Pisces Birthday Nails

Dear Nail Diary,

It was my birthday on Wednesday so I decided to create a nail look to commemorate the event.  I'm a proud Pisces, so I wanted something that incorporated that, as well as utilising my own style.  I had planned a cherry blossom look as I love Japan, however after receiving my birthday presents early, I couldn't refrain from using a couple of the colours I received.  I haven't done any stamping in a while and I have plates from Bundle Monster that I've been wanting to use for some time now.

So this is my brand new love, Birefringence by I Love Nail Polish.  It's a beautiful colour-shifting polish known as an Ultra Chrome due to its ability to shift to so many more colours than standard duochrome or multichrome polishes. I could take photos all day in all lights and never be able to show you all the colours that appear in this amazing polish.  I think the bottle photo probably shows the most colour shifts.  Golds, greens, pinks, magentas, purples, reds and blues.  Almost an entire rainbow in one polish.

It's opaque in two coats, something very few of my current multichrome polishes can manage without looking streaky or patchy.  If you click on the above photo you can see the shift from navy blue to electric violet to magenta to deep burgundy.

While in this one you can see the shimmering metallic particles more closely.  In the one below you can see more of the reds, pinks and oranges.  As with all multichrome polishes, brush strokes are more noticeable, however I find a good quality topcoat can lessen them, especially if you are going to be using that polish as a background.

So this is what I created to represent Pisces and celebrate my birthday...

 I started with two coats of the Birefringence on my thumb, index and baby fingers.  After adding a topcoat and letting it dry, I used the Bundle Monster + gotnail plate BM-XL212 which is part of the Blogger Collab Set 3 and another birthday polish (Cirque Colors - Memento Mori) and my new stamper, I stamped the pattern on my index and baby fingers to create a scaly effect and topped it off with another topcoat.  Fish or mermaid?  You decide.

For my thumb, I used yet another new polish and my first "official" stamping polish from Hit the Bottle called Holo There Beautiful!  I also received Lucky Spark.  Both of them are holographic stamping polishes as they are often the hardest to get to show up properly.  As you can see, that was not the issue here and the holo shows up beautifully.  I used a mermaid design from the same plate as before.

Finally for my middle and ring fingers I was inspired by a marble design that popped up on my Pinterest feed.  So I painted two coats of Nails Inc - Swan Street as a base and waited for it to dry.  Next I got my other polishes, my mixing palette, a very small dotting tool and a makeup sponge. 

I was going to use the cling film technique, however I really wasn't in the mood for all that dabbing, waiting to dry, topcoating and repeat for however many colours.  So instead I dripped drops of each polish in a random but close pattern on my mixing palette, then before they could dry, I took my dotting tool, you could also use a toothpick and did a lazy drag marble.  Then I just got my makeup sponge, dipped an end in the marble and sponged it over my nail a few times.  I did use a liquid latex barrier around my nail to help with clean up.

After the topcoat had dried, I used Bundle Monster plate BM-725 which is from the Spring Buffet Plate Collection and using Nails Inc - Lanesborough Place (my go to stamping gold if you hadn't noticed) stamping these beautiful fish in opposing directions like the Pisces pictorial.  Finally I topcoated that and voila!  I'm still getting used to my new stamper, so the stamps aren't as clean as I would like them, but I have to say I really love this design, which is lucky because I want to keep it on for as long as possible as I'm testing out a new base polish and I want to see how it holds up against the Orly Bonder that I usually use.

Stay tuned, because I'll be showing you the new Nails Inc Collection I got for my birthday and my thoughts.

=:x

Crayon Nails and Matte Topcoat Dilemma

Dear Nail Diary,

Hello 2017!  Sorry I didn't see you in January, but I literally slept through most of it.  I tend to hibernate in Winter.  First thing you'll notice is my nails are shorter and squarer.  After a couple of breakage incidents coupled with my sheer frustration with my nails at the length they grew to last year, I've decided to try and keep them at a sensible length.  My right thumbnail has only just come out of recovery and has shown me that I do prefer the tip to extend my fingertips slightly, but not so much that I end up typing with my nails.  I'll still play around with shapes - I'm curious if I could achieve a shorter coffin/ballet nail, as I love the shape but not the length they usually are.  I'm currently rocking a rounded square for my latest nail art.

I came across this post on Pinterest which said it was a "Back to School nail art for kids," which annoyed me because I hate being told when I can or can't do something. 😠
Also I doubt many schools would allow students to have their nails painted like this in school.
I decided to give it a try, even though I'm not good at freehanding.  I pretty pleased with the results for my first time trying something like this.  The hardest challenges were picking out the colours and drawing the little squiggles.

 As you can see from the second photo, even though it's a relatively simple design, I had to use a whole lot of polishes.  In the photo I was inspired by, it looked as though they just finished with a plain glossy topcoat, but I wanted to make them more realistic by making the "paper" part matte.  At a glance they look a little too realistic, as I've been freaking out every time I catch a glimpse of them.

 I've been having a bit of a dilemma over matte topcoats lately.  I've been trying make sure all my recent cosmetic purchases have not been made my companies that test on animals.  So as my OPI matte topcoat was waning thin, I went on the hunt for a new one.  I wanted one just as good, but that also adhered to my changing moral standards.After researching as thoroughly as I could, I decided upon Zoya's "Matte Velvet Topcoat".  After using it several times, I can honestly say for the price, I'm rather disappointed.
As you can see in the photos, although there is a clear distinction between what's matte and glossy, the matte still has some shine to it.  While the effect actually worked well for this nail art, I'm looking for the "chalky" matte that OPI's creates rather than the waxy matte this creates.  I've been repeatedly told that Essie's "Matte About You" is brilliant, however that would mean compromising my No Animal Testing stance.  Next on my list to try is Picture Polish - G'Day Matte, but as they're an indie brand, getting hold of it might be problematic.

Anyway, enough ranting for today, I look forward to showing you more nail art soon.

=:x

Snowy Nails

Dear Nail Diary,

This was supposed to be a Mani Monday but I'm a bit behind.  To make up I'll give you a double feature!

I'll start with my Mom's as I did hers first.  It's based on the design of the Glossybox I received last December.  To recreate it I started off with two coats of Collection 2000 - Buried Treasure over a base coat, as it was the closest shade I owned to the box which is a sort of warm/rose gold colour.

I then sponged China Glaze - White on White onto the tips of her index, middle and little fingers.  On those same fingers I haphazardly dabbed China Glaze - Chillin' With My Snowmies in a kind of snowfall gradient.  I still had to place some of them to keep the biggest glitters away from the bottom of the nail.

On her thumb and ring fingers I simply sponged Nails Inc - Champagne Graffiti to the desired amount, as I still wanted a tiny bit of the rose gold to come through.


My nail design has been influenced by several nail art designs I've been looking at on Pinterest - where you can also find me.
I started with two coats of Ciatè - Morning Dew and added a coat of Seche Vite.  Once it was fully dry I added snowflake vinyls, which are part of Twinkled T's Holiday Vinyl Bundle.  I however got them as part of their Limited Edition Holiday Bundle.  Anyway, I painted over the vinyls with China Glaze - I'd Melt For You and a little of Ciatè - Looking Glass.  I then added a matte topcoat to let the iridescence of the Morning Dew "shine" through in a different way.

For my ring finger, I painted two coats of China Glaze - White on White and then a coat of Butter London - Frilly Knickers and finally a matte top coat.  Once that was fully dry I sponged on Barry M - Silver around the tip and up the side of my nail and then poured on some fine silver glitter and brushed off the excess. On top of this I also dabbed light glitter coats of Essie - A Cut Above and London Girl - 42 and added a thick coat of Seche Vite, careful not to get any on the matte part of my nail.

Unbelievably I've chipped this already, so hopefully later this week I'll be posting a new mani.

>:x

Mani Monday: Candy Cane Lane

Dear Nail Diary,

As promised here is the first of my Holoday Nails, before I do my Mom's and potentially ruin them.  Also if you want to get technical there isn't actually any holo in this design, only iridescence and sparklies.  I was desperate to try my new candy cane stripe vinyls - now they are holo! I started off with a base of Barry M - Lady.  It's a textured polish, but a couple coats of SV sorted that out.  I then applied the vinyls and painted on Nails Inc - St James.  I was just going to leave it there but there seemed to be something missing...

More sparkle!  So I glued on some square rhinestones and added another coat of SV.  However it still wasn't enough...

So lastly I stamped a filigree style design on the tips of my nails using China Glaze - I'd Melt For You and added a final couple of coats of SV.  It's been a couple of days and I'm impressed I haven't lost any rhinestones yet as I've usually lost at least one an hour after I've done my nails.

I'll be back when I've done my Mom's nails as I forgot to take a photo of the design I last did for her.

=:x

George and the Dragon

Dear Nail Diary,

I apologise if the nail art is looking a little worse for wear in these photos, I've been meaning to take pictures for a few days, but I've been too ill to take them.  Yesterday however, one chipped completely off the nail on my other hand so I thought I'd better get a photo while I still can.

I love the two green holo polishes from A England - Saint George and Dragon and I wanted to build a design around them.  I started off with this Dragon Scale Triple Gradient tutorial from Simply Nailogical:-

It was the first time I've tried a scaled gradient and while it ccame out okay, it seemed pretty basic just on it's own, so I decided to add some elements.  Using a dragon vinyl from Twinkled T's Mythical Creatures collection, I painted it using Nails Inc's red/orange duochrome glitter polish - New Burlington Place.  On my next three fingers I stamped a fiery looking tribal stamp with an orangey/gold shimmer polish from Avon that I've had for ages.  I also painted a light coat of China Glaze's Golden Enchantment on top of the flames.  Duochrome dragons breathe golden holo fire, don't you know? ;)

Wouldn't you know my camera died just before I could take this last photo, so I had to take it with my tablet.  My thumb is what my duochrome dragon is protecting - its treasure room.  I did a quick glitter gradient using OPI/Gwen Stefani - Don't Speak and a thin layer of the golden holo on top.

Next time I'll have photos of the first of my Holoday nails!

=:x

Furry Fail

Dear Nail Diary,

I forgot I hadn't posted this.  I recently bought some nail vinyls from Twinkled T (among other things) and was desperate to try this idea I'd had to honour my cat who died a couple of months ago.  Cristine from Simply Nailogical has these cat cyclone vinyls and I wanted to see how they'd look combined with the flocking powder I got from Bundle Monster.  I imagined a really cool texture effect between the A England polish I'd chosen and the furriness of the powder, however the end result wasn't as impressive.

I think it would have been better if I'd used nail glue or top coat instead of clear polish to adhere the flocking powder.  Also it was obvious right away that I needed a more striking colour of powder if it wasn't going to create the effect I wanted.

I changed to a purple, however that just seemed to emphasize how badly the powder wasn't sticking.  The last time I used the flocking powder it worked really well, but I think that was because I was applying to my entire nail.  I tried a vinyl with a gold holo glitter just to make sure it wasn't my lack of skills with vinyls that was failing me - as you can see, that wasn't the case.

It worked slightly better on my right hand which I did second, so maybe I just need to practice this technique a bit more?

=:x

Back From the Dead

Dear Nail Diary,

Hallelujah, I'm back into nail art again.  I've been in a bit of a slump lately, plus I've been immersed in a jewellery collection I'm currently making/designing and I just haven't been in the mood to have pretty nails.  After skulking around the internet I discovered Simply Nailogical on YouTube and fell in love with her style.  BTW, I am a confirmed Holosexual - check out her videos to find out what that means!  Anyway, I've been so blown away by how far nail art has come in the time I've been away, that I couldn't resist any longer.

So here's what I've been wearing the past week on my nails, while I wait for some new nail art goodies to come from 'Merca...

I'm loving how much more intricate and cool vinyls have become, so before I get the ones I've just ordered from Twinkled T, I made do with some cheap Christmas border stickers I had lying around.  I picked up two random colours from my stash: China Glaze - Define Good and Nails Inc - Lanesborough Place.

I'm really pleased with how it came out, considering being nail vinyls are not these stickers' intended purpose.  The Seche Vite topcoat kind of dragged the design a bit, but other than that it would be a pretty cool look for Christmas I suppose.

=:x

Turquoise Ombre + Polish Haul

Dear Nail Diary,

Long time no see again.  I still haven't been in the blogging mood until just recently.  Plus every time I had blog-worthy nails, I forgot to take photos of them!  I've just had a huge polish haul (which you can read about after the jump,) and as I was swatching them, I saw this cool sort of ombre effect develop - so I decided to apply it to my nails.

The lightest is two coats of Nails Inc's Swan Street, which is from their The New White collection.  Next two coats of Nails Inc's Belsize Lane, then Ciatè's Pepperminty and Maybelline's Turquoise Lagoon.  On my thumb is Ciatè's Headliner.

Lola Barcelona Free Sample Swatches

Dear Nail Diary,

I've been a subscriber to Birchbox for 4 months now.  This month I received a free sample of Lola Barcelona nail polish.  It's an orangey coral colour called Rambla.  It's not a colour I would have picked for myself, but it looks rather nice - very Summery.  My mom also subscribes and she received a dark pink called Gracia.  Again not a shade either of us would have chosen.

Happy Easter!

Dear Nail Diary,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but real-life issues have meant I haven't really been in the mood to do anything with my nails.  I thought I'd ease myself in slowly, as X99 is currently taking up all of my time.  I have a new camera (my first DSLR - a Nikon D3200) so I've been retaking photos of all my jewellery so it looks more professional.  I'm still learning all the features, so I thought I'd test it out on taking photos of my nails first.