Day 3 & 4 of 2015 Nail Art Challenge

Almost as difficult as Water Marbling is Water Spotting. I've only tried this once before, unsuccessfully. So tried a different approach this time and by the time I did nail four, I think I'd almost got the hang of it. This manicure again is inspired and this time by Oh My Gosh Polish using Picture Polishes 'Fools Gold' a polish created in collaboration with The Nailasaurus. 

The idea behind this manicure is to make your nails look like Turquoise, with the gold glitter in 'Fool's Gold' it's a perfect polish to use. You can use any black creme polish to do your water spotting and the idea starts similar to a Water Marble. 

Take a cup or bowl of tepid water and add a few spots of polish so that it spreads out. You can then use any alcohol based spray on the polish to make it separate or 'spot'. Previously I tried it with HairSpray and nail varnish remover in a small spray bottle I bought, but it just didn't seem to work.

I've seen tutorials that use a spray hand sanitizer, but I couldn't find anything other than gel. I also tried a cheap perfume but that didn't work for me either. In the end I took one of my nail art brushes dipped it in acetone and tapped it on the side of the cup to spot the varnish, which seemed to work. First attempt on index finger was a botched job, too much polish, got there in the end though and now I kinda know what I'm doing, I'll give it another go.

Day 4 was tagged 'Hapiness' and I really didn't know what to do, so I just painted my nails my favourite colour purple (China Glaze 'What a Pansy') and stamped by favourite little black furry friend on them.

This is in honour of my puss cat Peedles, who is a very happy kitty indeed and makes me very happy too. Here she is in all her furryness!

Have you ever seen such a happy puss puss?

2015 Nail Challenge

So start as you mean to go on, especially as I neglected my Blog in December. Let's start the New Year off with a Nail Art Challenge!

I follow some amazing ladies on Facebook doing some pretty funky nail designs. One of these ladies called Debbie, otherwise known as 'The Crumpet' has devised the following 2015 Nail Art Challenge.  I love the picture she has of herself, when she was little at the top of her Blog, I have never seen a face so CHEEKY!

First up, I started my Challenge how I ended lasted years by following a tutorial by another of my favourite Bloggers 'The Nailasaurus'. This 'Nimbus Tutorial' is a technique I've wanted to try for a while. I not only followed her tutorial but also her colour scheme, not the exact polishes, but ones that were the closest colour match.

The technique here is to paint a light coloured base coat, I used a very light pastel purple from Sinful Colours in 'Mauve'. Then pick three to four complimentary colours, I used three. Starting with the lightest first, pop a splodge on a palette or bit of plastic/foil and water it down with some acetone until it's watered down but still retains some colour. A bit like painting with water colours.

You can test it on some paper first before applying to your nails, take a cotton bud, dip it in the watered down polish and randomly apply to each nail.

Then do the same with the other two colours. To tie in the whole design The Nailasaurus recommends to use your base colour as the final colour to water down and apply to your nails. You can repeat the whole process with the colours until you get the finish you want.

Polishes I used are, Salon Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Bewitched' GOSH in 'Altered Blue' and Barry M in 'Prickly Pear'. I may have used GOSH in 'Berry Me' too. I can't remember if it was too similar to the Salon Hansen polish.

Day 2 is 'Tape Mani'! I scoured the intertubes for inspiration and wanted to try something different and challenge. I found this on Google from the Sois Polish, check out the lines on their manicure.

Mine was a combination of striping tape and having a go at hand drawing the lines, which didn't work. I love the design and colours, just a bit more practise and more time I think I could tidy up the edges. Polishes users were Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White' as the base, 2true 'Nicole' and Barry M 'Prickly Pear'. 

Untrieds cont... and Xmas Nails

My birthday is in the first week of December so I took myself off to Manchester on a little shopping spree and in search for a MoYou stamping set that Boots were selling. I'd already scoured my local Boots to no avail and my mission was to find one in Manchester. 

I finally tracked the sets down and picked up the Mother Nature set for £26.99. This includes two stamping plates, three stamping polishes and a scraper and stamper.

This is my first go over Sephora by OPI in 'Mermaid to Order'. Overall very happy with the results and I had no issue picking up the image and transferring it onto my nail. Much better than the Konad stamper I have which tends to stretch the image, or that may be my application. But the worked much better for me. A few more practises and consideration on placement and these will look the business.

Next I wanted something a little more Christmassy and tried one of Primarks PS textured polishes. This was three coats to ensure the nail line was completely covered and the finish was so pretty and sparkly, perfect for Christmas. One thing I did notice with this polish is that it didn't want to dry quickly. Maybe it was the three coats applied without ample time for drying fully inbetween. However with my experience in polish it was taking much longer to dry that expected. I decided to top with HK Girl for a quick finish which didn't spoil the finish at all as it's not an overly textured polish. 

The Nail Group I'm a member of have some really talented people who post some beautiful manicures, not only is the nail work great but also their execution and skill at capturing the polish on camera. Puts my dingy photo's to shame. This manicure is inspired by a lady called Anna Wheeler who posts some gorgeous pictures. Her version is flawless and she has managed to make the crackle much finer than mine.

November Untrieds Part 3

More glitter toppers used here and a rather nice one from MakeUp Academy Luxe Collection, this one is called 'Odile'. As you can see from the bottle shot this has diamond glitter in lavender, light blue and purple and also bar glitter and purple microglitter. Not too much fishing around with this polish and they do two other glitters on different colour combos.

I popped this over No7's Totally Teal. There are a few No7's in this untried list and I bought quite a few when Boots were doing the No7 makeup vouchers. I bought like 9 and have never used them. Very happy with the ones tried but for the colours available they are a bit pricey at full price which is £6. I think I paid £3 for each.

Here's another untried bought in a 2 for 1 deal at Superdrug this time, and this is a textured polish from Barry M called Lady. Looking at the picture I could have benefitted from a third coat to completely hide that nail line. Perfect for Christmas and really catches the light and sparkles in the sun. I've topped this with a December purchase one of Barry M' limited editions for Xmas from Tesco called 'Twilight'.

Another recent purchase in order to obtain 'Twlight' for FREE was this rather lovely two tome chrome polish called 'Persian'. This picture really doesn't do this polish any justice and the colour shift is from purple to burgundy to gold, this is now one of my favourite polishes. Barry M seem to have really upped their game recently with their effects polishes and when they often do deals at many retailers, even at full price you can't really go wrong.

This next manicure was done for the works Xmas do, but unfortunately I didn't go as I got the lurgie and it knocked me side ways for a good week. I did this the night before in the hope that I would be well enough to go, but it was not too be.

It was inspired by this post on Pinterest and I used China Glaze 'Mingle with Kringle' for the Gold and China Glaze 'Liquid Leather' which is an amazing opaque black polish. Some were painted free hand and some were done using various types of striping and scotch tape, I think the striping tape left the neatest lines.

November Untrieds Part 2

So my previous untrieds can be excused, but not this one! I went on a bit of a splurge at Rainbow Connection when they first started selling Cirque polishes. This is one I'd not gotten round to trying in 'Vaudeville' described as a muted lavender with gold and turquoise sparkles. As with all the Cirque polishes I purchased, formula is perfect and finish is stunning.

Time to step up my untrieds numbers with a saran wrap mani that I first tried on my last day of the 31 day nail art challenge. I picked three lovely shades to go together, No7's 'Cruising' and 'Betty Blues' and OPI's 'Skull and Glossbones'. Only second time round with this technique, happier with some nails more than others, but colour combo worked, and three untrieds ticked off the list.  

Next I really wanted to try the Chevron guides I was given in my Nail Polish Swap and do something a bit different with Color Shows Bleached Neon polish in 'Sun Flare'. This is what I came up with, using Barry M 'Blueberry' as the tip and chevon colour. A little messy on close inspection, but looked quite striking at first glance and provoked a few comments. Another two polishes used. Not really a winter colour scheme and it clashed with what I was wearing but maybe something to revisit in the Spring/Summer.

Excuse the chips in the next pic, I'd been wearing the polish a few days before taking a pic and had washed a few dishes. It was time to try these PS polishes from Primark that I'd been hearing about. These disappointingly don't have names, so this is just a creme red.

For £1 a pop, I was really impressed with this polish, the application and formula were as good as any £3-£5 polishes I have and the last time (barring washing dishes) was very good! I went back to Primark in December and purchased 'a few' more!

November Untrieds

I kept my part of the bargain and bought no further polish during the month of November. The untrieds number are on a go slow though and although there has been SOME purchases in December the total untrieds that are now trieds are 28, here's some!

Having finally received my new stampers from China, I thought I'd give them a go over Revlon's ColorStay in 'Bonsai'. Worked better than my Konad circular stamper, but as you can see here, the middle of the dots are missing, but that might have been the polish and not the stamper. Thinking about it though, I'm sure I used the stamping polish I bought from Rainbow Connection, will have to try harder!

Next up, I was very excited to try one of my Models Own HyperGel polishes from this set I bought from Superdrug for £15, very good bargain for 10 polishes at 10ml (not that much smaller that a full size Models Own Polish).

First out was this lovely bright red in 'Red Lustre'. Application was smooth and I think this was two coats and was pretty shiny without Top Coat but I can't help but apply a layer of HLK Girl to protect any mani and so that is what I did. Very impressed with the formula and the colour really popped.

This is quite sad, but I created an excel spreadsheet of all my untrieds and to try and get me to use ones I've never reached for before, I got the other half to help with creating a formula to assigned random numbers to all polishes and then sort them in numerical order. So next on my list was Sally Hansen's Extreme Wear polish in 'Kiwi Bikini' which I've probably had for nearly a year and never used. It was  pound shop purchase and I have to say I really loved the colour!

I added a few gem's which I also NEVER do and topped the whole lot of with HK Girl and have to say these babies stayed put the whole time I kept this mani on! I'll be revisiting this polish again with another colour to compliment it!

Next was another Model's Own HyperGel, this time in my favourite shade purple, and a bright shade it is too, this is 'Purple Glare'. My list was now throwing up my many Glitter toppers that have never seen the light of day so chose to use Claires 'Oscar' as an accent nail on this mani. The Glitter is Rose Gold and Gold and didn't think it would match the polish, but I think it works. Again the HyperGel polish was of equal consistency as the red I tried previously and again the colour was lovely and bright!

Big Break after 31 Day Challenge and now a November No Buy!

After the 31 Day Challenge I took a break from nail painting BUT NOT polish buying. The last manicure I did on the challenge was using the cling film (saran wrap) technique and I loved it so much I kept it on as long as I could. The next manicure I did, I tried the same technique only with different colours and it didn't work as well, but still for those of you who appreciate nail art on close inspection would have appreciated it.

Since then I have done a Halloween Manicure...

Using 'Boo-gie Down' from China Glazes Halloween collection from last year and for the orange Sinful Colors 'Cloud 9' in a conscious effort to use some untrieds.

A bit of a mini haul from Poundland and eBay etc... produced this manicure...

Look at that Sinful Colors, this is called 'Pearl Harbour' it looks like something from the deep, those little creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean that have crazy filaments that make them light up.

A small splurge after watching PackAPunchPolish's review of some recent China Glaze collections and a trip to Sallys to pick up Acetone, made this two manicures possible.

This is China Glaze in 'Choo choo chose you' from their 'All Aboard' Fall Collection for 2014. This picture doesn't do the colour shifts on this polish justice, it moves from purple, to gold, to burgundy to brown, gorgeous!

Then this also happened in Sallys...

This is OPI 'Comet in the Sky' glitter topper, just go and look at it in person, to lovely to resist! The last purchase was from Rainbow Connection whilst I was purchasing a top up on my HK Girl quick dry top coat. This is my first and no doubt last Picture Polish purchase.

This is 'Fool's Gold'. I did try to follow ohmygoshpolish tutorial on making these look like turquoise stones but I didn't have much success. Never mind the polish is beautiful without any embellishments. 

Now I have joined forces with other nail addicts and agreed to a November No Buy and I'm keeping a tally on my Untrieds which must be reduced and taken down to less that half of my total collection.