Go With the Flow

I was recently the lucky recipient of these lovely Zoya polishes – pink Kristie, blue Maren, turquoise Harbor, and purple Jessica – thanks to the kind folks at Nail Polish Canada.  I swatched them all, of course – see my previous post for those details – but I also wanted to do a bit of nail art with my new, candy-coloured polishes.

Problem: I’m SO out of practice these days, both in terms of nail art ability and actual nail care, that a good mani for me is one in which my nails are not encrusted with a solid quarter-inch of gardening grit.  I figured at best I’d come up with something ultra easy, like a simple dotticure.

Instead I decided to shoot for the moon and do a water marble manicure, perhaps THE most difficult nail art technique, one that requires you to float polish on the surface of water.  Because that just sounds SUPER easy (spoiler alert: it’s usually not, and it’s always hella messy!)

Except….this time, with these polishes, it wasn’t.  Even after my extended absence from the nail art realm.  I think it’s because these four lacquers – rich cremes, all – are brand new, and at the peak of their polish power, having not picked up months’ and years’ worth of oil and grime.  All four are of a completely identical consistency as well, making it ultra easy to float the polish on the surface of water AND toothpick-out a swirled design.  TL;DR?  These Zoya polishes make water marbling EASY, even for the woefully out of practice.

Speaking of, I realize that without photos of the water marbling process, this must all sound like utter gibberish.  So might anyone be interested in a little tutorial?  Because I’d like to give this technique another try, see if I could come up with a slightly more consistent design finger-to-finger (much as I like the every-digit-for-itself approach.) 😉  Please do come back soon to see how I work out with that!

Banana Split

Hey look, it’s that banana split water marble I’ve been promising all summer long, extra sprinkles, cherry on top.  And wonder of wonders, it kind of turned out this time – there’s definitely more banana to these sundaes than my last frozen pink lemonade attempt. Anyhow, grab a spoon, dig in and all that other yummy stuff!

Limeade Love

As with all things in life – but especially friggin’ pain-in-my-arse water marble manis – practice makes perfect, so when my blogging friend Five Zero suggested – nay, demanded? – limeade nails to go along with yesterday’s frozen pink lemonade manicure, I happily snapped-to, this time with the addition of a couple of sweet Fimo fruits.  Next do we have any calls for orangeade, maybe a little Orange Julius action?  Or how about a strawberry daiquiri water marble?  I’ll call it the Frozen Drinks of Summer Series (*immediately goes off to begin making a list of every possible type of fruit and/or rum-infused cocktail.  I could be gone a while.*)

Frozen Pink Lemonade

Adventures in water marbling have once again produced a pretty – if ill-defined – animal that started out life as a nod to the mighty banana split and instead wound up as slushy frozen lemonade.  I suppose that’s what happens when you forget the brown “chocolate sauce” polish.  Also when you water marble as terribly as I do; it always seems like every nail is just doing its own thang, heedless to my pleas for nail art consistency. Although I guess screwing up every water marble mani I’ve ever done is its own type of consistency, so at least there’s that!

Pink Sands

What started out as a (never) simple water marble mani turned into an ode to one of my favourite home fragrances so gradually, I barely noticed when I started scrounging around my house for sand, sand, where’s the sand?!  And if there is any, could it be pink? Which is completely not a thing, but if I’m already inviting sand into my home, shouldn’t I be able to dictate its hue?  It IS totally reasonable to have a jar of pink sand just sitting around your house, right?  Then I realized I was carrying on a hypothetical conversation with DIRT. Decorative dirt, but still.  Sense and reason righted themselves shortly after. At least for a while.  I never did find the sand.

Anyhow, Pink Sands, a fresh, beachy floral from Yankee Candle, is an inexplicable favourite.  Yankee’s website informs me that Pink Sands is a blend of melon, berries, osmanthus (os-whatnow?), spicy vanilla, musk and woods, which sounds like absolutely nothing I should like.  And yet Pink Sands stands out as one of my very favourite scents, period – it’s a lovely little palette cleanser amid my usual fragrance menu of “things covered in icing.”  And in the world of custom vendor wax, Pink Sands acts as an unexpectedly versatile blender scent – I’ve had great success mixing it with juicy strawberries, crisp candy apples and salt water taffy.  I also think it would pair well with the usual assortment of beachy coconuts and salty aquatics (what say you, Candle Enthusiast, resident Yankee-blending authority?)

But as always, matching nails aussi, because that’s just how Finger Candy do.  Also kinda the whole point of this blog, as much fun as these little sideways leaps always are. Also also always, this water marble manicure was a total jerk.  They know no other way, pretty, swirly bastards.  And I know no other way other than having to re-do my index finger three times.  Ah, but you know what they say – consistency IS key! 😉

Nightswimming

Another watery water marble, this time a beautiful, holographic, colour-shifting one inspired by the R.E.M. song Nightswimming.  Extra pretty in the sun where of course holographic polishes do their very best work, but also so, so lovely in the shade – or at night – where you can really see the ever-changing bends and waves of the multi-chromatic polishes I also used.  Enjoy your swim. 🙂

Pink Peppermint Swirl!

With, um, a wintergreen accent nail?  So remember a while back, the last time I did a water marble manicure, I mentioned that despite dropping the polishes into the water in the exact same order each time, every nail came out looking completely different than the one beside it? Well, here’s a great example of that particular problem – pink peppermint on one side, lime green jello on the other!  Nail art goal for next year: Water marble designs that are identical on each nail.  So basically, watch this space in 2017 for updates on my journey to the centre of nail art insanity.

The glitter polish I used here is KB Shimmer’s Merry Pinkmas.  It’s very Strawberry Shortcake-in-a-bottle and never fails to remind me of holiday ribbon candy.  Yum!

Groovy, Baby!

I think Austin Powers would approve of this very psychedelic-looking water marble manicure.  He’d at least appreciate the not-inconsiderable effort that went into it – water marbles are a test of a nail artist’s mental and physical fortitude, and I’m definitely now spent.

And I truly don’t know why they need to be so difficult.  Or random.  Like, you’d never know that each one of these nails started off in the exact same place, with the exact same order of polishes going into the water marble.  And yet.  Story of the water marble – and yet.

Bomb of Misrule: A Mini Lush Review

With a matching manicure, of course, because that’s just what we do around here. 🙂

Today we have another Lush product to take a wee peek at, this time a Lord of Misrule bath bomb.  I’ve no idea what the inspiration is behind this bath bomb, although with its colour palette, little molded crown and name, I’d say Mardi Gras.  That doesn’t explain why it’s part of Lush’s recently-released winter holiday collection, though, unless Lush is just waaaayyy ahead of their springtime game (ETA: WAY ahead of their springtime game; a glance at the website tells me that this bath bomb is inspired by the pagan Feast of Fools!)

The scent of this bath bomb is quintessential Lush – its patchouli, vanilla and black pepper fragrance is the one I most closely associate with the purveyors of fresh rainbow bath stuffs.  For what it’s worth (what with scent preference being such a personal AND chemical thing) I smell none of those things, simply a zippy kind of herbal scent that I really feel neither here nor there about.  My husband said it was tolerable – that’s high praise for a Lush product!

But as with all Lush bath bombs, I’m here more for the big bath show than the scent (thank goodness; I have an appallingly poor track record finding Lush fragrances I like) and the Lord of Misrule bath bomb does not disappoint – it was so cool!  And it really did put on a big, impressive show, dissolving down into a gorgeous mess of hot pink and grass green bubbles that reminded me of Christmas ribbon candy.

So pretty!  It was kind of a shame to stick my bod in it.

But stick my bod in it I did, and it made for a lovely bath time treat – softly scented skin, tons of moisturization (I know this, because there’s not a bath I take with a bath bomb that doesn’t end with me crawling out of the super slick tub on my hands and knees) and sparkly, wine-hued water.  The limited edition Lord of Misrule bath bomb (and its accompanying shower cream) are available online right now as part of Lush’s Christmas collection.  It retails for $7.45 Canadian a piece.

And finally, we have my nails!  Keen readers will note that this is a water marble manicure, a technique I begrudgingly attempt but once a year during the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. That’s because it’s a messy pain in the arse that works maybe a quarter of the time.  So why the heck did I choose to do one here for my two middle nails?  Because the ribbon candy-like effect of the bubbles seemed to lend itself really well to the technique, and I thought I could use the practice (ALWAYS.)  Amazingly enough, they turned out so well, thanks in large part to the two holographic polishes I used here, Enchanted Polish’s hot orchid pink, Dope Jam, and goldy-green Lost Boy – great colours, and they water marbled super well.

 

Pumpkin Spice Latte (31DC2016)

Water marbling was the order of the day for yesterday’s entry in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.  My approach when it comes to water marbling, bane of just about every nail artist’s existence, is to just…not!  I try to avoid it at all costs, save and except this one day in September, specifically for this challenge.  And when I do finally bite the bullet and muddle through, I try to choose a design that’s already a bit watery and diffuse, so that way when I inevitably screw up, it almost looks like I meant to do it on purpose.  Sneaky, sneaky, but I’ll take whatever advantage I can get over stupid old water marbling, it’s just such a pain in my arse!

The last two years of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge I’ve done watery-looking water marbles full of shimmery, turquoise-on-turquoise bends and waves.  This year I thought I’d add a little something to that water in the form of a beverage that I bet a lot of people would say is just as important to their functioning as water, the ubiquitous pumpkin spice latte.  I used to worship at the altar of the PSL, but in recent years as I’ve found my palette edging more and more towards stronger, sharper and more bitter flavours, drinking a pumpkin spice latte leaves me feeling like I’ve just gargled with honey (and brushed my teeth with whipped cream; PSLs make my teeth feel SO furry!)

It’s not a pumpkin spice latte, but today I’m enjoying my coffee – black, sugar – in this fun Fall throwback, one of a set of matching Starbucks thermoses my husband and I bought the first year we were together.  Which would make this particular thermos nearly 14 years old.  Which means I’m drinking a hot beverage out of 14 year old plastic.  And here I was worrying about all the sugar in a PSL!  Right, so I’m most likely poisoning myself – dumping out my coffee now – but how cute is this glow-in-the-dark skeleton thermos? So cute!

And it’s even cuter – and better protected; some of these early Starbucks thermoses can get a bit warm to the touch – when it’s dressed in this adorable little handmade cozy my blogging friend Amanda of Thrifty Polished made for all of the participants in the Fall Fun Series.  So super cute and wonderfully thoughtful – thanks again, Amanda!