Fire and Rainbow - Challenge Day's 19 and 20

Trying  catch up with me days this weekend but still falling behind. This quick evening manicure after the Monet success was a firery type affair. I tried the old marbling on the nail type of technique where you blob a couple of different coloured polishes on your nails and then use a tooth pick to drag and swirl the polish. I think the mistake I made here was choosing polishes that were to close in colour and shade. There are actually four different colours here, from gold to copper and light to a darker red. 

I wanted to use glittery and metallic polishes too to create a more abstract design rather than a obvious yellow to orange to red flame.  

Bright colours and rainbow type nails are not my favourite and I struggled to decide want to do both in last years challenge on the rainbow day theme and this. Oh yes I remember now, I did a Waterfall manicure using a few different colours, so not to gaudy.

This time I took my inspiration from Vlogger Jessface90 who did this rather dazzling Watercolor Nail Art Tutorial using OPI Sheer Tints. I've only used my mini tints once so a perfect opportunity to dust them off.

I used Maybelline Color Show in 'Light Up' which is from their Crystallize collection. It's a textured glitter polish very much like OPI Liquid Sands. The finish is gorgeous and even more so when I took the coloured top coats to it. I tried to merge the colours together and put the blue sheer tint next to the yellow so I'd get a bit of green in there too. Loved the way they came out.

You don't need to buy the OPI Sheer Tints if you fancy a bit of colour in your top coat. You can make your own coloured top coats by just taking a clear top coat (I'd recommend not using a quick dry one) and adding a few drops of any coloured nail polish to get the desired shade.

You can make a whole bottle or just mix together a little on some tin foil or plastic and use straight away. 

I got the blues

So on my recent trip to the States returning with several polishes I noticed that I have a thing for blues. I knew I had a thing for purples, but this was new!

Recently that trend has remained and the latest polishes I've been wearing and buying have been different shades of this lovely colour.

First up in Color Show's 'Lilac Rebel' from their Acid Wash collection.

I've just found a new Group on facebook called 'All Things Nails' and whilst I was searching for information on Color Show's Bleached Neon collection, someone posted a picture of one of these Acid Wash polishes. 

I'd never heard of them, or seen them in the stores, and it seemed like another limited collection had quickly passed me by. On further investigation it seems that these were still available in some places and after a visit to two Boots Stores I managed to pick up the above in a light blue and a minty green. They do four colours in this range, the others are a cream and a darker blue.

Overall I like the effect it gives, you don't have to fish for the white matt glitters and there are plenty of the larger hex ones. However the application was a bit tricky, the polish, although thick is quite sheer and it took three coats to get the polish fully opaque.

I will keep my eyes peeled for the other two polishes as both Superdrug and Boots seem to be doing offers on Color Show polishes, whether that's buy two get one free or buy one get second half price.

Whilst on the subject of Color Show, I watched Nicole from Young Wild and Polishes review on their Bleached Neons collection. She loves them and commented they were great for water marbling (something I have yet to successfully do!) Disappointingly the seven polishes they brought out in this range were not duplicated over here in the UK. Omitting three shades including the blue and purple that I was really hankering after! Why Maybelline, do you DO this?

The packaging is different too, here are the four available over here. Why didn't they swap out the orange for a blue to mix it up a bit?

And these are the larger and more interesting collection they released in the States.

So why do they do this? There is probably a very boring and unsatisfactory reason behind it, I wonder if any letter to Maybelline would unearth the reason, or make them consider making the whole range available over here... I think the nail market in the UK is big enough for Maybelline to consider this, let's see! 

So I did pick up the UK set. Bet I make a dogs dinner of trying to water marble, whether that's due to formula, the colours just being too similar or just my lack of skills!