Welcome to the Dark Side

Orly "Mysterious Curse" over black (Pure Ice "Touch Me Here") is probably one of my favorite color combinations. It really makes it pop, especially with silver accents (Wet n Wild "Metallica" and Pop beauty "Split Silver").

Really, the photos just don't do it justice. My camera isn't quite good enough to get the color changes and the iridescent effect.

 

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Just Glitz

 Just a quick post today before I head to work.  Two coats of Essie "Smooth Sailing" and one of "Set in Stones" on the accent nail.

 With all that glitter, I know this mani will be a pain to take off, but it's so pretty, I don't really care right now. Next time I will remember to do the white glue peel off base coat everyone was talking about a week or two ago. You know, when I actually have white glue in the house.

Happy hump day!

Black Rainbow

This is the layering manicure I talked about on Wednesday. I wanted to play around with all of the polishes that I use only for layering, because they don't do well on their own.

To start with, I used put down one coat of Pure Ice "Touch Me Here." From pinky to thumb, I added one coat each of:

Essie "Sequin Sash"
Cover Girl 3-in-1 "Rose Quartz"
Maybelline Color Show "Plum Paradise"
Orly "Mysterious Curse"
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Night Lights"

I really love the way this came out. There isn't much difference between three coats of "Mysterious Curse" and one coat over black, and it's so much easier to get nice coverage. With "Plum Paradise," I couldn't see any of the streaky, uneven application I had when using it on it's own. The color is richer and more vibrant, and the opacity is perfect.
I was really shocked that "Rose Quartz" turned nearly metallic and silver, whcn it's such a pale pink. It was slightly warmer in real life than it showed up in the photos, but there was barely any pink visible at all.

For once, "Night Lights" gave a nice amount of coverage. Normally I would do two coats of that, but this time I could get away with one. Same with "Sequin Sash."

What are your favorite colors to layer? Any unexpected surprises?

Dots

Someone posted swatches of Orly "Mysterious Curse" earlier this week, and it made me want to break out my own bottle and play around with it some more. In trying to find something to pair it with, I found an unconventional candidate in S•X•Y's "Dreamy Cocoa". Here we have one coat of "Mysterious Curse" over that light, warm brown. I felt it needed a little something more, however, so I added white dots (Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party").

"Mysterious Curse" did so well layered over the brown that it gave me an idea for another layered manicure, which I'll show to you on Friday. I don't think I'm done playing with it yet!

Foiled Again!

I love special effect polishes.


Pop Beauty "Split Silver" over Revlon "Mysterious."

I like them even better when they're metallic or sparkly.

Thanks for looking!

Lux

I meant to post yesterday, but things kind of fell apart on me. I wound up spending twelve hours at my parent's house (sans laptop) doing laundry (normally it takes 6-8). No blogging or nail polish-ing, but I did do a lot of reading and finished a knitting project.

I had to trim my nails way down earlier this week, so to make myself feel a little better, I painted what was left with some new Essie:

These are two of the colors I found at Marshalls last week: "Luxedo," and then I went against my natural inclination and got "Sequin Sash."

Normally I'm not one for anything in the sheer, gold, or shimmer families, but I like this one for layering. I should have done two coats of it though, to make it pop just a little more.


"Luxedo" is a deep, dark grape-plum color in the bottle. On the nail, it can look anywhere from dark purple to burgundy to black depending on the lighting.

It went on pretty easily, but I discovered that some nails required a third coat to even them out (in this case, the middle and index fingers). Two did a pretty good job in most cases, but I hate having any inconsistencies in the color.


"Sequin Sash" is warm, sheer gold shimmer with just a pinch of microglitter thrown in. It's not as intense of a shimmer as the Cover Girl "Rose Quartz" that I used on my tropical drinks mani, but that doesn't bother me.

Hopefully, now I can get back on track. I'll probably skip a couple of the Summer Fun challenges, though, because honestly I've been drawing a blank on the last couple of prompts.

But never fear, I've got other stuff planned.

P.S. Have you signed up for the Geek Challenge yet?

Summer Fun: Tropical Drinks

I'm a little late on this one. I didn't know what to do for a summer drink at first, mainly because I don't drink and I don't get the whole drinking for relaxation and socialization thing. I'll occasionally do a virgin strawberry daiquiri, but that's about it.

I do love my fancy drinks, though. It's just that I tend to go more for the kid-friendly side of the spectrum: smoothies, flavored teas and lemonades, and my favorites: Milkshakes.

Now I don't do plain old vanilla or chocolate, oh no. I like things like mint chocolate chip, or my favorite, banana-chocolate. I already did mint chocolate for this challenge though, and brown and yellow are really not my colors. So I went with my second favorite flavor: strawberry chocolate

For my base color, I used Essie "Exotic Liras," and while it was a great pink, it was a little too bright to invoke the color of a strawberry milkshake. So I put a coat of my least favorite polish over top: Cover Girl Continuous color 3 in 1 "Rose Quartz."

I've had this polish for years, and I've used it maybe once. It's a super pale pink in the bottle, with almost no color whatsoever on the nail. It's heavy on the shimmer, not so much in the opacity. This was a color that I bought back when I wasn't allowed to wear bright colors on my nails, and I hated it from the get go. Not because there's anything wrong with the formula itself, but because I couldn't stand the color on me. Even four coats isn't enough to make it opaque.

But it was just right to make "Exotic Liras" go from come-at-you bright to frosty and ice-creamy.

I don't think I've ever layered this color before, and I'm glad I did. It's given me a new appreciation for it. Even the polishes I least like in my collection have a place, if used correctly. Like "Plum Paradise" and my glitters, I think that this is a color best suited to layering, rather than trying to use it all by it's lonesome. It's a codependent sort of polish, and that needs to be addressed in order to use it to best effect.

I freehanded the swirl pattern using S•X•Y "Dreamy Cocoa" and a toothpick (really wishing I had a set of stamping plates right now!). And of course, I topped it all off with Seche Vite.

Summer Fun: Beach

I love layering polishes. It's such an easy way to create an effect, or expand your pallette.

I really had no idea what to do for this theme. At first I though I'd do nail art. But I didn't know what image/pattern to do, and I only have one brown, and it's not the right brown for a beach.

So I went a little further and thought, "Ocean." I love the ocean, and I love blue polish. A water marble, perhaps?

My forays into watermarble have not really been what I would call successful, however. They turn out okay...but not great. More practice is needed.

I did one marbled accent for this manicure, and layering for the rest. For the marble, I put down a base of Brash "Green Machine" (1 coat) and for the marble I used Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party," Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Blue By," Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Calypso Blue," and China Glaze "Dorothy Who?"

On my thumb and pinky, I used a base of "Blue By;" for the ring finger I put down 1 coat of "Green Machine", and on my middle finger I used a single coat of Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup "Aquamarine Chrome" (for those wondering, I added a few drops of nail polish remover to that one, which solved the thick/dry issue completely. It is now the fabulous one-coat polish I remember from high school once more).

On top of each of those, I did one coat of "Calypso Blue."

I love the way the layers came out. Each base brings out something different in the shimmer of Calypso, which is one of my favorite polishes. I LOVE blue nail polish--it is second only to my love of foils.


I know I've been kind of blah this week on the nail art front, but bear with me because I do have something special planned for Fav. Summer memory on Tuesday.

Speaking of which, what is your favorite white nail polish? I need something that's going to be opaque; I'm thinking I might have to resort to acrylic paint, if I have any left from my art school days. Is there such a thing as a good, opaque white?

Summer Fun: Summer Song

I have to admit that even as much as I love this song, I could not come up with a manicure that accurately depicted the imagery it conjures for me. It doesn't help that I thought today was supposed to be the palm tree manicure, and had it all set up and ready to go. Well, you'll just have to wait to see that one (I promise, it's more interesting).

In the end, I went with another layering manicure. I did a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Blue By on every nail except my ring finger, for which I used the same polish in "Lightening." Then I started putting stuff on it that reminded me of the ocean. For my thumb, I used a coat of Orly "Mysterious Curse. My index finger has one coat of China Glaze "Dorothy Who?" and Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in "Calypso Blue is on my middle finger. My pinky has a coat of Essie "Set in Stones" (Can you tell I like that one?).

For the accent nail, I sponged on "Lightening," and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in "Sun Kissed" and "Fuchsia Power."

Today is one of those days when I really wish I had a stamping set. I might order one next week, but I need to compare some of the designs. I've heard that Konad is really good, and then there's Mash plates and Red Angel. I want to try all of them, of course, but what's a good set to start with? Which set has the biggest variety of designs?

Obviously, more research is needed. I might just have to order all of them. :)