  You just paint the pattern on the sponge and just make sure you line it up properly on the nail.  Once it was completely dry and I'd waited another five minutes, I cracked out the striping tape and created my zig-zags.  The tape isn't the best application I've ever done but it kinda adds to the whole scratch-off art theme. 

The Verdict:  I kinda love how this came out.  I'm sad my thumb didn't come out so well but the rest were colourful enough I'm ok with it.  Also please ignore the overly photoshopped cuticles, my hands don't handle winter especially well.  I never touch my nails themselves, if that helps :)

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. 

Ruffle Nails!

So, things have been a bit quiet around these here parts, it's ok, I've just been going through the process of getting a new contracting job, incorporating myself and all the endless paperwork that that entails.  Given I had a three week lead time before starting, I decided to peace out and go to Cuba for a week!  It's so beautiful there I can't even words.  I mean, this is where I was all week.  This was the walkway leading down to the beach:  

That's not a stock photo, I just held my phone up and that's what happened.  So I've been warm for a whole week.  

But you aren't here for the Cuba photos, you're here for the nails!  I wanted something bright and colourful before I left and since I haven't done ruffle nails in a while, I think it's time!

To start, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  It's a really good white base colour.  Next I started at the bottom near the cuticle and just brushed on Urban Outfitters Blue Jeans.  I then pulled out my most opaque cremes and my larger dotting tool and applied a row of dots at a time.  Just make sure you place the dots as far apart as you can, helps make it look extra ruffley.  In order from the bottom up starting with Blue Jeans, the colours are Urban Outfitter (UA) Rodeo Sweetheart, UA Flip Flop, Sally Hansen Celeb City, UA Westside, UA Mojave, UA Bandeau, UA Smush and Revlon Gold Coin.  In case you can't tell I've been on something of a UA kick lately.  They just have really nice colours for $4 each.

  

The Verdict:  Love Cuba, love ruffles.  I know that most of you are American and can't go but wow, it's so gorgeous and peaceful.  White sand, 25 degrees and sunny, turquoise water, so awesome.  I'mma post more too... :D