Technicolour Swirls

Well, isn’t this always just the way – sit down with a bunch of polishes and absolutely no firm idea in your mind of what you might like to do with them, and out the other side pops one of the best manicures you’ve done in ages.  Must be a Friend of Murphy kind of situation (as in Murphy’s Law.  I always call annoying, vaguely ironic happenstances (if you’re using the Alanis definition) that don’t fall under the banner of Murphy’s Law “Friends of Murphy.”  I suppose they could also be relatives.  This is very clearly a Maeve Murphy situation as it applies to nail art.  You know, dear old Aunt Maeve with the manicures.)

I think this post may have gotten away from me a bit.

Anyhow, I really did just sit down with a pile of holographic polishes and no real idea of what to do with them, and an hour later this is what emerged.  I don’t often do much colour blending in my manicures, as I find nail lacquer a really difficult medium to paint in – it wants to dry out so quickly, I often don’t have time for proper puttering and painting.  But I gave it a whirl today, and I love the results.

Also makes for a very pretty wax paper palette.  Just in case you’ve ever wondered, by the way, what kind of palette I use for my polishes, I use whatever’s handiest.  For the longest time I used the front or back of old DVD cases.  It was fun painting blobs of polish over top of Ben Affleck’s face.  But these days I use a tiny square of wax paper, a system that’s working out just fine.  Less waste, mostly, but also the polish seems to dry out not quite so quickly on wax paper as opposed to plastic, which is a definite improvement in my books.  What a glimpse behind the magic! 😉

Summer Swirl

Sounds like a type of ice cream, doesn’t it?  LOOKS like a type of ice cream, maybe one of those lurid, multi-hued, bubblegum-studded monstrosities that goes by the name SuperKiddo or Diabetes in a Cone. 😉

Alas – or perhaps not, depending on your views on Red Food Dye No. 3 – this is a manicure and not ice cream.  Bit of a bummer, that, as I hear it’s supposed to be hotter than the surface of the sun today, and ice cream *could* help.  So could sitting two inches off the air conditioner.

This manicure looks so much more impressive and difficult than it actually was to achieve.  Looks like one of those horrible – and horribly messy – water marble manis that has bested me time and time again, but not!  Because these are little nail decals I made to mimic the look of a water marble, and they were dead easy.  All I did was dab five polishes (turquoise, yellow, magenta, pink and a shimmery, golden green) out onto the back of a Ziploc bag, ran a dotting tool through them to create the swirled design (you could use a toothpick or a hair pin or the head of a sewing needle, should you not have a dotting tool) and then let it dry overnight.

And I may have let them dry a tad too long, because the most difficult part of this manicure was prizing those little decals-to-be off the plastic bag, a nitpicky job I outsourced to Mr. Finger Candy.  I think I may have made the decals a tad too thin and let them dry too long – the whole removal process would have gone much easier if the decals were a little less brittle and a bit more pliable.  Notes for next time.

Application itself was likewise easy.  All I did was give my nails one light coat of one of the polishes I used to make the decals, in this case the vibrant magenta.  Then, going nail by nail, I painted on another light coat of the magenta polish before immediately laying one of the decals over top of it.  I pushed the decals down gently with my fingers, making sure to really nestle them into the edges of my nails.  I used the blunt edge of a cuticle pusher to do this, but again, you could use the slanted side of a toothpick or even your thumbnail.  Then I roughly trimmed off the excess by simply – but lightly and carefully! – running the pointed end of my cuticle pusher along the edges of my nails to separate out the waste.  When all of my nails were done, I applied two coats of a diamond hard, high shine topcoat – Seche Vite to the rescue once again – and then cleaned up the raggedy bits along my cuticles with a detail brush dipped in acetone.

I love these nails!  And this technique is one I will definitely be turning to again; it is soooo much easier and tidier than water marbing, and produces nearly identical results. Plus, check out these amazing macro shots I snapped.  I think the one on the left looks like some sort of insane, alchemy-based fire, and the one on the right looks like bubblegum taffy in the midst of being pulled.

A blogging buddy of mine, altercontroldelight, does a very similar kind of technique, except she really knows what she’s doing – she’s got a whole system that involves making the decals on a silicone mat, which makes SOOOO much more sense than trying to prize the delicate little buggers off the back of a plastic bag, duh!  She’s also a fan of unexpected colour combinations and cool, fluid designs, and I’m a fan of that.  Again, another note for next time. 😉

Rainy Day Rainbows

Only type of day we’ve been having lately, actually.  It has rained SO MUCH this summer, and it’s also been humid as crap.  There was also some major springtime flooding this year.  I’d say we are positively wrung with water about these parts.  Hmm, that sounded a lot ickier than I had intended.  Meteorlogical water, just to clarify. 😉

Anyhow, here’s some rainbow nail art, set on a slant!  And I hope the end of your weekends, friends, feature more rainbows than rain.

Icy and Iridescent

Kicking off another week of winter with an easy peasy manicure positively spackled with iridescent glitter.  This is four coats of Essence Polish’s Space Queen over a simple white creme.  I always think these kinds of not-too-flashy clear glitter polishes look like they belong in a little girl’s Tinkerbell makeup kit (Tinkerbell Cosmetics, for my younger readers, was the ’80s girl’s answer to the kind of makeup they sell today in inexpensive jewelry and accessory shops like Claire’s – it was *maybe* not of the greatest quality, and everything smelled like plastic strawberries.)

But the Space Queens of the world endure because these polishes are fun, for little kids and big kids alike.  It’s also the only iridescent glitter polish I own, because iridescent glitter sticks to your nails like it’s been Crazy Glue’d onto your person for LIFE.  But it doesn’t smell like phony strawberries, so there’s a big plus. 🙂

I commented in a post last month that one of Disney’s colour trends of 2018 was this sort of blue-leaning iridescent hue that looks as though everything has been iced with pastel rainbows.  Seems I really took that particular trend to heart, because a quick glance around my apartment turned up a dozen or so items in this exact finish, ranging from shimmery makeup and a glossy new day planner, to barware, candle holders and even a stack of 20-year-old dessert plates!

I adore my new planner!  Nabbed this pretty at Chapters for $5 a couple of weeks after Christmas (small tip when it comes to purchasing things like calendars or day planners: If you don’t absolutely need one for the first couple of weeks of the year, hold off until they come down in price – usually about 75% – in early to mid-January.)

Even my daily water intake has gotten into the shimmery, iridescent action, courtesy of my cool new Starbucks tumbler.  The reflections on the surface of the water remind me of the brew Dumbledore chokes back in the Inferi-beset Crystal Cave in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (you know, just ever so slightly less poisonous and insanity-making.)

And on the hot side of the beverage spectrum, we even have my new poison apple mug, positively dripping in a shimmery, iridescent glaze.  So pretty.

And one of these days I will find a bottle worthy of this iridescent stopper my mom gave me some years back, fetchingly outfitted in the finest of squirrel fashions (perched on those Pier 1 dessert plates, most of which have lost their silvery rainbow lustre over the past 20 years of hard use.  Knock on wood, but I’ve never broken a single one, and I STILL, to this day, lament not purchasing all of the dishware available in the collection when I had the chance.)

And with that, time to venture out into the true iciness of this Monday morning, some pretty, mood-boosting iridescent goodies in tow.  Happy week, friends – I hope it’s shiny rainbows every single day. 🙂

Rainbow Blaster

Kicking off the penultimate day of the work week with this colourful assortment of holographic polishes culled from my collection of “Why don’t I wear this more often?” lacquers.  Okay, sure, fun, but why?  Well, because the end of the week is dawning overcast and grumpy and I think we could all use something to cheer us up as we head into the weekend.  Also, do I not own all of these beautiful polishes precisely so I can actually wear them?  Fat load of good they do sitting in storage, waiting for that perfect nail art inspiration – why not simply because it’s a day ending in Y?  Yes, why not indeed!  So let’s take a closer look at some of my favourite holographic polishes across the entire rainbow spectrum, shall we?

Starting off with my favourite, we have Different Dimension’s luscious red Naughty.  Most red lacquers – particularly holos, of which there are actually precious few – tend to err toward the vampy side of the beauty spectrum.  But Naughty is the most perfect shade of clear, candy apple red.  It’s polish perfection.

Next up we have KB Shimmer’s orange Rust No One.  This polish is a real chameleon, flashing between a deep, rusty peach, a warm pumpkin and a vibrant tangerine with each shift of your hand.  And apparently I might be in the mood for a a big old lunchtime fruit plate? 😉

Following orange we have Enchanted Polish’s yellow House of the Rising Sun.  I actually wouldn’t call House one of my favourite polishes; it’s here because it’s the only yellow holo I own!  I don’t care for this polish in the shade – it contains a weird silvery shimmer that tints the entire bottle a sickly shade of yellow-green urine.  Yeah, I know, super attractive!  But under direct light, it’s a lot closer to its namesake – like the first warm rays of light to burn across the sky on a hot summer day.  I’d even call it beautiful.  But heaven help you if the sun goes behind a cloud, it’s just Pee City.

Next up we have another favourite of the favourites, Enchanted Polish’s grass green Lost Boy.  This lacquer is so, so beautiful – look at that bonkers holo effect! – but oof, she STAINS.  Vibrant, dark green polishes nearly always do, and Lost Boy is no exception.  Always brush on a layer or two of a high quality base coat when painting your nails with a green polish, lest you spend the next four months running around with talons tinted the exact same shade as that aforementioned urine. 😦

This polish, A England’s turquoise Whispering Waves, feels like an addition I made to the already well-established rainbow structure, but I just couldn’t leave it out.  It may be caught somewhere between blue and green (and a little bit of purple as well, I see) but there’s space enough for it between the two.  This polish is such a stunner and, again, with its blue-green hue, quite the stainer.  Base coat ‘er up.

Next we have my splashiest, most rainbow-throwin’ polish, Color Club’s blue Crystal Baller.  I always want to call this polish Blue Baller, but that’s just me – kind of perverted that way.

In the second-to-last spot we have Enchanted Polish’s purple mystery lacquer from April 2017.  Holos often don’t present very well as against a pastel base, but April 2017 is the sweet exception – I think it looks like sparkly clouds of cotton candy.

And finally, we have Cirque’s popsicle-hued, freesia-scented pink, Powwow.  I had actually forgotten that this polish (all of Cirque’s polishes, actually) smells like freesia.  Fresh freesias are one of my favourite flowers – I just want to devour that scent, it’s so friggin’ intoxicating!  But huffing your nails all day long is just plain weird, so I’ll content myself with staring at them instead.  Like its scent, I forgot how pretty Powwow is.  It reminds me of a melty cherry popsicle (what thing doesn’t remind me of food in some way?!)

And so there we have it, a pleasant passel of polishes to perk up your precipitation-filled, uh, day (sorry, no P words to denote the concept of a day, my linguistics bad.) 🙂

Rainbow Dalmation

*Cymbals crash, man coughs uncomfortably, single baby begins sad-crying*

Okay, I’ll see myself out now!

Fireworks on 4th

Merriest of Independence Days to my American friends. 🙂  Now, go celebrate making it through the past five months by blowing up a small piece of your nation, colourfully. Sorry, colORfully.  American grammar rules only today.

Chasing Rainbows

The day after Christmas typically calls for a two-part manicure, one part to show off any fabulous new acquisitions and the other to cleanse the nail art palette after a solid month of holiday-themed manicures.  So how fortunate that my husband gifted me with this gorgeous lacquer, Painted Polish’s Chasing Rainbows, a sparkly little wonder packed with over 45 different matte and holographic glitters.  It’s so fresh-looking, like newly fallen snow blanketing multi-coloured Christmas lights.

This is my first Painted Polish product, and I’m pretty darn impressed!  Mega glitter polishes like this one can sometimes get quite clumpy and thick, but Chasing Rainbows was neither too thin, nor too thick, applying evenly in just two coats.  Love.  A very good gift (of many; I must have been a very good girl this year, because Santa was great to me.) I know that Mr. Finger Candy Santa acquired this bottle of Chasing Rainbows through Harlow & Co., where it is still listed as in stock, pending any Boxing Day sales. 😉

Unst-Unst-Unst (31DC2016)

This manicure sort of looks like rainbow lasers at da club, right?  It’s been so long since I’ve been to one, I can’t remember (also, the kind of dance bars I liked to frequent – alt music pumpin’ out the speakers, pinball machines jammed into the corner, duct tape holding together the carpet, bathrooms I don’t ever wish to speak of again – were not exactly rainbow laser-friendly establishments, if you catch my drift.  They could also never charitably be called clubs.)

Gosh, I miss dancing – like, just going out to a bar with a too-sticky floor to dance. all. night.  And before you say, “Old Lady Sandra, you’re not in the grave just yet; go, this is your day!” no, I’m not, but also no, it’s not, and no way in this hell or any other am I going to be that tragic woman at the club all, “Hey kids!  Watch me whip, watch me nae nae!” while people back away from me like I’ve got the plague.  Just the fact that I called it “da club” up there in my intro sentence should say it all!  Unst-unst-unst…

I should also note that these laser-licious nails are in service of day nine’s theme of rainbows in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.  All right, back to your unst-ing.

Cheerful

Here’s a simple and sunny French manicure in a rainbow’s worth of holographic lacquers, Enchanted Polish’s red February 2015, orange Desert Sunset and a smidge of sky blue September 2015, Cirque’s golden yellow Chyrsopoeia and Colors by Llarowe’s emerald green Gemini Rising (a polish I am somewhat scared of using, as the last time I wore it, it stained my nails pea green for the next four months.)  Cheery!

Update: Gemini Rising strikes again!  Here’s the staining that resulted from just 12 hours of wear over top of TWO thick layers of base coat.  I won’t be using this polish again (not that I could from its current position at the bottom of my garbage can.)  Terrifically unimpressed with Llarowe – their house brand polishes are not inexpensive, and Gemini Rising has destroyed my nails now twice, despite my better preventative efforts.