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.

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!

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!

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

So-Cute-You-Might-Die Black and White Stamping!

Hey! I'm here! Not dead!  It's just incredibly hard to blog and start a new job when I've been sitting at home not doing much for two months.  I'm now working for an agency in downtown Toronto doing front-end web development and it's really fun.  Anyway, I was lucky enough to get some new MASH stamping plates in the mail this week and I just had to try them out.  I chose ridiculously cute as a theme and away I went. 

As I'm still not that good at stamping and I'm only half-way good with the Konad polishes, I decided on a black and white theme.  To start, I applied three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  If you're looking for a white to be something other than polish underwear, this is actually a really good option.  It doesn't go streaky at all.  Once I was sure each layer and the overall result was dry, I waited another ten minutes.  I can't even count the number of times I've stamped on my nail only to have still-wet polish squish out the sides.  Using the Konad Black polish and the MASH plates (26-50) I went to stamping.  I had trouble getting the polish to come off evenly on the larger areas like the cherry bodies and the horses but I'm ok with it, makes it look rustic.  I had this idea in my head of stamping a small design over and over again to create my own design but only really did that on my thumb and middle fingers.  Stamping is good in that it's dry almost instantly so you can stamp repeatedly. 

The Verdict:  Still love the white OPI polish and really like these new plates, despite some issues I had with getting the polish to be even across the larger areas.  Seems like the direction you use the scraper in helps.  If you look at the shape of the horse, I got better results when I swiped from head to tail rather than down the body.  And look how cute these images are!  Even my male friend noticed and I always take that as I sign I did a good job.

The Polishes:

• OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls
• Konad Black
• MASH Stamping Plates 26-50, mashnails.com

Stamping plates were provided for honest review. 

Review: Nails Inc Cornwall

I was really excited about the Nails Inc Feathers collection.  Bar glitter that looks like feathers and isn't giant, meaning it's unlikely to stick up?  Yes please.  When I finally found two of them at Sephora, I couldn't find a way to use them.  I tried with several different base colours either the white or the blue blended in, meaning I lost a lot of the texture that made the polish so interesting.  Sifting through my colours, I found one that seemed to fit my requirements and away I went. 

My base colour, Urban Outfitters Blue Velvet, turns out to dry the exact same blue shade as Nails Inc Cornwall but I WILL NOT BE DISCOURAGED.  Blue Velvet is a gorgeous shade of periwinkle blue and after applying it, I felt compelled to try a taped pattern I saw on Reddit Laqueristas the other day.  So once Blue Velvet and the requisite coat of Seche Vite were dry, I went to work with my striping tape.  I've seen people do this pattern in three steps but I found that if you were careful and lined it up properly you could do it all in one go. OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls is opaque enough that one thick coat was enough too.  Then, on my remaining fingers, I did the usual glitter gradient technique of painting a thin coat 3/4 of the way down the nail, then 1/2, then 1/4.  Cornwall is actually really nice to work with, I'd love to see more of this small bar glitter.

The Verdict:  As surprisingly difficult Cornwall is to match with a base colour, it has an interesting texture and that's all I really ever want in a polish.  Just make it different, I'll be happy.  I also love the taped pattern, good job person that came up with it.  I'll find you!

Black and White Optical Illusion Nails!

I'm kinda late to the party cos I've only recently discovered tumblr.  When I did though, oh the hours that were wasted.  Especially when I see a post like this and think that would totally be a good idea to start doing at midnight.  Oh, not so subtle promo: I am on tumblr and post most of my manicures, if you're into that. 

To start, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls - still my all time favourite white - and topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.  After I waited for that to dry, and waited another five minutes. I  taped off the tips of my nails with painter's masking tape and did the initial stripes using striping tape and Essence Back in Black.  Any black will do, this one was just at hand.  Once all my tape was on, I pressed everything down, to make sure I had no leaks.  This is why you gotta wait for everything to be super dry - you don't want to squish it.  Once I'd done all my fingers and the next coat of Seche Vite was dry, I tried lining the tape back up and applying the reverse stripes.  I did my thumb before giving up because it wasn't really working that well - it's super hard to see through opaque blue tape.  I resorted to free-handing the remaining stripes but I'm not happy with that either - not crisp enough.  And they look like umpire nails.  But at least they're different!

The Verdict:  Meh.  They took forever and aren't even a bit sparkly, so eh.  I think I'll try this again with brighter colours and clear tape, see if I can't get the second lot of stripes perfect.

Checkered Fancy French Nails and Not a Rainbow in Sight!

I love glitter, blah, blah, I think you get the picture by now.  HOWEVER, you haven't seen me to do a checkered pattern with matte square glitter now have you? HUH??? Yeah, that's what I thought.  It's that kind of day.  Not even a sparkle or rainbow in sight, too!  Cos that's a good segue.

I knew I wanted to do checkers with this matte square glitter I ordered off Impulse Co on Etsy, the trick was trying to find someway of incorporating it without me having to spend a year doing it full coverage on all my nails.  The obvious choice with black squares is white but I wanted to do a bit of twist, with a slight gradient on my tips.  To do this, I started with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then sponged on said white, Sally Hansen Wet Cement and Grey Area on the top third of my nails.  Once dry, I used my usual technique to apply the glitter.  I started by centering a piece right at the end of my nail, then made a diagonal row out to the sides, lining the glitter up corner to corner.  I then just filled in the gaps.   

The Verdict: I'm kinda proud of my for not only getting my square glitter to line up nicely, but that I did so without using a single rainbow or sparklie.  I'd say that I'm growing up but that's not true and I kinda wanna do this again but over a neon rainbow...mmmm sparkly rainbows.  This cool too though :D

I Can Be Subtle Sometimes

If you've been here more than five seconds, or can even see the lovely background my friend Erica made for me, you can see I like sparkly, neon, bright, sparkly nails.  Makes my bank account sad because I buy so many things just because they're sparkly, but it makes me happy.  Very occasionally though, I like to go subtle.  So subtle you can't tell I spent a couple hours placing glitter on my nails.  Perversely, this also makes me happy because no one can tell from a distance how long this took.  They just look white.  YESSS.

To start, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls then sponged on a gradient with the same white and Orly Pure Porcelain.  This came out in just the very minorly noticeable gradient I wanted.  I then went to work with my white square(ish) glitter.  I swear, if anyone knows of a place I can get larger square glitter that is cut evenly, please tell me because everytime I try the pieces all have bits making them not square.  And this makes me sad.  Anyway, I went to work with my usual process, stripe of top coat and a zig-zag column of glitter down the middle, then building out either side.  Then lots of top coat.  Please ignore how weird my skin looks, I didn't clean off the white from the sponging properly and thought it would be easier to photoshop out the white bits than just take the photos again.  SURPRISE that's a bad idea too bad.

The Verdict:  I really love how this came out, especially how it feels like a secret.  This could so easily have just been stickers, or stamps, or whatever, but only I (and now you know) that NOPE it took forever with glitter.  This makes me happy.  Yay subtlety!

Review: Nails Inc Ladbroke Grove and Noho

If I see an interesting nail polish, I'm prooobbabbbly going to buy it.  Using it is a completely different thing but I'm definitely going to buy it.  I picked up the pink Nails Inc Leather Effect polish Ladbroke Lane ages ago and I haven't really known what to do with it.  It wasn't until I caved and bought the black one, Noho, that I finally figured out what to do with them.  Leather chevrons!

I knew I wanted "stripes" of leather - because that's what I'd do with real leather - so I started off with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and topped it with a coat of Seche Vite to get it really dry.  I then laid out my strips of striping tape and used a smaller brush to paint my chevrons on, because I didn't want to risk getting it everywhere.  I was so surprised by how good the leather polish is!  It's opaque in one (thick) coat, dries fast and actually looks like leather.  The texture doesn't skeeve me out either, like the Liquid Sand polishes can sometimes.  I just really love how this came out.  I want to put the black on everything now...

The Verdict:  I really kinda love how this came out.  I just said that up there but I do!  If I was to be practical I'd say you don't really need more than one of these - even if the stripes look cool.  You super need the black though.  LOOK AT IT.  Can you imagine how awesome this would look contrasted against glitter?  Or just a matte polish?  Or anything?  I think this might be my new favourite :O