Neon Rainbow Graident

Summer time to me means neon polish! No idea but this time each year I start itching to bust out the eye watering shades. I wanted to do a vertical gradient rainbow across my nails but everything kept going wrong with this mani. The white undercoat China Glaze "Snow"got patchy bald spots no matter how careful I was in application. The gradient refused to be smooth and everytime i tried to fix it it just kept pulling polish off my nail making the bald spots glaringly obvious. Despite the fact that it didn't turn out as planned, it was still fun to do. Let's see if I can remember what polishes I used...

From Pink to Purple:
Sinful Colors "Pink"
Warpaint Beauty "Acid Orange"
China Glaze "Celtic Sun"
Warpaint Beauty "Slime"
Sinful Colors "Endless Blue"
And the purple I simply don't remember what it was. I don't have my polishes with me right now but I'll try and look that up for you guys later.

Since the gradient just didn't turn out as I imagined I coated the whole thing with China Glaze "Fairy Dust" to try and hide the flaws. I should have used China Glaze "Icecap", it's much better at hiding flaws than "Fairy Dust" is. I wore this for a few days then tried to stamp over it, but it didn't turn out and I just removed it altogether.

Lava Lamps

Oh my! It's December already! I really hadn't noticed. I guess I'm gonna have to start planning winter mani's soon. Till then, here is my Lava Lamp mani. Ever since I mentioned that this stamp reminded me of lava lamps or amoebas, I've been itching to do it in many colors. I started off with very neon colors, but they seemed too much. In summer its fine to rock neons, but this time of year it just seemed too garish. So I went over the neon with a shimmer polish to dull it out just a touch. I used a lot of colors so let me go thru them one at a time. Neon color is listed first, the the shimmer listed second.

Thumb: Sinful Colors "Pink" and "Glimmer"
Index: Warpaint Beauty "Acid Orange" and Pure Ice "Hot Tamale"
Middle: Sinful Colors "Neon Melon" and Pure Ice "Excuse Me"
Ring: Warpaint Beauty "Bad Apple" and Sinful Colors "HD Nails"
Pinky: China Glaze "Blue Sparrow" and Sinful Colors "Love Nails"

And just incase you have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention Lava Lamps: (photos courtesy of Google Images. None of these pictures are mine)

Stamp over the nails with my go-to black stamping polish Wet n Wild "Black Creme" using MoYou Pro Plate Collection 06. I'll try to come up with some winter nails soon, but the last time I tried to force myself to do a seasonal mani, I ended up with a huge creative block. I'll see what I can do tho :)

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!

Hot Neons

My car died so I have to walk to the library. This last week has been crushingly hot and humid so no way was I gonna walk in that. So no posts for a while, sorry. But every year when it gets hot outside I get an urge to go Neon. I have no idea. It's kinda a throw back to my childhood when anything neon (or "hot" as I used to say. Hot pink, hot yellow, hot orange...you get the idea) was in style. I want to decorate this mani but I don't know how yet. I tried stamping white and black over it but it just dulled the neon-ness of the colors and I love the florescent look I'm rocking right now. This picture just doesn't do it justice. You can see these nails coming three blocks away! All but the green is Sinful Colors. Thumb is "Pink", index is "Summer Peach", middle is "Neon Melon", and pinky is "Dream On". The green ring finger is Warpaint Beauty "Bad Apple". As an added bonus they fluoresce under black or UV light. I'll see if I can get a pic of that, but taking photos in the dark is a pain in the bum.

UPDATE: As promised here is my attempt at photographing the neons at night. This was tricky, I had my UV flashlight in my mouth, biting down on the ON button, the camera in my other hand trying to shoot my nails. I should have gotten a picture of that lol :)