Sparkle Surprise!

Here’s some ultra shimmery, very unicorny nails for no reason other than it’s Thursday, the weather’s all bummy and I have an entire diningroom’s worth of painting to get done before 5 pm this evening.  No sweat, says I!  Although I have been sweating a great deal, which is what happens when you’re contorting yourself into positions never before attempted by the world’s most practiced yogis in order to just. reach. this. onnnnneeeeee. spot. in. the. corner. of. the. closet. that. no. one. but. you. will. ever. see. or. even. know. is. there.  But it will haunt your dreams if you I don’t deal with it immediately, so here we are!

I won’t tell you the base colours I used in this manicure – a chromatic, vaguely fuzzy-looking pink topped with diagonal sponging in chromatic teal and green to mimic the prism of light captured along the edge of this new cup I purchased – because the company is long out of business, and also went down in a spectacular blaze of not-so-glorious glory.  None of the polishes I own were affected by said blaze, so I’ve continued using them, although I try not to talk up the company.

But I did top the whole works off with another polish that I’d be happy to talk up, Orly’s unicorn-in-a-bottle glitter topper, Anything Goes.  This polish hits all the fun P requirements – pretty, pastel and purple!  Now back to a P word of my own, sigh – painting.

You’re So ‘Corny

Glittery, shimmery, star-dusted nails, featuring Orly’s unicorn-in-a-bottle glitter topper, Anything Goes.

Speaking of, I think this manicure looks a heck of a lot more ‘corn-ish than that very odd Frappuccino Starbucks released last month.  Mr. Finger Candy and I split one.  Or rather, I had a couple of sips, declared it fine, but deeply unnecessary and not very attractive, and then handed the rest of it over to him.  Which is pretty much what the rest of the world did, too!  Save those nutters who went out and bought 365 of them to store in their fridge until the next Unicorn Frappapocalypse.

Getting back to this polish!  It’s super cool – the purple shimmery bits take on a raggedy, almost textured look when layered over a creme base, like this gradient manicure I created using the purple, pink and turquoise colours in Anything Goes’s fun mix of star and circle glitter.  Very ‘corny. 😉

Drops and Dashes

Inspired by the very Vegas-y polish swatch I did the other day, here’s an abstract manicure featuring all the plush, jewel-tone hues of a glitzy and very ritzy casino.  Appropriately enough, the golden base polish I used here is Orly’s Glitz, a micro-glitter holo that packs a super sparkly, fight night-worthy punch.

Sprinkles and Studs

Keeping things simply sparkly and neon for the first few days of 2016 with this manicure that combines Polish Me Silly’s Freckles glitter topper with Orly’s silver holo, Mirrorball.  I love the way the paper thin glitter of Freckles looks as though it’s part of Mirrorball, without taking on that unfortunate pitted look so many neon glitters can impart.  I then topped the whole works off with some diamond-shaped neon studs from Daily Charme.  Simple, sparkly, colourful and cute.

Put My Thing Down, Flip It and Reverse It

Earlier in the week I posted a manicure featuring a golden gradient over a denim blue base.  It was an elegant and somehow understated look, and a welcome change from my usual “all the all” approach to nail art.

So OF COURSE I couldn’t let that stand, choosing instead to flip things around and go for the glitter, this time topping a megawatt golden sparkler, Orly’s Bling, with a blue (and black) matte glitter, Ardene’s Photobomb. Pretty.  Sometimes it pays to mix it up, but it also always feels great to come home, does it not?

Disco Ball

Oh, hear that, folks? That’s the sound of the disco whistle! Looks like it’s time to strap on your boogie shoes and hit the light-up dance floor for some super awkward dance moves and, somehow, the worst fashion of the last 100 years. But never mind all that, because you’ll be sporting these beautiful disco ball nails that throw more sparkles than the mirrorball twinkling prettily above you.

For these simple disco-on-disco nails, I topped two coats of Orly’s so-appropriately named silver holo, Mirrorball, with two light coats of Finger Paints’ silver holo glitter topper, Colorful Collage. These kind of manicures are the thing we nail bloggers rage about all the time, because they never look 1/100th as beautiful in static photos as they do in real life, and indeed, this silver sparkler is no exception. These nails are just bananas in person, tossing off linear holos and eye-searing rainbows with every little shift of my hand, although I’ll concede they don’t look quite so awesome in photos. Although this manicure DOES look super awesome when magnified 15 times with a macro photo lens, comme ca:

All Gummed Up

I predict that this adorable polish, Turn it Up from Orly’s recently released In the Mix Collection, will become to the fall of 2015 what Orly’s holographic Mirrorball was to the winter of 2014 – everyone’s most wanted, most unfindable, nail polish. Turn it Up, which looks like Cirque’s much coveted Kaleidoscope glitter topper, only much more readily available – I got mine at my local Sally Beauty Supply – and for a little less money, reminds me of gumballs, and pairs beautifully with an ultra sugary pink like this one, Serum No. 5’s Awesome Blossom.

Turn it Up applies really nicely too, and is the rare kind of glitter-stuffed lacquer that is neither too dry, nor too lumpy. My one beef with Orly polishes, and indeed this one, is that their brushes are a shade too thin and long. I prefer brushes on the flatter, wider side. But that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise super cute polish that I think everyone’s going to be coveting pretty soon. Get yours while you can!

Gold Star, A for Effort (OMD3)

I very recently – as in 43 hours and 50 minutes ago, not that I’m counting – lost one of my two cats to old age. Her name was Porky, she was 22, and she was my best friend and companion for 15 of those much-indulged years. As I commented on my “Airing of the deceased pet grief” memorial post on Facebook – and as regular readers of this blog are all too aware – I am rarely at a loss for words. Give me the barest outline of a theme and I’ll find a way to build a conversation around it. But I can’t find the words to express how much I cared about that grumpy and demanding little bundle of fur, not because I don’t know what to say, but because I simply can’t force the words past the tears. It’s been nearly two days since she left me, and I’m not sure I’ve stopped crying once, even in my sleep. She’s all I think about.

So it was with the great promise of relief – relief to be thinking about anything else except her final moments, relief to be doing anything else except crying – that I thought I’d turn back to the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge I’ve been participating in and catch up on the three or so prompts that have passed me by while I’ve been crying. I thought something simple, like day four’s theme of black and gold, would be a great place to start, particularly when I remembered the pack of star-shaped nail vinyls I bought over the winter holidays and had yet to press into action. How much easier does it get than peel and stick and paint and rip? Even a grief-stricken basket case with hopelessly swollen eyes could manage that!

But I think we all know where this is going, right? Because this particular grief-stricken basket case with hopelessly swollen eyes could not get her nail vinyl mojo up and running, not even a little bit. Granted, this was the first time I was using nail vinyls, and I’m not exactly feeling on top of my A game in any way, but holy wow, were these vinyls, from a company called Nail Vinyls, a PAIN. For starters, the adhesive backing on the vinyls is incredibly strong and sticky. It’s imperative that you use a top coat like Seche Vite to harden up the surface of your nails before applying the vinyl, or else you’ll simply rip the polish straight off your nails. I’d also recommend using an opaque polish for all your vinyling needs; the gold micro glitter I used here, Orly’s Bling, was a touch too transparent and required multiple coats, which crept under the edges of the stars and muddled the overall design. In the final analysis, I ended up dabbing the gold polish onto my nails with a cosmetic sponge, which gave me more control and stopped that pesky bleeding edges business. Finally, after removing the vinyls – carefully, so carefully – I went over the little gold stars with a detail brush and a couple of extra coats of Bling to really enhance their sparkle.

I think nail vinyls might be one of those things you build up to – peel and stick and paint and rip they were NOT – but still, this manicure was a lot of work for something I had hoped wouldn’t tax my brain too much. Although on the flip side, fussing with temperamental nail vinyls for an hour and a half made me cease contemplating my grief for an hour and a half, and so I’m counting this one as a win.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Holos

Holy macaroni, these all-holo Harry Potter nails were a pain in the patronus! This manicure inspired by Hogwarts’ house colours just didn’t want to behave for me, whether it was colours that didn’t quite match up (Slytherin’s green is a dark jade hue; makes you wonder if the kids of Slytherin might have had sunnier dispositions had they been surrounded by a cheerier colour like this one) or the bit of nail art on my thumb – lopsided enough in the final analysis – that started out as Hogwarts’ crest and two botched attempts later became that lopsided H you see before you. This is actually the first Harry Potter manicure I’ve ever done, which is amazing given that I’ve been at this blogging and nail arting thing now for nearly two years, as well as the fact that I really quite like the Harry Potter series, books and movies both. So why the hesitation? Maybe my as-yet-undiscovered wizarding skills and senses were telling me that I was going to whiff it big time, so I’d better hold back? Sounds good to me. Another one – blessedly few, thankfully – to add to the Try Again pile.

I used a mess of holographic polishes in this manicure, because I really loved that title and couldn’t leave a perfectly good pun just laying there, and also because I’ve found that holos, so long as they have good opacity, are great for base work and nail art details alike – lots of built-in shadowing that adds a little something extra to your favourite manis. Here I used two Cirque polishes, golden Chyrsopoeia and green Panacea, two Enchanted Polishes, ruby red February 2015 and dark blue May 2015, Orly’s silver Mirrorball and Lilypad Lacquer’s black Rainbows in Space.

Gilded Peacock Gradient

You won’t find any traditional feathers in this peacock-inspired manicure, just blended jelly layers in shades of vibrant aqua, blue and purple, tipped in glittering, gilded gold.

For these deceptively difficult looking nails, I used three shades from Mentality’s Glazing Art Set, aqua, blue and purple, and Orly’s glimmering gold Bling. Starting with the aqua glaze (or jelly, or sheer) I brushed on three thin coats and let them dry. Then, taking the blue glaze and starting just a smidge down into the aqua polish, I brushed on one light coat and let it dry. Taking the blue glaze once again, I then brushed on another light coat, this time starting a smidge down from the last blue layer. I then repeated the last two steps with the purple glaze, working my way down my nails, before edging them with a light, brushed-on coat of Bling. You’re building up a type of gradient here by layering and blending the polishes. When you’re finished, you’ll have one layer of aqua, two layers of blue, two layers of purple and the glittery gold cherry on top. Neat, vibrant and super simple – the very best kind of nail art!