31 Day Challenge - Day 5: Blue

This is another one of those manicures that is more beautiful because of its imperfections. A gradient using foil polishes is anything but easy; especially the clean-up, now that was a pain. Hopefully though, you think it's as worth the hardships as I do.

I used two polishes from Color Club's Fall 2011 Foiled Collection called Lumin-Icent, which is a light, icy blue metallic foil, and Cold Metal, a mid-tone cobalt blue metallic foil. Both of which were nicely opaque and only need one coat in a regular manicure. It's best to take you're time when applying them however, since like most foil/metallic polishes, they can be very streaky if not applied carefully.

What is a foil nail polish? Basically it's like if a metallic polish and a shimmer polish ever had a baby, a foil polish would be it. Another example would be if you have ever seen a sheet of metal leaf (used primarily for crafting), a foil polish, when dried down, gives the same effect. It's just as finicky as a metallic polish when applying, since you see every mistake and imperfection on your nail. It also shines like a shimmer polish, not as pronounced, but just as pretty. Foil polishes also tend to have a silver shimmer base to them, as these and all the others from this collection that I have do.

Since I chose to create a gradient using the sponging technique (I explain how to do this in my Goodbye Summer Gradient mani), the texture of the sponge left a kind of "crumpled" look to the polish. As if you had balled up a bunch of aluminum foil and then tried to smooth it out again. You'll never get it perfect, but the texture that's left is gorgeous.

I'm so pleased with this manicure, and I'm excited to try it with some of my other foils polishes in the future. See you tomorrow for my purple mani. I hope everyone had a wonderful Wednesday!

31 Day Challenge - Day 4: Green

This is not the best I've ever executed a manicure before, and the type of polish is partly to blame, but this colour combination... now that is something I am proud of. A deep chevron scotch tape mani is what I chose, and I feel like it shows off these two colours spectacularly.

Both polishes are from Color Club, but unfortunately I do not know the names of them, yet again, since they were ones that came in a set. The base of three of the nails is a golden blonde nude metallic (I found out the name! It's called Antiquated from the Fall 2011 Foiled Collection). Very pretty colour, but extremely streaky as most metallic polishes are. Every mistake I made was highlighted and emphasized further with this polish, so that was a big downside. I'm sure this would make a great stamping polish though, since it's opaque in one coat.

Now the green for today; wow. It's a dark blue-toned emerald green shimmer. I'm so in love with this colour, I can't even begin. Now because this colour has a blue tone to it, my camera is making this colour more teal rather than emerald. But trust me when I say, it's stunning in real life. This too was a one-coater, with an even, smooth-like-butter application. Too bad I don't know the name of this polish, because I would suggest everyone own it for the upcoming fall season!

To create the chevron cut-out, I just placed a piece of scotch tape cut as close to a 90 degree angle as possible, and placed the corner at the center of the nail pointing downwards. I gently pressed down the edges of the tape, so as to remove all gaps and bubbles from the edge (to prevent bleeding through of polish) and then quickly painted a coat of polish over the area that the tape did not cover. I then remove the tape immediately, pulling in one direction. You need to pull the tape off while the polish is still wet because if you pull as it's starting to set, the edges will pull up along with the tape and the line will not be clean and crisp. You can also play around with the positioning of the tape; move it up or down the nail bed, and even turn it over for an inverted chevron. If you are successful, you will create the perfect chevron.

I guess you all can tell by now that I am completely into fall with the colour choices I have been making for this challenge. Autumn colours are always my favourite. So rich and luxe; the jewel tones make my heart flutter and I don't think I'll be turning back!

See you all tomorrow with my blue mani! Thanks for reading! Xx

Re-done and I feel like the quality on this one is much better than the original from earlier. Much less streaky and no balding on the ring finger.

31 Day Challenge - Day 3: Yellow

I'm absolutely loving everything about this manicure! It's a great transitional design to do with the seasons about to change. The tribal/Ikat nails and print were huge this spring/summer, and the colour theme is very summer appropriate. The mustard yellow colour is also a huge trend for this coming fall season, so it would be easy to wear this any time in the next few months as well.

I started with a base colour of China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss from their Fall 2012 On Safari Collection. It's a smooth and opaque creme polish, really fantastic formula on this one, that is a great nude with very yellow undertones. The name suits it extremely well since I think of desert sand when I see this polish. I used two coats for this look, but you could really get away with just using one.

On top of that sandy base, I painted two coats of Matisse Ellite - The One on only half the nail. You want it to be as even as possible, but this need not be perfect since I covered the middle where the two colours meet with Kiss black striper polish. For this I used small thin, feathery strokes to create that torn fabric look at the intersection of the two colours. I finished off my design with a fast drying, high gloss top coat: Seche Vite, which I use to seal all my manicures with.

I'm really happy with the turn-out of this look, and it was so easy and simple. It didn't even require perfection since the little mistakes in the black feathering add interest to the overall effect. I hope you give this mani a go!

Happy Labour Day, everyone! Have a great day off from work ;)

31 Day Challenge - Day 2: Orange

I had a much easier time with this mani than I did with yesterday's challenge. Don't you just love it when you have an idea in your head, and it turns out looking exactly as you had planned it to look? Yeah, pretty awesome feeling.

This is a "jelly sandwich" technique, where you literally sandwich a glitter polish between an opaque polish as a base and a jelly polish on top. The effect it creates is one where the glitter looks suspended under a gelatin surface. I used Essence - Wake Up! for the base colour, a mid-tone bright orange creme which was opaque in pretty much 1 coat, but I used 2 here just for full opacity.

To that, I then added a coat of a Color Club polish which I don't know the name of since I purchased it in a duo set and those never seem to have the names on them. It's very much along the lines of OPI - Rainbow Connection although in this one, all the glitter pieces are the same size. This glitter was a little difficult to work with. Although a lot of glitter was distributed on the nail in one swipe, the glitters tended to bunch up together as you stroked the brush on the nail creating two edges of glitters on each side of the brush. I had to push around and place the glitters a fair amount to redistribute them evenly across the entire nail bed. If anyone knows the name of this polish, please post it in the comments below!

I then topped it all off with OPI - Y'All Come Back Ya Here? from the Spring 2011 Texas Collection. It's a jelly polish, or what OPI likes to call them "sorbet" polishes, which lends a stained glass-type effect to the nails. This is two coats, and the polish gives a translucent, stained look without being streaky or patchy. I personally love jelly-finish polishes.

Overall, I really love the end result of this mani. Because I put the translucent orange OPI polish on top of the multi-coloured glitters, it gave the glitters almost a duo-tone look of green and gold glitters only. It lends this manicure a very fall-time theme instead of looking like confetti at a birthday party.

I hope you all love this look as much as I do, and I'd certainly love to hear your feedback on it. Thanks for reading, and see you all tomorrow with my yellow-themed look!

31 Day Challenge - Day 1: Red

The 31 day challenge is definitely just that - a challenge. It takes you out of your regular niche and makes you choose colours, styles, and patterns that you may not necessarily try or do otherwise. After many a failed mani, I landed on this one for the first day; a simple glitter gradient that is perfect for the upcoming fall season.

So after putting on and removing maybe three or four colours before this one, I finally decided on a shade of red that didn't look too trashy on me. Unless I'm in the mood to wear red, I feel like certain shades on my skin tone and with my length of nail, it just looks inappropriate and gaudy. So this one is Essie - Fishnet Stockings. This has a great formula; it's a one-coater! The colour is a darkened brown-toned brick red. I feel that even though this colour is very vampy and sexy, its without being too over the top and trashy-looking. It's the perfect colour to rock for the fall and winter seasons.

Instead of just doing a simple colour swatch for my first day of the challenge, I added in a little glitter gradient for some extra interest and to break up the red a little bit. I threw on Klean Color - Tango, depositing the polish onto the tips and dragging slightly upwards in soft strokes so as not to pull up the large holographic hexagonal glitters. I felt that leaving those at the bottom instead of working their way up the nail added more of a gradiation to the glitter.

With that is the first manicure for the 31 day challenge! It's definitely not my best and brightest, but at least the designs and manicures can only go up from here! Leave me a comment with any suggestions of what you think I should do for a certain day.

Have a good Septembrrrr, everybody! Xoxo

Goodbye Summer Gradient

With back-to-school where I live starting on September 5th, this will undoubtedly be our last day at the beach this summer *tear*. So in celebration of such an event, I did a simple and easy sponged gradient with a twist using all Essie polishes.

I first started off this manicure with a coat of Blanc to act as a clean base for the colours I use on top to be better shown off. If you want a light, bright, or neon polish to be even more vibrant, just put a base of white "underwear" on beneath the coloured polish!

After the underwear has fully dried, I put a generous swipe of both Navigate Her (pastel pistachio green creme) and To Buy Or Not To Buy (light white-base pastel lilac creme, with purple shimmer in the bottle but those mostly disappear once on the nail) on a makeup sponge directly beside each other.
I slowly apply the sponge to the nail bed, with the center of where the two polishes meet with the center of my nail. Then I move the sponge in the slightest up and down motion on my nail to gently blend the two colours seamlessly. This should give you a perfectly blended gradient effect, and you can stop there with a coat of fast drying top coat.

To add an extra bit of oomph, I topped my gradient of with a coat of Pure Pearlfection top coat from the Luxe Effects Collection. It's gives just the right amount of subtle silver sparkle without being over the top.

I hope everyone had an amazing summer... I know I sure did! So who else is really looking forward to wearing dark, vampy, and rich colours for fall/winter?

Girly & Edgy: Ballet Meets Black Magic

This manicure is prima ballerina mixed with punk rocker. Pretty and feminine, but with enough edge to make it interesting.

A base of OPI - Care To Danse? from the NYC Ballet Soft Shades Spring 2012 Collection. It's a sheer but buildable, very pale lilac with a white base; it seems more pink-toned on the hand as apposed to the more purple hue in the bottle, but very pretty none-the-less. It took 3 coats to build the color up to this opacity - still not fully opaque, with visible nail line showing in direct sunlight. It dried quickly and leveled-off very nicely on its own.

On top of that, we have an indie polish, XOXO Nails - Black Magic. 1 coat displays the small square, and medium and large hexagonal glossy black glitters perfectly. The glitters are suspended in a clear base, and spread out evenly with minimal pushing and placing of the glitter particles. When dried, the glitters are slightly raised from the surface of the nail. However, with a coat of Seche Vite, it smoothed that out to a shiny, glossy finish.

And with that, is the conclusion of my first blog post *phew*! I'd love any and all feedback with regards to the "voice" I've taken with this blog, what you would like to see in future posts, etc.

I hope this was a happy ending to your Monday blues!