Polish All the Nails

Well, editing this post is something of a challenge as I'm typing this on my ipad in New York! I'm here for ten days on holiday with my bf and we're having a great time. I managed to find the time to do my nails before we left so let's take a look at a mani I did, inspired by the always amazing   psshiii t. To start, I applied a thick base coat, like usual and let it dry completely. Then, using binder reinforcement stickers (you know, the ones that look like donuts) I added the black French tips. I know people go on a lot about the stickers but they really are the right size to fit a French tip. Then, once the French tip was dry I added a glitter gradient in Sation Diamond Diggin' Diva. I found that if I wiped most of the polish off the brush first I could get just the sprinkling of glitter I wanted on the tips. This is the first time I've tried Safion and it's making a good impression with its silver and black glitter combo.

For a long time now I've had a problem with constantly picking at my fingers.  It's not nice or pretty, but there it is.  One year ago today I'd spent the night before making my nails all Christmassy and decided to say screw it and posted a picture to /r/redditlaqueristas, terrible cuticles and all.  What I was surprised by was how positive and encouraging everyone on there was.  It was that positivity and support that made me feel good enough to start this blog in the first place. I guess I just want to say thanks, both to reddit and everyone else that's come to my blog, I couldn't have done it without you. On to the nails!  To commemorate a year since I first posted a picture of my nails on the internet, I decided I'd recreate the look, to do a direct comparison.  Let's take a look at the after first.  To start, I applied three coats of Rimmel Stiletto Red, a bright red almost-jelly.  You could get away with two coats of this polish bu...

Once in a blue moon I manage to just do one polish and LEAVE IT AT THAT.  Turns out you just need the right polish.  Let's take a look at A-England St George. St George is an absolutely gorgeous forest green holo polish.  The holo isn't terribly noticeable but it gives the polish great dimension.  Application is really good too, you only need two coats and the second one is only really there to smooth it all out.  I'm not normally into greens but I can make an exception for this one.  

When you do your nails as often as I do, you get pretty good at spotting other lacqueristas.  A girl in the same building as me at work and I always compare nails whenever we see each other and she always has great nails.  Anyway, she got a bunch of nail art supplies in the mail, had extra and was kind enough to give me wheel full of little metal butterflies.  They're so pretty, I had to use them.   Let me preface this with saying that this isn't even the tiniest bit practical.  I kept this on for about an hour because they were catching on everything.  However, if it were my birthday or a special occasion, I'd totes keep these on for longer.  I wanted a nice, girly base for the butterflies so I started with two coats of Orly Porcelain, still my favourite nude.  Then, using a tiny square piece of makeup sponge, I lightly applied a dusting of Sally Hansen Celeb City and Revlon Gold Coin.  After a coat of Seche Vite was completely dry, I u...

I think you know by now that if I could, I'd just do glitter all day, every day.  A girl has to try something different every now and again though so after browsing around for a while (mostly google images for "nail art") I came across this  post by 10 Black Canvases.  I just had to try! To start, I applied two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  I first started with white acrylic paint but it's so hard to get smooth I switched over to using L.A. Colors nail art polish in white.  I found I was able to get nice, smooth lines if I wiped all the polish off the brush then worked from a little blob of polish on a piece of plastic.  That way you can just dip the very end of the brush in and work from there.  I started from the cuticle on each nail, working upwards.  I did shamelessly copy the design from above but it's so awesome how could I not??

I get a lot of people asking how long my glitter mosaic manis take to do.  I'm not going to lie, the full coverage rainbow manis do take a few hours.  When I don't have quite that much time I like to go for this kind of rainbow equaliser look.  If you line up all your glitter and focus, you can get it done in under an hour.   To start, I apply two coats of a black polish.  Doesn't really matter which although I've been using Rimmel Black Satin for a while because it cleans up nicely.  Then, using a non-quick-dry top coat, like Sally Hansen Invisible, I add the glitter.  I found the best way to space them out properly was to put the red on first at the top, then the silver at the cuticle, then one half way, then fill in the rest, all down the centre of your nail.  Because the top coat was still wet, I was able to shuffle them around a bit without too much damage.  That's what the Seche Vite is for afterwards, it's really good at smoothing...

It should come as no surprise I like the glitters in the China Glaze Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away collection. I've always liked the rainbow glitters and matte glitters so there's no way I could have resisted Whirled Away and It's a Trap-eze.  I wanted to show how versatile they could be so I thought I'd try them both over China Glaze Purple Panic.  Yes. Let's take a look at the two, to see what we're dealing with: vs.

OK SO YOU WANT GLITTER, ALRIGHT I'LL GIVE YOU GLITTER.  STUPID REDDIT CHALLENGE, GLITTER IS TOO BROAD! Yep, that's a good start to this post.  So the challenge this week is glitter, as I mentioned yesterday.  While it may seem like a good fit for my aesthetic, it's incredibly intimidating having to pick a style that sums up glitter for me, as well as finding the time to actually do it.  I played around with patterns for a while and eventually came up with this: friendship bracelet nails! To start, I applied two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  I keep coming back to this one, mostly because it goes nice and shiny with Seche Vite and it cleans up well.  That's important when you spend as much time lining up glitter as I do.  Using my usual system and Sally Hansen Invisible top coat, away I went.  I'm finding I'm having more luck with very thin coats of the glitter base so you get a nice even finish.  Take my thumb for example.  See ...

The Reddit challenge this week is "Glitter".  I don't know about you but I find this an incredibly intimidating task.  I've done so many manicures with glitter, be it glitter mosaics , stained glass glitter , geometric glitter , glitter polish or mermaid nails .  HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE WHAT EPITOMISES GLITTER TO ME.  IT'S TOO HARD.  It's like trying to choose which of your hypothetical children is your favourite.  I realise this is a lot of shouting but it's mostly because while I like this mani, I made the mistake of starting at midnight and there just isn't enough glitter here.  So let's just pretend these are wrapping paper nails! To start, I applied two coats of China Glaze For Audrey, a nice light turquoise creme.  Next, using my usual process , I added the glitter stripes, alternating between gold and silver first then adding the pink.  I've changed up my top coats for this to try and stop the massive amount of bubb...

I spend rather a lot of time on the internet, looking at nail polish and various vendors.  I found a particularly terrible looking site that sold cheap China Glaze polishes and decided to give it a shot, given I could use PayPal to cover me.  On a whim, I threw a bottle of red Seche polish, feeling like I should give it a try given how much I like the top coat.  Let's take a closer look at Seche Rouge. Application was pretty good with this polish but nothing especially stand out.  I used two coats here although, looking at the photos, I wish I'd done another coat to even out the bumps in my nails.  It's also difficult to clean up, you can see how red my cuticles are, despite taking extra time to clean up.  I didn't notice it dried especially fast.  I wanted to jazz the plain red up a bit so I grabbed my striping tape to make the criss-cross pattern on my thumb and ring finger.  Using Glitter Gal Red Sparkle, I added the squares.  Di...

Urgh, blerg, I feel lousy as I have a cold so lookit sparkly nails for my work Christmas party!  Revlon Royal which just keeps climbing up the awesome list every time I use it, with sparkly glitter mosaic accent thumb and ring finger.   I used my usual technique with the glitter, just make sure you press in all the big glitter pieces.   Look at sparkly, not at lack of text!

I've been following the Reddit weekly challenge over at /r/redditlaqueristas and the theme this week is Winter.  I pretty much only do the challenges when I feel like it.  I like the winter challenge so I put my thinking cap on.  I knew I wanted it to be sparkly and to use stamps.  I've done a mani with blue and silver sparkly foils before so this time I decided to go for snow at night.  I love walking the now at night, so quiet and peaceful.   I started this mani off with two coats of Nicole by OPI Razzle Dazzle.  Next, I put a blob of Sally Hansen Celeb City on a piece of paper and daub it with a makeup sponge.  I wanted just the tiniest speckling of silver to look like gusts of snow so I did a few swipes on the paper with the sponge to get most of the polish off.  Then it was lightly dabbing my nails.  Next, I used my Bundle Monster plates with Konad White Special Polish to add the snow flakes.  Top with a top coat and you'r...

For a long time I had so much trouble trying to get water marbling to work.  Desperate for answers, I spent a lot of time watching youtube videos hoping to see what I was doing wrong.  I never really had an "aha!" moment from the videos but I did find the most awesome rainbow gradient with black and clear marbling over the top that I vowed to try.  When I found my makeup sponges the other day and had the black and clear water marble down, I knew I had to try it.  To start, I added two coats of Orly Dayglow as I really wanted my neons to pop.  I hate that phrase, but it's true, I needed my colours to be super bright.  I've not had a lot of luck painting a gradient on a sponge so I added each colour individually using the edge of a sponge.  Once dry, I did my water marble over the top using China Glaze Liquid Leather and Essie Kisses and Bises.  I finally figured out how to control how thick each band of colour is with the marbling.  If yo...