Funky Dotted Pink

I don’t know what I was thinking with this. I wanted to use my pale pink swatch test nails to make something….and it got out of hand. This would actually have been a really cool mani if I just stuck to one of the paler pinks as my base! As it is with the weird background dotted gradient…nope.

So I started by making a dotted gradient from lightest to darkest color, interspersing the creme polishes with the shimmers. That looked ok. Then I stamped with a neon teal, which still looked ok. Then I added black. I just wish my nail tips weren’t so much darker! I love the pink/teal/black idea. Oh well.

Colors:
~ Teal: Emily de Molly – Glee Ridden
~ Pastel pink creme: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Pastel pink shimmer: OPI – The Color that Keeps on Giving
~ Nude creme: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Nude shimmer: ULTA – Freshwater Pearl
~ Dark nude creme: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Stamp: Whats Up Nails – B015

In other news, this is my first Whats Up Nails stamping plate, and I love it!! It is wonderfully etched and I wish I had done this mani better service. It is one of the only plates I own where I can really see myself using every single damn image. I am impressed! Despite how awful these look, you will be seeing a lot more of these designs. Anyway, happy Friday, and I promise next weeks manis are better!

Daffodil Garden

I have no excuse for this going up in the afternoon…I finished editing last night and just forgot that today is a Wednesday! Anyway. I painted these in early April, as the daffodils were finally emerging from the (very late) snow! I also rather like that I found a way to use this stamp that doesn’t make all my fingers look the same 🙂

Since this was painted on top of a swatch test post, I started with a different color blue polish on each nail. To make them uniform, I basically dry-brushed each color over the others so the end result was a medium light blue with shimmer in it. I wanted there to be a faint wispy cloud background, and I think it looks rather cool! You can see that best on my pinky and thumb.

After the blue cloudy background had dried, I used advanced stamping (aka coloring in the stamp while it is on the stamper) and applied it to my nails. One of my last minute decisions with this was to use a dark orange in the very center of the flowers and then a lighter yellow-leaning peach for the rest of the middle. I love how it came out! I ended up goggle image searching daffodils to make sure I had the right shade of orange (all the daffodils near my apartment are yellow-on-yellow which is not nearly as much fun), and it also gave me a chance to use Freedom of Peach again! I don’t like this color on my nails as a base but it clearly works as flower centers :-p

Colors:
~ Pastel blue: Sally Hansen – Breezy Blue
~ Light blue: Essie – Rock the Boat
~ Pink shimmer: Sinful Colors – Cinderella
~ Medium blue: KBShimmer – I’d Rather be with Blue
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Peach: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Yellow: OPI – Never a Dulles Moment
~ Green: Zoya – Shawn
~ Stamp: BP – L067

I know the daffodils have all died, but I wanted to make sure that this got posted SOMETIME in the spring! Hope you enjoyed!

Swatch Test: Mauve Nudes and Pastel Pinks

Mauve Nudes: I don’t know why I compared these exact colors. I guess I wanted to get a sense of how purple/grey each was? No dupes here!

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: Zoya – Chantal
~ Ringe: Essense – I Nude It
~ Middle: CND – Cashmere Wrap
~ Pointer: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Thumb: Zoya – Rue

Every single polish took three thin coats, but all applied well. In terms of colors, Chantal is the most yellow-leaning, while Nude is the palest by far but also leans a bit yellow-pink. Cashmere, Tape, and Rue are almost a gradient of pastel mauve to true mauve. I mostly wanted to reassure myself that Tape and Cashmere weren’t dupes for each other or anything else, and they aren’t! I also quite like both of them, even if they are boring colors!

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Pastel Pinks: So, I wanted to compare my pale pinks and my pale pink shimmer/frosts. Mostly the frosts if I’m being honest! No dupes here, but some of the colors are downright ugly! I also re-used Tape (from above) to compare a pale mauve to a pale pink.

From pinky to thumb:
~ Pinky: ULTA – Baby Doll
~ Ring: KBShimmer – Caught on Tape
~ Middle: OPI – The Color that Keeps on Giving
~ Ring: ULTA – Freshwater Pearl
~ Thumb: Wet n’ Wild – Private Viewing

All the polishes took 3 coats except Tape, which took two (I guess I used thicker coats). For the cremes, Doll is more of a true pastel pink than Tape, and is also a bit paler. Private is its own thing and I should have known I didn’t own any dupes! I hate how it looks of me, but it is a useful skin tone color for nail art. For the shimmers, Pearl is more of a nude frost and Giving is a true pink frost. They are actually quite different…and unsurprisingly I like Peal a lot better! I can see Giving coming in useful….if and only if (hah I just tried to write iff which means the same thing but in python, whoops) someone tells me I need to wear a baby pink shimmer to a wedding. I don’t think that will happen, so away it goes!

Simply Swirled

This mani was done super last minute because I had forgotten that I had an interview the next day (I never forget about flights, but if its only a bus ride away…well, that can be a problem). I mostly wanted something fast!

I don’t know that I love the combo of a frosty shimmer with a metallic polish, I think a creme stamp might have worked better. I do love this stamp though, it is pretty much my go-to when I need something fast, swirly, and pretty!

The colors here are Freshwater Pearl by ULTA for the pink base, and Penny Talk for the rose gold stamp. The stamp itself is from Bundle Monster plate 314.

Of course, there was also no sun while I wore this, so you only get to see indoor lighting, sorry!

I promise that the designs going up next week are a tad more colorful! Happy Friday!

Darkened Desert

This mani isn’t quite winter-themed, but I think the dark colors work regardless. Also, I really couldn’t think of what to call this mani but the colors remind me of the Southwest so desert it is!

What you see here are two coats of O R’YLEH (which, how do I correctly uncapitolize? O R’yleh? O R’Yleh?) by Great Lakes Lacquer. This polish really could have been opaque in one coat but I didn’t know that, so my application was uneven. That said, the polish is a bit thicker than I expected and you need to work fast or it will dry and drag.

The polish itself is beautiful, with a dark green base with lots of holo shimmer. It also has a multichrome shimmer to it that shifts from bright fuchsia pink through copper and to gold. It’s a chameleon! Unfortunately, it was also a Polish Pickup Pack October exclusive, so as far as I know there is no way to buy it. But if you like the concept, think about joining the PPP before this month’s offers are gone too!

Colors:
~ Green: Great Lakes Lacquer – O R’YLEH
~ Rose gold: Essie – Penny Talk
~ Orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Yellow: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Teal: Zoya – Wednesday
~ Stamp: BM – XL205

I don’t know exactly how I ended up with this color scheme, but it doesn’t look half bad. I wouldn’t typically mix orange, teal, and yellow (ewwww yellow) with something like a deep green. Or a rose gold!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and happy almost New Years! I don’t plan at this moment to have a special New Years post, but maybe I can find something I haven’t had time to post that I sufficiently glittery. If not, I’ll just kick off my “top 10 of 2017” posts with regards to my favorite polishes and nail art.

Harvest Floral

This is somewhat fall-colored? Oranges and burgundies? Regardless, this was very easy and ended up looking nice!

I wanted a fast mani, and nothing is faster than water decals! Except no polish, but that isn’t a mani at all :-p

I used the images from BP W15 for the flowers, over a white creme base. The orange nails were painted using Sun of a Gun by ULTA, a pretty burnt orange.

There really isn’t much else to say about this mani! I did not use the polish I am holding in the photo, but it matched the flowers and ULTA polishes are cylindrical which I find difficult to pose with.

Hope you enjoyed!

Growing Flowers

Orange day in the 31 Day Challenge! I actually have other orange manis, but this used the MOST shades of orange so I think it goes here!

Unfortunately, this mani had a lot of problems. Neither plate I tried to use (the zig-zags and the flowers) actually stamps well at ALL, and I don’t know why I wanted to make the flowers appear to be growing when having them all the same height on my nail would have looked better! Moreover, the peachy-orange base looked super strange on my nails.

The Born Pretty Store sent me the floral plate, BP-L067 to use. And I LOVE the designs on it. That said, the first copy they sent me (the one I used here) was etched so subtly that almost no polish would work with it. I had to try with every black polish I own. I ended up contacting the store and they sent me a replacement (which obviously I did not have a chance to use with this mani) which is perfectly etched and makes me very happy. I don’t know that I’ll get around to posting it in the 31 Day Challenge, but if I do I’ll let you all know. The plate has some spectacular floral images, perfect for advanced stamping (aka coloring the designs in).

When the OPI Washington DC collection came out, there were a few polishes I really wanted, and Freedom of Peach was one of them. I didn’t own anything like it! Unfortunately, there was a reason for that. This is three thin coats of Freedom of Peach. The polish did not self-level very well at all, and the color looks quite strange on my nails! Almost a nude, but with orange in it. I don’t like it. I imagine on other skin tones it would looks better, but with mine it is completely meh.

Colors:
~ Peach: OPI – Freedom of Peach
~ Black: Sinful Colors – Black on Black
~ White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White
~ Lightest orange: KBShimmer – Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?
~ Bright orange: Zoya – Thandie
~ Medium orange: ULTA – Sun of a Gun
~ Dark orange: Essie – Playing Koi
~ Green: Zoya – Tilda
~ Stamps: BP – L067 and X06

So, even though these are ridiculously complicated nails, I don’t love them! They are orange though, so here you go. If you want to buy the stamping plate (which again, watch for etching issues but the images are amazing) you can find it at the Born Pretty Store for $2.59. Enjoy!