Sunday, September 30, 2012

Zoya Mitzi and Orly Lucky Duck Saran Wrap Technique

Yikes, I haven't posted in a while. My last semester of school, along with wedding planning, along with being busy with weddings every weekend has really sucked up all of my free time! I've still been painting my nails a few times a week, but just haven't had time to post any of them. Boo :( I'm going to try and catch up today while I procrastinate working on a research paper... lol.
 
Okay, on to the mani... today's design is one I did using the saran wrap technique that has been floating around the blog world. I had been wanting to try it for a while. 
 
 
To do this technique I first painted my nails with two coats of Orly Lucky Duck and let them dry. I had torn myself 10 pieces of crinkled up saran wrap ready for the next part. One nail at a time I put on a coat of Zoya Mitzi and while it was wet, I took my crinkled up ball of saran wrap and dabbed it on my nail to give it a marbled look. Below is a photo of how the saran wrap looks after I used it on my nail. After I finished every nail, I added a coat of Seche Vite on top to smooth everything out.
 
 
One thing that made this mani difficult for me was choosing to use a matte in this combination (Zoya Mitzi). I didn't realize it until I tried this technique using other colors in a pedi, but it was trying to dry too quickly and a lot of it would lift up with the saran wrap, leaving too much Orly Lucky Duck showing. A few times I had to go back and add another coat and re-do my nail. I would just recommend not using a matte finish polish if you try this technique - other than that, it was fairly easy to do and created a cool look.
 



Sunday, September 9, 2012

Tropical Sponged Sunset Gradient

 
I did today's mani off of an idea I saw on Pinterest. I have seen plenty of these types of sunset colored gradients before, but this particular idea was the one I had in mind when I did this. 
 
To do this mani I used a sponging technique which I have shown before - where you paint the colors all onto the flat edge of a make-up sponge and bounce it up and down on your entire nail - kind of like it's a stamp. You can see my previous post where I have picture of this technique (a bit messy - but worth it!). First I put down two coats of China Glaze Sun-Kissed over all of my nails, with a coat of Seche Vite on top. I have gotten quite a bit of use out of Sun-Kissed! I love the shimmer in it, it makes such a bright highlighter yellow neon not so harsh. It has to be my favorite yellow right now!
 
After my nails were dry, I painted China Glaze Sun-Kissed, China Glaze Sun Worshiper, then Orly Melt Your Popsicle onto the makeup sponge and sponged it onto my nail. I used a different sponge for each nail because the sponge starts to deteriorate and leave little pieces behind if you try and use it too much. On my ring finger I used Konad Special Polish in Black, and used the palm tree from Salon Express stamping kit (no plate number). I sealed everything in with Seche Vite. For some reason my pictures didn't capture Sun Worshiper (the middle color) very well in these photos... it's more obvious in person and the entire mani is much brighter. I really thought this mani was a fun way to say farewell to the Summer - Fall will be here before we know it!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

China Glaze Deviantly Daring

 
This is two coats of China Glaze Deviantly Daring, with a coat of Seche Vite on top. This is one of the colors from China Glaze's Bohemian Luster Collection. I got this one as a birthday gift, and I really love it. It was so opaque with one coat, but I went with two to even it out. It was slightly on the thick side, but it didn't cause any problem with application. There isn't much duochrome in this polish that I could see (the polishes in this collection all claim to be) but it's very pretty regardless. The amount of pigment, and the thickness of this polish - leads me to believe it would be very good for stamping. I will be trying that for sure!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Finger Paints 15 Minutes Of Frame

 
This is three coats of Finger Paints 15 Minutes Of Frame, with a coat of Seche Vite on top. The polish was a bit on the streaky side, but it built up and went on nicely with 3 coats. I apologize for the bubble on my ring finger - that's Seche Vite's fault! I had poured two bottles into one, and there were bubbles in it. Woops. I later stamped a black design over this but I don't have any pictures :-/. The color of these pictures is WAY off, and nothing what it looks like in person. It looks like a dusty blue in these pictures, but in reality it's a cool blueish green that is a bit more neon. The very last picture is one that I snapped using my phone, out in the sun. It's closer to the actual color, but still not quite there. It's very pretty in person!