Pastel Crackle Skittle

Lately I spotted some Essence Blossoms etc. limited edition polishes on clearance.  I bought some to a nail friend and to avoid envy, bought some for myself, too. Logical, isn't it?

I couldn't decide which one of them to wear first, so I chose them all!

The blossoms polishes I used are:
(left hand from pinky to pointer)
Forget-me-not (blue)
My Yellow Fellow
I Like (green) (what's that name supposed to mean, by the way?)
Bloom-a-loom (lilac)
For the thumb I added Sally Hansen Complete Salon I Pink I Can, because the pink was missing from the collection.

All of them were three coats. I almost could have gotten away with two, but.. you know...

 The crackles I used were mostly from Depend:
(left hand from pinky to pointer)
5009 (pink)
5006 (lilac)
5008 (baby pink)
5011 (green)
And for the thumb, Isa Dora Blue Burner.

 This was a fun and colourful, but at the same time soft and girly mani. I loved it while it lasted :)

 You might have noticed I'm not posting as often as last winter. This summer I'm consantly on the move between two/three towns, so there are enough things to keep me distracted from my routines...  But I'm still posting, painting my nails and loving it!! That's enough for me, hope that's good for you, too!

Mermaiden

Once more a few polishes out from the untrieds. Room for some new polishes...

The one I really wanted to use was Catrice Iron Mermaiden (dupe for OPI Not Like The Movies). Sadly it was too sheer on its own - I merely saw a grey-ish veil on my nail with the first coat. It was clear it had to be layered over something dark.

On the left there is one coat of IM on black, on the right a coat on its own. Pretty sheer, but maybe meant for layering.

As the underwear I picked OPI Lincoln Park at Midnight (form my untrieds as well.. this I bought in November..ahem..). I don't have a shot of it on its own, but it was a pretty dark plum shade - and you can see it on the accent nail, although covered with a little something..

For the accent finger I tried layering flakies polishes: On the LPaM there's one coat of Nfu'Oh 51, Nfu'Oh 39 and lastly Nfu'Oh 50.

I loved the flakie madness!! It doesn't compensate my longing for Finger Paints Asylym or Twisted, but it's still multicoloured - at least a bit. Here are all the polishes:

Though, pretty, the manicure was too dark for the emerging summer season. I needed some bright colours on my talons, so this one had to go soon. Prepare for a colourful manicure post soon!

Funky Water Marble

I wanted to do a water marble, but didn't want to end up with anything too sweet or lame. I had something like 70's wallpaper style colour combo in my mind when I started, and this is how it turned out:

Not bad, and quite seventies, huh? Ok, so there are bubbles and other mistakes, and my cleanup isn't perfect, but with dim lights and the right music.... (Soundtrack fot this definitely includes Stayin' Alive and some selected funk classics.)

The base here is two coats of China Glaze White on White, and the marble was done with China Glaze WoW, For Audrey and Happy Go Lucky, plus OPI A-Taupe the Space Needle

A hint: if you don't want to get green on your nails, don't put blue and yellow side by side when you marble... At least with these polishes...

My right hand turned out better, as always. I believe it's because of the dip - which actually has a big influence on the pattern - is much easier to do with the dominant hand.

And here are the polishes:

China Glaze Happy Go Lucky , For Audrey and White on White plus OPI A-Taupe the Space Needle

Kiko Haul and Gradient

I wandered to a Kiko store the other day, and there were about a million nail polish shades in sale. You can propably guess the rest..

 This is my favourite, from the new duochrome line (not on sale, though..). They had a Peridot dupe one, too, but I chose this baby, which is much more blue. Pretty!!!

I intended to paint the base of my mani with Kiko 298, a light blue glass fleck polish. It turned out to be way too sheer so I removed it and went for more opaque underwear: a coat of Orly Toast the Couple. Even after it I needed three coats of Kiko 298.

 On the blue base I made a gradient - my first using a moist sponge technique - with Kiko 298 (blue)
268 (green) and 269 (yellow). Have I told you I hate polishes with no names? Well, I do!!!! And why on earth I just bought a dozen of them???!??

And yes, there is green there in between the other two colours!

To add some nail art, I cut out hearts of a sticker paper, painted a sort of ruffian on with Essence Urban Messages Skyscraper. Removed the stickers, and voilá!

This mani needed just a coat of Seche Vite to even things out. And here are the polishes:

You wouldn't believe they were all used for this mani. So pretty, but oh so sheer...

Interlocking Glitter Skittle

Again a manicure for getting to play with my swatchsicles and getting some polishes out from my untrieds.

The base is two/three coats of Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses at Night. I was a little disappointed with the glitter effect on the nail - or the lack of it. It is much more visible in these pics than IRL, even if you place your nails right under your nose.

I went on to paint interlocking diagonals with (from pinky to thumb, left hand):
Orly Vip
Essence Circus Circus Cotton Candy glitter
Nicole by OPI My Sleigh's in the Shop
Milani Purple Gleam and
China Glaze Skyscraper.

And this is the right thumb:
Milani Silver Dazzle

As always, the greatest fun was organizing my swatchsicles, choosing the colours and just fooling around.

There you can see the ones I chose and also the ones that didn't make it.
The two Milanis were the worst topcoat eaters, propably because they are so dense that the glitter pieces sit on the top of each other. Well, there's nothing that three coats (!) of Seche Vite couldn't handle..

 Generally I loved the most the Nicole by OPI and Milani Silver Dazzle. I'd say it's because they have the clearest contrast with the base. Which brings to me an idea of interlocking mani with contrasting colours.. hmm...

Funny how these glitter polishes remind me of those glitter glues we used to buy before christmas to decorate christmas cards, and which were totally equally useless every time..

I had marvelled at these interlocking manis before in some blogs, and making my own was really quite easy. I used scotch tape to line out a diagonal section for the glitter, and then a dotting tool to make the "interlocking" lines of dots.

By the way... I love saying glitter skittle.. :) Try it!

Gaga for Sandwiching

Recently I scored form clearance 2 Claire's polishes, unnamed green and orange ones (bright, almost neon) with slight shimmer. I'd say their normal price (2,95 euros for each) is ridiculously high for the quality. I got them on sale for 1 euro altoghter, and wouldn't still buy them again. But they were good for some fun sandwiching!

I tried to use them as the base coats, too, but ended up having only a slight tint on my nails after one coat. So I removed that and went to search for other bases from my stash. I was quite happy when I found Ghina Glaze Gaga For Green (one of the three Blossoming polishes I got) paired with China Glaze Papaya Punch. They were a perfect match!

The first pic shows only the base, and the second one is with the Claire's polishes. They're really only adding some subtle shimmer. A bit of a disappointment, I'd say..

The glitter I used for the sandwiching was the Essence Nail Art topper Circus Confetti. On the top of it I added two coats of the Claire's polishes.

On the second day I matified the look using Essence Nail Art topper in Soft touch. This is the look I loved the most! My nails looked like candy!

As the last attempt to make the mani last for another day, I tried to make some scotch tape stripes on the accent finger. I think I cut the tape strips too wide, though, and they were not as neat I had hoped. I used Mavala black as my black polish. Well, better luck next time...

Excuse Mon Papillon!

I intended for once to do something subtle and classy. An adult mani. Well, that didn't quite happen. (If pink glitter and foiled butterflies are suddenly not an adult thing.. No? I thought so..)

Everything was fine with the base colour, Catrice Just Married. It was not totally opaque in two coats, but I had a hinch that I'd be adding a little something more, so I didn't paint the third one.

I sponged the tips with OPI Excuse Moi! from the Muppets collection. Then I added a coat of seche vite to even out the base for stamping.

Then I added some stamping: flowers from Konad m53 with Konad black special polish, and on ring fingers the butterfly image from the same plate. Lastly I coloured the butterfly using the tip of a fine nail art brush and three foil polishes.

What can I say to justify this picture spam.. Just that I loved these a lot and was sad to remove.

 But as always with nail art, there's the option to re-create a design and make it even better. So each removal is a new beginning, too. Quite a philosopher I am, huh?

This last pic is in the sunlight just to show the multicolour glitter in Excuse Moi!. Pretty and bright at the same time, isn't it?

And here are the polishes:
Catrice Just Married
OPI Excuse Moi!
Color Club Foil Me Once
Color Club Hot Like Lava
Gosh Silver
Konad Black special polish

Are We Green Yet?

This mani is definitely one from the odd combos department.

The base is three coats of OPI Are We There Yet? Usually OPI polishes are two coaters for me. I don't know if it was the formula or my application, which made it a little patchy after two coats this time. Third thin coat solved the problem, though.

For some unknown reason I chose Konad light green special polish for stamping. Maybe just because one should sometimes try out silly things just to get some exercise in failing - so a "real" fail won't hurt that bad. A bit like they do rehearse falling down in figure skating classes.

Speaking of figures, the french design is from BM218 and whole nail design for the accent finger from BM201.

As if the mani wasn't odd enough, I added some green micropearls / bullion beads to the accent finger.

That's it today. Something more normal next time, promise.