My First try with Acrylic Inks

I mentioned with my first Halloween mani post that I had bought some acrylic inks to use for nail art. Well I thought I'd show you my first attempt with them. I started with OPI Berlin There Done That (two coats plus top coat):

 

I used black, gold, and copper inks for my design. One thing about the shimmery inks like the gold and copper is that they are quite sheer and show up better if used over a darker color. Layering them or using a bit more of the ink works well also though, as you can see I found out the hard way, it takes longer to dry that way.

Oh well, life is a learning experience. Now I know to let the ink dry thoroughly and have more top coat on the brush.

Another note about acrylic inks: you have to wait until your mani is COMPLETELY dry or the calligraphy nib will etch right through or catch on the polish and won't distribute the ink properly. This makes it the perfect way to change up a day or two-day-old mani.

Queen of Hearts

I am starting this post off by stating just how much I love the Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton. In fact I just got done watching it again <3

For this mani I started off with one of OPI's newest Designer Series polishes, DS Indulgence. I absolutely love the golden sparkle in this polish. It is so unbelievably jewel-like and pictures do not do it any justice whatsoever.

If you are wondering why you cannot see my pinky nail here it is because I stamped on it and then realized that I hadn't taken swatch photos yet. Silly me. Here is a photo of the first layer of stamping on my nails done with Wet'n'Wild Black Creme and Mash plate 12.

I then stamped with Cheeky plate CH3 in Black Creme on my ring finger and my franken Sugar & Spice on my index and middle fingers as well as my thumb. I then used Sugar & Spice and Mash plate 19 on my pinkies and used Sally Hansen XtremeWear White On and a striping brush to put a line delineating the stamped/non-stamped portions of the three nails with partial stamping.

I had the hardest time getting my extra-large stamper to pick up those blasted hearts. I ended up having to go back to my original stamper in order to get the polish to transfer.

Where holo you been all my life?

So you know how I mentioned the Jade holos in my last post? Yeah, well, I kinda went and bought two of them not long after. LOL! I bought Magia Negra and Vermehlo Surreal from the lovely ladies at Ninja Polish and let me tell you, these two polishes are GORGEOUS! Better yet, I'll even SHOW you!

First up is Vermehlo Surreal, two coats with top coat, in full sun:

And with a gradient of OPI DS Extravagance on the tips, also full sun:

And Magia Negra, two coats with top coat, taken indoors in full sun:

Some people have said the Jade holos don't play well with base coat or top coat but I had no issues applying them over my usual base of OPI Nail Envy nor any loss of the holographic effect when I put Out the Door top coat over it.

You might be wondering what I did for my second day wearing Magia Negra since, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I can never leave a mani alone for the second day.

I decided to layer the two Jades.

That's right, I layered a coat of Vermehlo Surreal over my existing mani of Magia Negra. Then I stamped a small design with Wet'n'Wild Black Creme. Is it as spectacular as it sounds? I'll let you be the judge ;)

And it even matched the dress I wore that day! What a stroke of luck!

I Have a Posting Problem

Ok, so my title is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek play on the name of my featured polish today as well as a rather embarrassed admittance that I really don't post often enough. Sorry about that ^^;

So the polish being featured in this post is OPI I Have a Herring Problem from the Holland collection. The more I see each of these colors the more I like them it seems. I absolutely fell in love with A Roll in the Hague the moment I saw it but the rest are growing on me, slowly but surely. I'm sure you've seen tons of swatches but here's another one to refresh your memory:

Two coats, top coat, full sun

Of course any good polish deserves great nail art and this was certainly no exception! I did this mani in early spring so I was thinking something floral but not quite . . . if that even makes sense. Then I remembered a fluffy little blossom that often appears in winter floral arrangements, branches bare but for small, white fluff balls reminiscent of cotton swabs: pussy willow!

Even better, this is some very simple nail art that just about anyone can do! I chose Zoya Angelina for the branches and OPI Skull & Glossbones for the flowers. With a striping brush I made smooth, curving lines across my nails in a variety of directions for the branches. I then created the catkins with a slightly larger art brush, making little ovaloid shapes alternating along the branches. Then I went back with my branch color and a very small brush and used little smudges of color to create the "sheath" the catkins emerged from.

The "sheath" is very important because otherwise your catkins will look like little white or grey blobs on brown lines instead of fluffy catkins emerging from their buds.

If any of you do try out this design I'd love to see your results! Fell free to post pics on my facebook page!

Just Spotted a Gradient

Last year so many people were going gaga over Chanel Peridot that my anti-popularity filter went into overdrive. I hate feeling like part of a mob when something gets popular, thus my dislike of Brittany Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and why it took me so many years before I finally broke down and read the Harry Potter books. The price tag was a big contributor to my antipathy towards the color as well. I mean, really, $26?

Fortunately there are a few companies now that have come out with duplicates, the latest of these being OPI with Just Spotted the Lizard from the company's newly released Spiderman collection. Obviously I don't own Chanel Peridot myself but I've seen some rather convincing comparison photos.

I think you've probably figured out by now that my mani for today's post has to do with OPI Just Spotted the Lizard. I was fortunate enough to snag a bottle this weekend before the OPI booth sold out of it.

 Two coats, full sun

Two coats, shade

It really is a lovely duochrome. I'm just glad I didn't have to spend anywhere near $26 for it! Rather wishing I hadn't filed my nails quite so far down for work however. Oh well, they'll grow back. Now at some point with this mani I knew I wanted to add a gradient but I decided to do a little stamping first to add a bit more visual interest.

 Stamping with Chameleon Waltz, artificial light and flash

Indirect lighting

And then I added the gradient with the same polish as the stamping, Chameleon Waltz.

 With flash

Indirect lighting

Such a pity there's no sun today, I'd love to get a better photo of the lovely blue-purple duochrome of Waltz. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem to photograph well in indirect lighting.

Plaid in Purple

Recently one of my friends was asking me for advice on what nail polishes I would recommend for her to start her collection with. I asked her a bunch of questions about what look she was going for, what her budget and preferred shopping manner was, and other related stuff. Based on her answers I gave her a few brand recommendations and set her loose on the world of polish. Bwahahahaha! Ahem. Anyway, she later came back and told me she'd bought L'Oreal Butterfly Kisses, a light, shimmery purple. I told her "Great choice!" and then looked guiltily at my own, untried, bottle of Butterfly Kisses. Ok, so I had to come up with a mani using the neglected bottle of polish, even if only to assuage my guilt at the size of my pile of untrieds.

Two coats with top coat, full sun

Coverage was very good though there were still a few visible brush strokes after the polish had dried. A great color choice for spring too! I knew right off that I wanted something more though so I grabbed Essie Barefoot in Blue and Power Clutch as well as OPI DS Classic and set to creating some plaid nail art.

My daughter was absolutely enchanted by the blue stripes so I asked her if she wanted some too. Of course she did, so I painted four little blue stripes on one of her finger nails. Then she said "'nother finger, Mommy!" and pointed to the next finger so I did that one as well. Then she wanted the next, and the next, and pretty soon she had a full mani of tiny blue stripes:

Well of course my son had to get into the act as well, but he wanted red so we went with NOPI Ready to Runaway Love and did the stripes on his toenails:

My kids love doing stuff with mommy XD

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!

Frankens: Good enough to swap

So in my last post I mentioned two frankens that I made and swapped for two polishes from Amy over at I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous. Well here I am to tell you all about them!

First up is Make a Scene, a bright orange with copper and holo glitter. To make this polish I used Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, All About You, Serena and Chloe, Pure Ice Hot Tamale, and Supernail glitter in Sunset & Silver Rush. This is actually the first bright orange that I've made. I had been trying to think of a color that was different from all other frankens I had done and realized that orange was not on my list yet. Considering my love for the color I just had to rectify that oversight!

This is two coats of Make a Scene with one coat of OTD top coat.

I just happened to be wearing this when I finally bought OPI A Roll in the Hague and just had to use it. So I did a diagonal tip with Rill in the Hague with a line of Pure Ice Jaguar to delineate the two orange polishes.

And if you think it can't get any better than that wait until you see the next polish! Prestidigitation is a gorgeous (if I do say so myself) purple jelly polish absolutely PACKED with iridescent and holo glitter. I lost count of the number of facebook notifications I got just after posting some of the following photos in one of the Facebook groups I'm in. The following photos show three coats of Prestidigitation and two coats of OTD top coat. Yeah, it's a bit of a hungry glitter and a pain to get off but oh so worth it!

Taken with flash

Close-up 

Full sun

Full sun

You better be clicking those photos to get the full effect because if you don't you are really missing out! To get such a glitter-packed polish I used Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, SH HD Laser, WnW Blue Wants to be a Millionaire, and China Glaze Flying Dragon (finally, a good use for Flying Dragon!).

Luckily the ingredients for both of these polishes are still readily available so I was able to make a second set to send to Amy and keep the originals for myself ;)

Comparison: OPI A Roll in the Hague vs L'Oreal L'Orange

I love orange. Ok, that's not entirely accurate. I absolutely LOVE and ADORE orange to the point where I lose all self control when I find an orange nail polish and ABSOLUTELY MUST BUY IT NOW. When I saw online swatches of OPI's Holland Collection A Roll in the Hague was immediately added to my OMGOSH MUST HAVE list. And then my favorite supply store put out a Holland Collection display under a glass case in JANUARY, almost as if to taunt me. And then, just a couple weeks before the official sale date for the Holland Collection, L'Oreal came out with their new Color Riche line. Of course the first thing that caught my attention was the lovely, bright bottle of L'Orange.

Now, I knew both L'Orange and A Roll in the Hague had to be VERY close in color so I didn't want to get L'Orange right off because I knew, no matter what, that I would be getting A Roll in the Hague in just a couple weeks. I managed to hold off for a whole week before caving and buying L'Orange ^^; And yes, I bought A Roll in the Hague the day after it officially went on sale too.

See how close they are in color? Well I figured I'd go ahead and do a comparison swatch since I had both. I used OPI A Roll in the Hague on my index finger and L'Oreal, L'Orange on my middle finger and used two coats of each, no top coat.

As you can see they are really really really close in color on the nail, A Roll in the Hague is slightly more red than L'Orange. The biggest differences were in the application. L'Orange is a lot thinner and you can totally see VNL while A Roll in the Hague definitely had a thicker consistency and more pigmentation.

So, if you don't mind using three coats or just can't afford the OPI, L'Oreal L'Orange is a good alternative. I think I'll be putting my bottle of L'Orange in my manicure bag to use at school and saving A Roll in the Hague for my exclusive use.

What polish color is your personal MUST HAVE?

My product/polish haul for the week-ish

First off, many apologies for the lack of posts recently! It seems that every time I turn around there's something new that has to be done and things like updating my blog end up taking a backseat. So to catch up a bit I'm doing this quick post while trying to get my daughter back to sleep >.>

This is basically a "Huzzah for tax returns!" post. My husband got some fancy electronics to use for theater gigs, I splurged on beauty products and clothes. I have to wear solid black and/or white during the week at school so most of the clothes I got are black. How ironic that I've spent the last five years trying to get rid of some black and get more color in my wardrobe :P

On to the polish! These are all the polishes I've bought over the last just-over-a-week. Top row: Sally Hansen Fairy Teal; Essie Mod Square, It's Genius, Power Clutch, Raise Awareness, Tea & Crumpets; Revlon Matte Suede Powder Puff; OPI mini NLP1311056 (no idea on color name, mayhaps Skull & Glossbones? ). Bottom row: Nutra Nail smudge repair, OPI A Roll in the Hague, Sinful Colors Cinderella, L'Oreal L'orange, Savvy FC Totally Teal, Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt. And the cloth is my new scarf.

A couple of the Essies have been on my wishlist since early last year (It's Genius and Tea & Crumpets) and I am so happy to finally have them in my hot little hands along with A Roll in the Hague! I also got some nail mail today in the form of Rustic Remains and Man-maid Dreams from Amy at I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous! 

 And of course I had to get more than just polish, my hair and skin need some pampering too. Top row: Rockaholic texturizing spray, Kenzia argan oil, Soraya makeup removing cleansing milk. Bottom row: orange blossom hand soap, StraightSexy flat iron spray (freebie from Cosmoprof), WnW lipsticks in Mocha-licious and Vamp it Up, concealer stick, Rusk strong hold hairspray.

  And yes, I chose the hand soap mostly on the merits of the label.

So much for a quick post! LOL! My daughter is long since back in bed asleep and I should be too! I look forward to showing you more photos of the polishes in future posts!

Team Dyan Manicure

Hooray for snow days! That means I get to post this mani a day earlier than I was originally planning :D I'm especially happy because this mani is in honor of a very special young lady named Dyan. Late last year Dyan had a serious medical emergency but every day she is getting better and stronger. Her and her mother have an incredible determination to overcome the obstacles that have been placed before them that I have found very inspiring. And so, when a group of polish lovers, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, came up with the idea of doing special manis in honor of her I immediately started brainstorming ideas.

When I found out that Dyan loves the color blue I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to use my bottle of Sinful Colors Ciao Bella that I bought for my 4th of July mani last year. This is two coats, no top coat:

Please excuse my lack of cleanup here, there's a bit of layering to come yet.

I love this shade of blue but I'm not sure it really works well on me so I grabbed my bottle of Liquid Euphoria Euphoric and layered one coat over Ciao Bella:

Unfortunately my camera just couldn't capture the true beauty of this polish. Such a magnificent blue/green/teal shift! Next I created a gradient with Jesse's Girl Glee:

At certain angles you couldn't even tell the difference between the areas with the gradient and those without but I managed to get a photo at the right angle to see it. At this point I finally put a topcoat on so I could start with the stamping. I used one of my newest frankens, Orchid Wine, to stamp with Mash plate M-25, then I layered Mash plate M23 over it with OPI DS Classic.

Best shot of the DS Classic stamping I could get

I love how the final results of this mani turned out and I hope Dyan likes it as well. May you have a swift road to recovery, Dyan!

In case you haven't seen them, here are a few more Team Dyan manis:

On Pretty and Polished

On Rebecca Likes Nails

On Sonoma Nail Art

On Polish Ninja

On Dressed up Digits

On Good Lack, Nail!