Matte Ornaments

Beaching Nails posted this picture just a few days ago, and I fell in love with how the nails look like those thin glass ball ornaments. I think they are referred to as mercury glass, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I was staring at them trying to figure out how she did it and I think I got it. A metallic polish with a matte topcoat over it. Testing my theory I painted my nails with Sally Hansen "Red-io Active" a strong metallic red then topcoated them with Seche Vite. I used the Seche because my matte topcoat tends to smear and smudge my nails, so I wanted to protect them first. Then I used my Warpaint Beauty matte topcoat to give it that brushed glass look. I think I matched her effect pretty closely!

Then I added some gold ornament stamping just to dress it up a bit. I used Maybelline "Bold Gold" and BundleMonster BM225. I wish I could somehow topcoat the stamping because after one day it's already rubbing off. Than and a top coat would make the gold brighter, but my matte topcoat smears stamping and shiny topcoat ruins the matte effect. 

Sorry for the bad pic, I took it after getting home from work
last night.

I really do like the over all effect tho. I'm gonna have to add this to my list of Christmas Mani ideas this year!

Liquid Sand

Ok, so textured polish is all the rage right now and I figured I'd like to give it a shot. But most of these polishes are stupid expensive. So imagine my glee when I stumbled across someone selling polishes at a local farmer's market for 2.50 a bottle!! I got 9 Orlys (I only had one bottle of that brand so I figured now was as good as any time to fill up on that brand) and this OPI. It's from the Mariah Carey collection and its a lovely purple gritty glitter called "Can't Let Go".

I'm kind of torn when it comes to this "textured" fad in polish right now. It's cool to have new things and effects in polish, but the sandpaper-y feel bugs me. I'm not sure I can get comfortable wearing it. Check out close ups of this polish after the jump.

Glue Basecoat

After reading Wacky Laki's discovery of peel off basecoat, I decided to give it a shot.This is a fascinating way to remove glitter polish and so much faster than the tin foil method. The idea is simple, instead of using a basecoat, paint your nails with plain white glue. Then put on your colors and glitter. When it's time to take it off, it just peels off and leaves your nails clean and ready in minutes. Well, that's the idea anyway. My test wasn't quite that black and white.

My results after the jump...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Not my work! This is the mani I tried to do. My mani is the pictures below.
Check out MadamLuck's blog here.

A friend of mine posted this picture to my facebook page and I LOVED it. So I decided for St. Patrick's Day I'd give it a shot. I watched madamluck's YouTube video and was happy to learn I had nearly all the same polishes she did. So I tried it out on my practice finger. I love that silly thing.

I actually turned out rather well. I was proud of it, so it was time to do it on my actual fingers.

Well, it not that bad, but not exactally what I was planning. My stripes are all kinds of wonky. Well here is the steps I did for it. 2 coats of Duri "Rejuvacote" Nail Growth System (I used this instead of base coat this time because my base is kind of a milky color and I didn't want that to show in the french tipped fingers), Wet n Wild's "SaGreena the Teenage Witch" and Sinful Colors "Call You Later". The stripes were made with Stripe Rite's white, Sally Hansen's "Green with Envy" and Sinful Colors "Hazard". Topped with Seche Vite.

Top It Off

Seche Vite. Almost empty, I'm gonna have to get a new bottle soon :)

One thing that helped my nail art immensely was top coat. Sounds a bit silly, but when I first started I used either a very poor top coat or more usually, none at all. Right now my favorite is Seche Vite. You can find it at supermarkets and beauty supply stores both. I get mine at Wal-mart and Sally's Beauty Supply. There are many brands of top coat that is good for nail art, but as I have the most experience with this one I'll talk mostly of Seche Vite.

Pros and Cons after the jump...