Water Spotted - Comparison

I've been waiting for a way to DIY the OPI Black Spotted nail polish (the one released as a part of the Spiderman collection, France Exclusive). Instead I've seen a lot of water spotted nail art - which is more fun, actually! You can use any colour, and you don't have to dedicate a polish for the spotted look only.

There are great tutorials out there, for example by Colette from My Simple Little Pleasures and Cutepolish. Now I just needed to find out, what product would work for me. And maybe this comparison helps you a bit, too?
I used six different products, including a facial mist, two hairsprays, two other hair products and a perfume – basically every spray product I had at hand. I didn't use hand sanitizer, because I didn't have any in spray form, and I wanted to see if some of these worked.

I tried these with Borghese Notte black. The ones that made their way on my nails, went over my current manicure: a coat of Sephora Diving in Malaysia over black, sponged with Catrice Iron Mermaiden. Let's see what happened!

Frantsila Organics Rose Water
(main ingredients: rosa damascena distilled hydrolate)

 Rose water made spots, but mainly formed a bubbly surface on the top of the polish. A fail.

TIGI Bed Head Masterpiece hairspray
(Alcohol denat., Dimethyl ether, acrylates)

This hairspray just seemed to push polish around, no matter from how far I tried spraying it. Some small spots appeared, though. Still a fail.

Nelly hairspray
(Isopropyl alcohol, Methylal)

This hairspray created a spotted pattern, but the spots were rather large. They grew even larger if I waited for too long after spraying. A kind of a success.

Curly Sexy Hair Curling detangler
(water, amodimethicone, tallowtrimonium cloride, some proteins)

Was somewhat foamy and made a bubbly finish. A fail.

Schwartzkopf Osis iron serum
(water, alcohol denat., vp/va copolymer)

Spots and bubbles mixed, but the spots were tiny. A fail. I didn't try it on the nail, though - the spots might have grown a bit.

Aqua de Loewe perfume
(80% alcohol)

Genuinely spotted pattern. The spots grew larger with time with this one, too. A success.

From these products clearly the best two were Nelly hairspray and the perfume. You can see the results below. The perfume costs 30ml/ca 25 euros, versus Nelly hairspray 125ml / ca 2 euros... Hmmm... Which one would I like to "waste" on my nails? Plus I actually like the "bigger spots" effect of the hairspray experiment. With the hairspray the spots were also sharper than with the perfume (no, it's not because of the pic only).

Pinky (lower): hairspray, Ring (upper): perfume

So, in conclusion, products containing a lot of water didn't work. Products containing a lot of alcohol worked better, except the TIGI. But presumably it's not all about the alcohol content, because Colette did try with pure alcohol and reported it didn't work. Next time I'll make a comparison between these two and a hand sanitizer. I just have to find a spray, or dilute my own as Colette did.

Until the next time, then!

H - Hunt Me if You Can

My H polish in the ABC challenge is Essence Hunt Me if You Can. It's a great black shade with silver and multicolour shimmer. This is two easy coats.

For this cutesy-pie manicure I decided to combine two of the designs I've got on my Awesome Manicures board at Pinterest. Thank you Nailasaurus for the splatter idea and Kayono for the penguin!

To all fingers but the ring finger I did a splatter with Gosh Silver and Kleancolor Metallic Orange.

 The ring finger got a penguin design with the same colours. The penguin was really easy to make, please google for a tutorial and make your own!

On the thumb I made a tape manicure using Lacquistry Cosy Fire and OPI Pirouette My Whistle

And of course I had to matify with Essence Soft Touch topper.

By the way, Kleancolor Metallic Orange is almost a one coater and looks great on its own. Awesome quality for a dollar! It stained my gel nails a bit, though, so be careful with this one.

This manicure is one of my favourites for a long time. Plus it was fun to photograph it matified, without having to worry about reflections. This mani, especially the "who, me" penguin, made me smile many times, and I hope it did it for you, too! Sometimes, when your life is a mess, such a small thing can make a difference for a moment: a fun memory or, say, a penguin on your nails.

G -Get Carried Away

Alright. Let's make it clear right from the start. This manicure is a FAIL. But I blame the polish.

I almost didn't post this one, but without this I wouldn't have gotten forward with the ABC challenge... So bear with me!

 As the base colour I used various greens (from pinky to pointer):
Revlon Beach
Lumene Summer Rain
China Glaze Cha Cha Cha
Wild and Crazy Erie,
And for the thumb two coats of Alessandro Virgin Temptation.

This was actually the fun part, getting to play with my swatchsicles!

The topper and my G-polish is China Glaze Get Carried Away (from the Cirque du Soleil collection).

I think the problem with this polish is -added to the lousy application- the black jelly base. It makes any base colour - except for black - very murky and dirty looking, especially if you have to dab over a spot more than once as I definitely did.

Over red GCA looks decent, but I still think I won't be using this too soon again. This close-up is after two coats of Seche Vite, and as you can see it's still quite bumpy. Not one of my favourites, but maybe I'll create something extra fun for the next letter, H...

F – Fowl Play

I've got a confession to make.

I searched for this specific polish and I paid a full price for it in November 2011. And I used it for the first time for about a week ago. I'm embarassed. So many new awesome polishes came my way, and the moment just never was right for this beauty. Does this ever happen to you? Anyhow, my F polish is gorgeous!

I began with two coats of Revlon Not So Blueberry, which has a funny and quite strong blueberry scent - but I liked it!

 Then I added a coat of Orly Fowl Play to each nail, except the ring finger. Instead, I did a two-tone stamping with Konad Purple and Barry M Gold Foil. And the pattern is from DRK-A.

Note to self: I'm still missing a good bronze/copper stamping polish. Any ideas?

See how the flakies make this polish alive?

I seriously wonder, what took me this long to use this polis. I promise I won't forget it again!
PS: Are you into memes? Would you like to see more polish related memes?

Empties - December

In December I finished 4 products. Compared to the 2 products in November, this makes me feel I'm making some progress..

Two of the products were for hair: Garnier avocado shampoo, which I liked otherwise, but it didn't preserve the clean hair feeling too long. And The Body Shop Rainforest radiance conditioner, that didn't work for me at all. It left my hair somehow dry and tangled, plus it was extremely hard to get out of the bottle. Both of these could be just fine for other types of hair.

 First of the two face products was a Micosalud Reishi and Cordyceps sinensis serum I got in a Glossybox (paid by me). It was ok, absorbed well and smelled of mushrooms. Quite locigal, because it was made of mushrooms. Still I was not too fond of the scent, and wouldn't buy this again. The vain little me wants her pampering products to feel, look and smell good, not only to do their job well.

The last product was an eye contour cream from Elizabeth Arden. It was ok too, but felt quite heavy on my skin. I tend to use Cliniques All About Eyes, the rich version, and this was like an ultra-mega-super rich version. I could buy this again, but maybe I'll want to try out something lighter..

Thanks for reading! Next time it's nails again!

E – Excuse Moi!

The E-post of my ABC-challenge is almost all E's: Essence, Essie and Excuse Moi!

 I started out with Essence peel off basecoat, which was a disappointment. The peeling part did not go well with my gel nails, and I ended up accidentally peeling off some of my gels.. Ouch.

But the fun part of this manicure was the sandwiching: first a coat of Essie Movers & Shakers (a beautiful pink jelly, though I'm not quite 100% sure about the name, as this came without the tag), then a coat of OPI Excuse Moi!, and then repeating the two as necessary. One thick coat of Seche Vite was enough to smooth down all the grittiness.

 But of course I couldn't leave it to that, even though the result was so fruity and blingy...

I went on and matified the manicure with BeYu Mat top coat. And almost ate my fingers as candy... Omnomnom...

Happy New Year to all my readers!!! I hope this year will bring you more solutions than troubles, more joy than sadness, more love than insecurity, more peace than fear! And I hope I'll finish the ABC-challenge this year...