31dc2013 Day Nineteen

31dc2013 Day nineteen: Galaxy nails


      

            OKAY, so take it easy on me okay?!? This was my first attempt at galaxy nails ever! I see beautiful photo's of this style manicure all the time but never tried it because I figured my nails were way to small to have all that going on them. I still gave it a shot though.

         I started with a coat of Sally Hansen "Black out" for my base. I ripped up one of those wedge make-up sponges.  I gathered up a blue , purple, yellow, and a light blue polish. put a dot of each color on some wax paper, took a piece of sponge for each color and starting with the darkest color started sponging in lines or circles. So first Dark Blue, then medium purple, some yellow, and then because I couldn't find any of my white polishes I used a super light blue for the stars added last.

     I think I got a little sponge happy with the purple. eek.

      Eh not the best, but not the worst either.  I will certainly try this again if for nothing else but to try and perfect it.  What do you think of my first attempt?

     Steady hands to all!

Just a silly swatch!

     Alright I'm back! This post I wanted to show you a swatch of a polish I picked up over summer. This will be a short post I promise!

     This is two coats of Sally Hansen fuzzy coat in "all yarned up" over a random light blue (sorry I can't remember what color I used). All yarned up is a combo or yellow, orange, and blue small bar glitters in a clear base.  I've noticed a couple other brands releasing these. Barry M has a line of confetti polishes they are practically the same exact collection. Nails inc have a feather effect line that is also very similar, and China glaze has a on the horizon set that also has these tiny bar glitters but in slightly different shades.

       This polish does remind me a little bit of a fuzzy sweater! It applies pretty nicely not much dapping and no fishing was needed to get an even application. Some of the bars kinda stuck out of the nail line but could easily be pushed to even out. I would love to try this polish in a jelly sandwich, maybe i'll post one in the future. Will any of you be picking up any of these or have you already?

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Ten

31dc2013 Day ten: GRADIENT NAILS

     I do a LOT of gradients apparently. I just really like the effect and it's fairly easy. I wanted to try something a little different so I decided to use some duo-chrome polishes to perhaps add to the effect.

     The color above is one of  my long time favorites! It's by Revlon and is called Khaki Zing. This polish is pretty old, I believe I wore it to my junior prom (which was many moons ago). It has been discontinued but still seems to be pretty popular in the duo-chrome world. It shifts between purple with a pink flash, dark grey, and green with gold flash. It's a really run color that goes with just about anything. The one down side is that it takes FOREVER to dry, which i'm pretty sure is just due to how old it is. It still applies very nicely though. I started my manicure off with two coats of khaki zing on my thumb, pointer, and middle finger. I kept the nail decal from the rainbow manicure on my ring finger to see how they hold up. Pretty good it started to pull away from my nail a little but nothing a little top coat wouldn't fix.

     Then I sponged my tips with Sally Hansen luster shine in "lava" which is a very pretty duo-chrome that flashed between gold, yellow, orange, and bright pink.  I also did two coats as a base on my pinky finger to mix up the gradient a bit (I sponged khaki zing over lava on my pinkie)

   I finished this gradient off with a coat of Zoya Opal. Which is a opalescent flakie glitter topper that tends to lean on the green side.

    I think this photo captures the shift the best, you can see at the bed of the top nail khaki zing flashes green/gold while lava is orange/yellow and on the bottom nail the base is a purple pink and lava becomes a pinky orange.

     The flakies really popped in natural sunlight! I think this manicure had a pretty majestic look to it. I like the way that these colors worked together very fun, interesting and eye catching (to me anyway).  I must say the removal of lava is kind of a pain. It's like a really fine glitter instead of being a pigmented base. Still a very pretty and wearable color, just remember the removal process and be time consuming.


   Steady hands to all!