Make it Pink! Make it Blue!

Or make it a little bit of both!  But that really didn’t fit the fairies’ rhyming scheme in Sleeping Beauty, so they just stopped with pink and blue.

I, however, did not stop with just pink and blue in this manicure (Pure Ice’s frosty pink Peony and Nails Inc.’s cobalt Baker Street, in case you were curious) topping both polishes with Mr. Bubble, a favourite glitter topper from indie polish maker Polish Me Silly that has to be at least five years old now, and I’m just astonished that it’s still in polish-able condition.  Glitter-based polishes, particularly those in mini bottles, have a tendency to dry up rather quickly, but this bubbly lovely is still flowing smoothly.  Noice!

I cribbed the indigo-over-pink gradient AND the choice of glitter polish from an old Chalkboard Nails manicure that first caught my eye back in – woah, sorry, had to take a moment to contemplate my own mortality there for a sec – 2014.  The glittery little bow was my idea, although I’ll add a bow charm to just about any mani I can.  Sarah Thompson, the blogger and nail artist behind Chalkboard Nails, is still doing her thing, albeit now over on Instagram.  I follow some nail art accounts, and yet I had absolutely no idea that she was still in the mix.  Instagram really sucks these days, doesn’t it?

This mani doesn’t suck and I love this colour combination.  And three cheers for Mr. Bubble, keepin’ on keepin’ on. 🙂

Sharp Edges

For this geometric mani, I used a couple of polishes that made separate appearances earlier in the week, China Glaze’s jade green Four Leaf Clover and Nails Inc.’s cobalt Baker Street. Both rich, saturated jewel tones, they were the perfect colour choice(s) for these totally free-handed nails (no striping tape, boo-yah!) that were just as fussy and time-consuming to complete as you’d think.  Not gonna hide that fact.  Although sitting around waiting for all that black outlining to dry did enable me to listen to two and a half hours of a commentary track writer/director/professional talker Kevin Smith recorded for the 1992 Tim Burton movie, Batman Returns.  It was absolutely hilarious, and peppered with all sorts of fun trivia, and made me laugh so hard, I zigged when I should have zagged and nearly had to redo my index finger.  Bit of a warning there when it comes to guffawing whilst nail art-ing.  Still, pretty funny stuff.

A Speckled Egg of a Different Sort

Yeah, you don’t see them in electric cobalt blue all that often, do you?  I certainly can’t deny that the overall look of this manicure – Ardene’s black-and-blue glitter topper, Following, over Nails Inc.’s blue creme, Baker Street – is Easter Egg ramped all the way up to 11, first with a glossy topcoat, and then dialed back a bit with the addition of a matte topcoat, Zoya’s Matte Velvet, to highlight all that nearly-hidden blue glitter (matte topcoats, as always, also destroy your manicure; I’ve yet to encounter one, no matter the brand, formulation, age, etc., that doesn’t deposit white fleckies all over your hard work. It’s a cool look, but regrettably also a destructive one.)

Goldy Locks (31DC2015)

Well, lock and key. These very Tiffany-esque nails, which are my belated entry towards day eight’s theme of metallics in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge, are a great example of the products used influencing the final manicured result. I had initially just thought to lay the little lock and key charms, which I purchased from Daily Charme, over a simple glitter. I then thought how much they looked like Tiffany’s Return to Tiffany lockets and keys (available in an assortment of necklaces, bracelets and earrings.) That then made me think that maybe I should be laying my charms down on a Tiffany blue background, which in my polish collection is Nails Inc.’s little blue box-hued Royal Botanical Gardens. Finally, I decided to add a nice little hit of metallic glitter to my index finger, pinkie and thumb in the form of KB Shimmer’s Toast-ess with the Mostest, a silver, gold and rose gold glitter bomb that I think looks like a smashed jewelry counter in a bottle. And just like that, another challenge mani locked down. 😉

Snap Out of It!

I woke up this morning and found myself in a mood. I slept poorly and was woken by the not-so-dulcet tones of my grumpy, bellowing cat. My arm quite mysteriously ached and the driving conditions were terrible. I walked out of the drugstore empty-handed after waiting in line for five minutes while the one cashier on duty did…other stuff. Back at home I rode the elevator with one of my elderly neighbours, who was returning from his morning swim and wearing naught but an insufficiently small towel to cover his girth, which based on my close proximity to his naked gut, I could clearly make out was covered in a fine pelt of snow white hair. And I’ve just been listening to far too many moody, melancholy songs given the already bleak time of year (Joy Division? Massive Attack? Instrumental scores from favourite television shows where everyone eventually dies?) TL;DR? It hasn’t been the best start to the week.

But things are looking up (I think there’s nail mail waiting for me in the mail room! So what the heck am I still doing here, right?), and not just because these nails, a pastel-on-pastel gradient topped with a bright, multi-coloured glitter, are super cheerful and just looking at them makes me a little happier (although it certainly helps!)

For this peppy, bubble gum ice cream-ish mani, I sponged on a perhaps too-similarly-hued gradient (Nails Inc.’s turquoise Royal Botanical Gardens over Pure Ice’s mint green Home Run) before finishing it off with a super colourful and cheery glitter topper (Candy Lacquer’s Carnival Games.) See, better mood already. 🙂

Where For Art Thou, Chromeo?

Yeah, I’ve been sitting on that groaner for a while in anticipation of receiving these new chrome flakie polishes from Polish Me Silly. Flakies are all the rage in the world of indie polishes at the moment, with multichrome-packed flakies being the coolest of a pretty bitchin’ bunch. These two beauties, Polish Me Silly’s Party Hearty and Stop Flaking on Me, are just two out of a whole collection of gorgeous chromatic topcoats that are beautiful and beautifully made.

First we have Party Hearty, a clear polish stuffed with tiny flakes of purple-to-blue-to-green-leaning chrome…glitter? Except it’s not quite glitter, is it? It’s more like tiny shards of colour-shifting chromatic nail polish in a clear base. Except it’s not quite shards either. This topper behaves exactly like a regular old creme polish – it goes on smooth, dries down totally smooth and shiny (these photos show both polishes without a topcoat) and removes in a flash, no struggle, no fuss, no binding your nails in aluminum foil-wrapped acetone baths. Here I’ve shown Party Hearty over Nails Inc.’s cobalt blue Baker Street. I love how the plummy undertones of the little flakies pull out the purple notes in Baker Street, giving it a grape soda sort of hue.Here’s a nice outdoors shot of Party Hearty that shows off its textureless…ness. No pitting, no curving, no issues.

And here we have Stop Flaking on Me, a pink-to-green-to-gold-leaning chromatic flakie. A simple black creme background polish is always a wise and chic choice, but I think these polishes look best over darker polishes that pull out some of the complimentary colours in the flakes. Here I layered one coat of Stop Flaking on Me over OPI’s gold-tinged dark green, Live and Let Die.

There are so many indies out there right now doing amazing things with ultra trendy flakies, but I think these colour-shifting chromatics from Polish Me Silly lead the pack – it’s hard to top a beautiful, of-the-moment look like this one, especially when it’s executed so beautifully. All-around winners. You can find Polish Me Silly’s products on their Etsy site here.

A Pattern of Behaviour (31DC2014)

Day 26’s theme in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge called for nails inspired by a pattern. There are a near-limitless number of patterns in the Disneyverse, 6,527 of them belonging to Elsa and Anna’s winter wardrobes alone, so where to start? Well, like most good things, at home. In my case, it was as easy as reaching into my bedside table and pulling out my journal, a matte black leather bound book covered in embossed Mickey heads. The interlocking Mickeys certainly qualify as a pattern, and one fairly easily achieved through a few freehanded Mickey heads in a black textured polish, Nails Inc.’s Leather Effect in Noho, over top of a simple matte black base. The tone-on-tone colour scheme can obscure the fun details in this mani at some angles and in certain kinds of light (usually only when I’m trying to take a photo to share on this blog, but isn’t that always the case?), but the switch-up in textures shines through, flashing glimpses of nearly hidden Mickeys in this more-sophisticated-than-usual Disney nail art design.

400th Post Retrospective

In about a month this blog will be celebrating its first year of existence. At the same time I’ll be marking a personal milestone, pouring one out for myself in celebration of one year of close-to-daily writing, blogging and nail art pursuits. I danced recreationally for close to 20 years, half of that time with the same company, so I understand what it means to stick with something for the long haul. But I’m still sort of amazed and, quite frankly, impressed when I contemplate the 400 some-odd manis I’ve done over the past 365 days, to say nothing of the written words that have flowed there from. Where did I find the inspiration to do that many manicures? Or more accurately, where did I find the time to paint my nails that many times? And how could I possibly have had that much to say about nail art?

While providing no real answers to those questions, this post, my 400th, bears out my obsessive/casual approach to writing, blogging and nail art and how the three have come together to form a most enjoyable pursuit that’s just structured enough to keep me engaged and on task, while still allowing me the freedom to float around in more creative spheres. I’m lucky enough to have found that perfect mix of “I should do this” and “I want to do this” that has brought me to this 400th post, so maybe I shouldn’t question it so much and just go with the (nail polish) flow? Sounds like a non-plan. Here’s to the next 400!

For these festive nails celebrating my blog’s quadricentennial post, I topped two coats of Cirque’s marigold-hued Chyrsopoeia with one coat of Nails Inc.’s Graffiti in Old Street.

Flutterbyes (OMD2)

Day 16’s theme of glitter placement in the Oh Mon Dieu nail art challenge was a particularly inspired one (past tense, because of course I’m three off the pace) with all participants submitting amazing entries, particularly challenge hostess Craftynail, who blew me away with her monarch butterfly glitter nails (really, go check them out; they’re spectacular.)

I suppose “glitter placement” could mean all sorts of different things to different nail artists, from glitter polish gradients to individually hand-placed sequins. I chose the latter, topping a couple of coats of Nails Inc.’s Royal Botanical Gardens (which itself was topped with Essence’s rainbow holo glitter, Space Queen) with a sprinkling of neon hexes and dancing butterflies. It was nit-picky, painstaking work wrangling all that tiny glitter, but not unduly difficult. Just remember that patience is a virtue when dealing with tiny piles of microscopic glitter that want to creep into everything you own. Seriously, glitter gets in your everything.

A quick note on glitter for use in nail polish-based projects. Whether you’re making your own (I can’t recommend it enough when you’ve got a polish in mind that just doesn’t exist) or using it as a nail art enhancement, you’ll want to use solvent-resistant glitter. I got my polish crafting glitter from a couple of different Etsy retailers, although you may be able to find a small selection at your local beauty supply. Standard craft glitter (like that in the 35-shade kit I have never, ever used but needed very badly, because apparently I was going to glitterize the WORLD) can be used, but be prepared for some pretty epic colour-bleeding and, in extreme cases, glitter melt. And no one wants to experience the terror that is glitter melt, let me tell you.

Greenery (OMD2)

This manicure, my interpretation of Madam Luck’s superlative St. Patrick’s Day design and my entry in the Oh Mon Dieu challenge for the theme of jelly, features some of my very favourite nail things, glitter-studded jelly polishes being the most important for our current purposes. I really enjoyed this challenge prompt, because oh, how I love the glitter jellies! All the jelly polishes, actually, as it is the very best finish. They could come and live with me on a special nail polish farm, and I’d take care of them and we’d all be very happy together, I can feel it.

But before you begin to worry that I’m going to run off and form some sort of nail polish worshipping cult (look around Instagram sometime; it’s not far off), take comfort in the fact that I haven’t gone right round the twist – I just really like jelly polishes. Weirdly enough, they have been one of the great discoveries of the past year. Before embarking on this journey into the heart of lacquer-based lunacy, I had no idea such an animal existed. I thought all nail polish was either a cream or a clear-based glitter. But jellies, with their incongruously rich, almost syrupy-looking finish, in their typical assortment of jewel-toned colours, are a breed apart, and, of course, the crucial component in a type of manicure known as a jelly sandwich.

These nails are a modified type of jelly sandwich known as a pond manicure in which you swap out the sandwich’s jelly-over-glitter approach for painted-on details such as Madam Luck’s stamped-on shamrocks or my dotted-on blossoms. Or maybe you go for all three like I did, layering polish and jelly and nail art details one atop the other until you wind up with, well, this!

For this gorgeously lush looking mani, I started off with one base coat of a blackened teal polish, Nails Inc.’s Kensington, over which I brushed one light coat of a forest green glitter jelly, KB Shimmer’s Get Clover It. Once dry, I randomly dotted on a handful of basic flowers in a stark white polish (name withheld because it’s crap), and then topped the whole works off with two light coats of Get Clover It, going slowly to make sure the glittery bits didn’t completely cover up the floral design (I should note here that this technique works best with a less glitter-intensive jelly polish such as Get Clover It. If you use one of the more traditional glitter jellies, which are typically packed to the brim with sparkly stuff, you run the risk of obliterating those nail art details you worked so hard to achieve in the first place.)