Funfetti (Not) For Me

Potentially controversial confession: I really despise any dessert-type dish that is flavoured like cake batter (without actually being straight-up cake batter) or which could be said to contain “funfetti.” True, rainbow sprinkled food looks awesome, like fairies dumped a metric ton of fun dust all over your breakfast. I was just admiring a woman’s diabeticalicious sprinkle pancakes on Instagram the other day, and I did frosted donut-type nails just yesterday, so I’m clearly not immune to the charms of rainbow sprinkles. But funfetti? That sickly sweet, ultra cloying chemical animal whose taste can most charitably be described as caramelized margarine? Heavens, no. Can’t abide the stuff.

But do you know what I do love? This funfetti-ish jelly sandwich manicure I created using Candy Lacquer’s rainbow sprinkled Tropical Sugar glitter topper. I typically don’t go in for teeny tiny glitters, passing them over in favour of big, chunky glitter toppers that take three days and an industrial sander to chip off my nails. But Tropical Sugar, with its vibrant mix of rainbow colours, is nothing but ultra tiny micro glitter and so different from most of the bigger-is-better offerings out there, I just had to have it.

Here I’ve shown one coat of Tropical Sugar between two coats of Essie’s Adore-a-Ball for a sort of frosted funfetti look. Owing to the sheerness of the base polish and the single coat of glitter, you can still see a tiny bit of my nail line here, but Tropical Sugar is a dense, glitter-packed polish, and you can absolutely get it opaque in two coats.

Jelly Belly

Ooh, I love a good jelly sandwich manicure.  All that lovely, glossy, glitter-embedded squashiness makes for some very pretty nails, the kind that look as though they were much more trouble than they actually were.  As such, it’s a great technique for newbie nail artists who would like to try their hand at a fun, great-looking design without straying too far from the basics.  All you really need is a sheer polish, a favourite glitter topper and a steady hand.  Here I’ve shown two different jelly sandwich manicures featuring four different polishes, although the technique changed not one iota between the two – simply lay down a few coats of a sheer, jelly-like polish (don’t get too hung up on the nomenclature; whether it’s called a sheer, a jelly or a translucent, what you’re looking for is a sheer polish that won’t completely obliterate the glitter you’re laying it on top of), then a coat (or two, or three) of a glitter topper, finally topping the whole works off with one even coat of the base jelly.  What you’re left with is a prettily subdued version of the glitter you used, seemingly nestled and embedded in the squishy-looking jelly polish.  Sounds sort of gross, looks super pretty and requires no more effort than an ordinary old mani, so what have you got to lose? 🙂

For these two jelly sandwiches I used (top) Polish Me Silly’s black-and-neon speckled Trouble Maker between Revlon’s pale pink Sheer Blossom and (bottom) Cirque’s rainbow-in-a-bottle Kaleidoscope between Essie’s off-white Adore-a-Ball.

Ice Storm

These nails are a nod to this evening’s forecasted weather, which calls for snow, ice and various snow ‘n’ ice-related activities. Sounds like a good time to stay in, cozy up by the televised log and do my nails!

These nails also represent my first ever entry in a nail art contest! Sponsored by the fine folks over at http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/, purveyors of all my favourite lacquered goodies, the Holiday Nail Art Challenge covers three weeks and three themed designs. This week’s theme is snow , which is appropriate since, you know, hey look, there’s lots of it from which to draw inspiration RIGHT outside my window. And gathering on my balcony. And piling up along my windowsills…

This design is a bit of a modified pond manicure, in which I layered opaque snowflake designs between multiple coats of sheer polish. I fancy it looks a bit like tiny flakes flash frozen in ice.

For this manicure I used Essie’s super sheer Adore-a-Ball over OPI’s No Room for the Blues, with just a few glittery accents in OPI’s (Liquid Sand) Get Your Number, THE perfect sea blue glitter. Icy fun for the whole family!

Jelly Sammich

Continuing the mad run of jelly-based manicures I’ve been squeezing in between all the Disney stuff like some sort of glittery palette cleanser, here’s a jelly sandwich, a nice and simple, you’re-bound-to-have-the-necessary-supplies-at-home manicure for the newbie looking to try out an easy nail art technique.

You’ll want to start with two base coats of a super sheer polish. Here I used a creamy nude, Essie’s Adore-a-Ball. It’s important that the polish you choose be truly sheer – something that will take multiple coats to become opaque – because you’ll be layering it over a coat of glitter, and you don’t want it to simply cover the glitter. We’re making a sandwich here, not a cheese-sauce covered Monte Cristo. Ooh, Monte Cristo…

Sorry! Sorry, got distracted there for a second. Once your base coat has dried, brush on a coat or two of a glitter topper and let dry. Here I used OPI’s Minnie Mouse-inspired Minnie Style, a fun combination of hot pink, red and white square and hex glitter in a clear base.

Then returning to your sheer base polish, brush a nice, even coat over top of the glitter and let dry, then seal the whole works in with the top coat of your choice. The last thing you should do is a victory dance, because your nails will look wicked fly!

The goal here is to make the glitter appear to be embedded in the polish as opposed to riding on top of it. This is also a super fun method of creating your own dupes of more expensive or harder-to-find polishes by combining two looks-close-enoughs and seeing what shakes down!