Indie Brand Manicure Contest Entry

Nails by Kayla Shevonne is holding a nail art contest and I, like a ninny, have waited until the very last minute to post my entry even though I finished and photographed it weeks ago. The theme of this contest is Indie brand polishes. Everything, or nearly everything, used has to be a polish made by an independent nail polish brand.

In order from pinkie to thumb I used: Chromatological Constructs (CC) Kashmiri Namkeen Chai, CC Chough, Nail Venturous Lacquers Granite, CC Kashmiri Namkeen Chai, CC Chough.

On the pinkie and index nails I did a gradient using CC Bai Hao (Oriental Beauty). On the middle nails I gradiented with CC Chough.

I then did a glitter gradient on the pinkie and index nails with Sonoma Nail Art Clockwork. I used CC Bai Hao to create the lace patterns and the design on the middle nail as well.

With a toothpick I placed individual glitters from Sonoma Clockwork onto the lace patterns.

Chromatological Constructs is a line I have been working on myself over the last six months. Chough is a polish from the Corvus collection. Bai Hao and Kashmiri Namkeen Chai are from the Camelia Sinensis collection. These polishes are not for sale yet but one of my goals this summer is to get the materials I need in bulk to be able to produce these for sale.

Rock Hard

Today I am going to show you my favorite polish for the year 2012. Yes, I know the year isn't anywhere near over yet. But even if the entire Jade holographic collection showed up in my mail box tomorrow this would STILL be my favorite polish of the year. What polish could possibly be that awesome? Answer: Nail-Venturous Lacquers Granite!

This is a white jelly base with white and copper hex glitters and micro black glitters. It applies like butter and I hardly had to do any special glitter placement to get the larger hexes distributed. I put this on and immediately fell in love.

Actually, I fell in love all over again. See, there's a bit of a story about this polish and me.

It started on Facebook.

Amy and I were talking and she showed me and a few other people a photo of one of her newest creations, a white jelly with copper and white hex glitters and micro-fine teal glitter. I said, and I quote, "OMGosh, you need to do this with black glitter instead of the teal! It would look exactly like granite!" She thought it was such a great idea she immediately made and swatched it and showed me the photo. 

Love. At. First. Sight.

Of course I had to get a bottle! 

And then I HAD to wear it when it got to me! 

And then I had another brilliant idea: matte top coat! If my nails resembled a polished counter-top with a glossy top coat then they would look like a water-rounded stone with the matte coat.

Oh. My. Gosh. Fantastic! 

And then: nail art!

I'm a bit of a nut for steampunk and I saw someone else do free handed cogs in a manicure so I said to myself, "if she can do it so can I!" And so I did. And I LOVE IT! <3

And of course after seeing these photos all I want to do is use Granite again! 

Graduation Nails

Whooohoooooooo! I did it! I made it through cosmetology school! And what better way to celebrate than with some awesome nails? And what is more awesome than a super bright and sparkly ORANGE polish? And if you didn't see that one coming you should stop right here and go read the rest of my blog LOL!

So what awesome orange polish did I choose? Well, I wanted to check something off my untried list as well so I grabbed Color Club Sparkle and Soar from the new Take Wing Collection. I love this polish, it's bright and sparkly and best of all it's orange <3 The picture below was taken with two coats of polish and one of OTD top coat.

Of course I had to put this on earlier in the week knowing I'd have no time later for a full manicure change before my graduation day so I had planned out my layering in advance. The next day I added a coat of Nail-Venturous Lacquers Humble Bee and another of OTD. I absolutely love this combo:

For the actual day of my graduation I decided to add just a touch more shimmer and layered another Nail-Venturous polish on top, my beloved Rustic Remains:

Beeeeee-eautiful, if I do say so myself!

Expect Greytness or From Drab to Fab

Yeah, I'm on a roll with the cheesy titles XD

Ahem. Anyway, today I've got a bit of layering fun to show you. I started off with two coats of L'Oreal Greyt Expectations, a mauve-ish grey creme:

Then I used a makeup sponge to create a gradient with Milani Hi-Tech:

And topped with two coats of Nail-Venturous Rustic Remains:

I really wasn't feeling the balance of this though as I felt I had brought the gradient a bit too far up my nails. I needed something else to complement the middle-warm tones of Greyt Expectations but I wanted to keep with the texture of the holo/flakie polishes on top. So I freehanded a line along the edge of my nails with OPI DS Opulence:

The last photo comes closest to capturing the incredible sparkle of this combination but even it fall far short of reality. I think I'm going to try Rustic Remains over DS Opulence next since we have a few sunny days in the forecast this week!

Nail-Venturous Polishes - Rustic Remains & Man-maid Dreams

A couple posts ago you might have seen me mention two special polishes: Rustic Remains and Man-maid Dreams, made by the talented writer of the I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous blog, Amy. I had the happy opportunity to do a swap with her, two of my frankens for two of hers. I can't think of a better swap that that! Later this weekend I'll be doing a post on the two polishes I sent her but this post is about the two that I received from her.

First I decided to kill two birds with one stone and, since Rustic Remains is more of a layering polish, I used Essie Tea and Crumpets as my base color. The photos below are as follows: T&C by itself; with one coat of RR; with two coats of RR. All photos taken in direct sun.

This lovely copper flakie went on like a dream. Smooth, even, and all the flakies lay flat on the nail. There is an absolutely stunning green and gold sparkle to this that photos just can't do justice to. I certainly recommend clicking these photos to see the bigger size!

Then I decided to add a bit more pop with some stamping using Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt. Well whadda ya know, turns out that BF is a jelly! And a jelly was much better than a creme for what I had planed anyway.

I wish I could have done as much justice with my photos for Man-maid Dreams, unfortunately we got three days of clouds while I was wearing it and the sun only came out after I had gotten a couple chips in my mani. Despite the chips I just had to get a photo of this polish in the sun.

See what I mean? This gorgeous shimmery turquoise polish has a lovely treasure of golden flakies which, just like Rustic Remains, lay flat on the nail when applied. I was a little nervous with the first coat as it seemed a bit sheer but the second coat assuaged my fears with full opacity. Honestly, I would normally have done some nail art but I just couldn't think of a single polish in my stash that would complement this beauty.

So there you have it. Two gorgeous flakie polishes made by one very talented lady. If you want to learn more about her franken polishes I definitely suggest you go visit her blog. Heck, visit anyway, I'm sure she'd be happy to have you visit!