31 Day Challenge - Day 11: Polkadots

Yes, I'm pretty crazy about this manicure. Anyone who has been a follower of mine on Instagram (@kimberlymaranan) knows that I'm such a sucker for any pink creme polish. Combine that with glitter? Well, now that is a stellar mani in my books.

I have channeled my inner yogi with this beautiful, universally flattering rosy pink creme from Essie's Fall 2012 Yogaga Collection called Marathin. This polish is so amazing, even though I think that the name perpetuates the "thin is in" mind set, but I digress. Every woman can wear this colour; it's girly and sophisticated, neutral enough to wear every day (which I would if I didn't have so many polishes), and just gives the nails an overall polished look. If the fabulous colour wasn't enough, the formula on this polish is also superb. It's opaque in one beautifully even, leveling coat. This polish also dries very quicky for an opaque creme polish. If you slap some Seche Vite over it, your mani is done in 5 minutes tops.

Now that isn't even the star of this manicure, it's the polkadots of this amazing glitter. Cynthia Rowley brings us this beautiful polish filled with tiny blue glitters with some hot pink and hold glitters thrown in as well. The mix of colours is fantastic and so unique. If it wasn't for the hot pink glitters, this would be a pretty perfect dupe for OPI - Absolutely Allice. The glitters are very densely packed in the clear base, and if applied all over the nail, this polish would be opaque with two thick coats.

For the polkadots, I actually used the rounded end of a bobby pin to dot them onto the nail. It was a pretty perfect tool for the job, giving small even dots. While doing this mani, I found that it is ten times easier dotting with a glitter polish than a creme one. It's much easier to control the amount of polish you are applying to the nail, and therefore you are less likely to get blobs of polish instead of tiny, little dots.

So hopefully you're as swept away by this mani as I am. I know that I'll be sad to have to remove it so I can do tomorrow's challenge, but I'll enjoy it for as long as I can. Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you stop by for tomorrow's mani!

31 Day Challenge - Day 10: Gradient

Since I posted a gradient for a previous challenge, I wanted to change things up slightly. And because I don't think I'm good enough to tackle more than a two-colour look, this is the manicure I came up with.

This angled gradient creates a chevron effect across the nails which I personally have never seen before. Due to my fading lighting (sorry, the sun was going down), I had a ton of glare off the super shiny top coat so please excuse that as it skews your view of the actual design. For this nail look I used Revlon - Posh as an all-over base to start. This is a fantastic bright, summery green with a formula that is to die for. A one-coater, smooth and fast-drying, it's definitely one of my favourites that the brand has to offer.

I then painted some of Posh and some of China Glaze - Smoke And Ashes from the Spring 2012 Hunger Games Capitol Colors Collection onto a sponge. Smoke And Ashes is an almost black green base with beautiful green-blue-gold multi-chromatic shimmers throughout. Obviously these pictures do this polish zero justice to its beauty in real life. I then transferred the polish from the sponge to the nail by dabbing it on the nail at a 45 degree angle, and redoing this step until the China Glaze colour was opaque at the base. I repeated this step for each nail, alternating directions so as to create the chevron. I then finished the look off with a coat of Essie - Good To Go top coat, just to even out the the surface and add a beautiful shine.

It may be that these polishes don't look great together, or together as a gradient, but whatever it is, this definitely is not one combination that I'll be trying again. I do love both polishes separately, so we'll experiment with them in different looks for the future.

Thanks as always for reading, and be sure to check out my post for tomorrow because I'm completely enamoured with it!

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 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