Day 2: Mat About The Orange

My orange polish is Lumene Groovy, which turned out to be a semi-matte finish. I'd hoped to see some vinyl shine, but in vain. Application was a little tricky, the polish required thin and fast layers, but I managed better than I thought. This is three layers.

I had absolutely no idea how to go on with the base. The answer came from one of my favourite blogs, Canadian Nail Fanatic. I added one coat of NfuOh 49 and some Wild and Crazy Twinkle Beat, quite religiously following the footprints of Mrsrexy, apart from the matifying in between.

After a layer of BeYu Mat Topcoat (Mat?!? Why Mat and not matte?? Arg, now I'm mat!) I felt it still needed something and didn't have the patience to wait for the next time, so I added some black hearts (from NDED.com) and matified them too.

I liked the nails a lot until the matifying. The BeYu did matify the nails, but it left behind a dusty white shade, a faded version of everything that was on the nails before. Shiny topcoat didn't erase this effect. Mrsrexy is using Essie Matte About You, and that's what goes to the top of my shopping list.

Lastly, here are all the polsihes I used and some organic tomatoes from a local farmer. If you haven't tasted an organic tomato, you haven't tasted a tomato. Isn't the NfuOh gorgeous in the bottle?!! I could layer it on the top of everything!! (Well, maybe not the tomatoes...)

Day 1: Red Nails in Zurich

Here we go! It's the first day of the 31 day challenge with red nails.  This is a mani I had when visiting Switzerland a while ago. I own a couple of polishes from the OPI Swiss collection, and as I was going to Zurich, I simply had to wear the signature polish.

This is two coats of OPI From A to Z-urich, and on the accent finers a coat of Sinful Colors All About You. These pics are actually taken (after several days of wear) on the Gartensitzplatz (also known as Gartenplitspläts) of my good old friend L in Zurich. I find something amusing in capturing the polish in it's hometown. I'll spend a fortune into airline tickets if I buy the OPI Touring America collection...

Look how perfectly it matches my ring! I'll have to try a similar combo again with still deeper blood red base to reach the depth of the garnet gemstone in the ring.

31 Day Challenge

I've seen this 31-day challenge going round in various blogs. I guess the first one that stole my attention was the totally adorable blog Here Comes the Sun by Hayley in August.

Finally I am ready to pick up the gauntlet.
Here's how it goes:

The "official" rules are:

• Reblog this post if you’re going to accept this challenge 
• One post per day
• If you miss one, pick it up the next day
• Post a picture of each mani
• It would be nice if you listed/linked to what polishes you used
• For the inspiration prompts, SHOW US YOUR INSPIRATION/SHARE LINKS
• BE CREATIVE
• TRY NEW THINGS
• HAVE FUN!!!

(that last line reminds me of one certain Bible class..)

However, I'm NOT going to post every day, but on the other hand I don't think I'll post much other stuff in between. So 31 posts as from today will be dedicated to this challenge. I'm expecting loads of fun with it, as well as a few completely blank moments/days. Fortunately I've got polishiously talented, creative people around me, who I can always turn to in these matters. Lucky me!

Age of Aquarium

This is a mani I made for my second cousin S, who needed something bright to act as an insect repellent. (Disclaimer: Not sure if nail polish really works that way.) I graciously let her choose the key colour and the theme, which turned out to be "something marine".

I'm sure I've seen these tropical fish/aquarium manis before, but was still quite surprised how well the micropearls in the index and pinky imitated the air bubble effect. Base colour is Rimmel 60 Seconds Sky High, stamped with Konad Pearl wihte special polish and the plate m27. Topped it all off with some glitter, namely Wild and Crazy Super Star and a quick dry top coat.

In these pics S is holding a fish food can. It's not a very good match colourwise, but the theme is perfect!

The last close-ups were taken against the roof of my parents' car in the middle of our road. That gave the neighbors yet something to wonder.. And the car wasn't even moving! Telling them about my hobby would spoil so much fun.

Drag Marble Study

I was testing out polishes for drag marbles the other day. Drag marbling is my favourite instant oomph for a mani, really versatile and fast to create. Base colour here is the Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl in all of the nails, and I went through most of my cheap yet pigmented polishes rack on the top of it.

Basically you dab three dots of one colour with the nail polish brush on the side of your nail, and add two dots in between them with another colour. Then just get swirling with a dotting tool, toohtpick, bobby pin, or whatever you've got. Besides the colour combination, the important thing are the consistency and amount of the polish. Too thin polish or too much of it, and you end up with a swirly mess like the yellow and green attempt on my middle finger. Too dry dots and you're left scraping the base off, like with the orange and red on my index finger.

I almost ran out of nails before I found my favourite combination, here on my left thumb. The colours are Sinful Colors Cream Pink and Essence Colour&go Fabuless. 

Flowery French

This is a mani I did for my mother, so don't expect anything too fancy.

She had her base coat on, which is Mavala 2-phase nail strengthener.
I Konaded a white flower design from m2 with white special polish and then painted on a coat of Nubar Electric Touch. It's a baby pink polish with a very prominent UV-blue flash.

I like how the polish added on top of the stamping kinda softens the edges of the pattern. Dreamy! My mum agreed to have some glitters added. Woo-hoo! I really don't know how to call the glitter pieces, actually. Glitter flakes? Glitter shapes? I feel that writing just "added some glitter" would point to glitter polish with a coat of -well- glitter. Could I write "added A glitter"? Oh well, you know what I mean anyways.

Blue Boa

I never intended to do a snakeskin mani, but that's how it turned out to be. I just wanted to do something blue for a change, perhaps something that matches my blue/gray secondhand dress I feel at home in.

There's two coats of Essie Fair Game here. Stamping was made with Nivea Color Dynamite Blue Harmony and obviously the BM215. Stamping is not even near perfect but with this pattern it's not so obvious.

 And here's the dress - or at least a part of the pattern.

Finally, these are the polishes I used. You wouldn't recognize the Nivea from the mani - it's so much more grey there. Finding a polish to stamp on this Essie was a hard job. I wish I had some bottles of the China Glaze Romantique collection. Their finish seems to be near perfection for stamping. If anyone has extras.... (No, I didn't think you would.)