Halloween 2021 Black to White Spiderwebs

I'm loving this simple gradient. Sally Hansen's black fades into a cool Orly grey and into Pueen's stamping white. I wanted the spiderwebs (a MoYou stamping plate) to fade into the white at the tips so I used the same stamping white to stamp the webs. It kind of worked. You can still see the webs at the tips so they didn't fade completely away. This is all so a rare shot of my right (or Cindy) hand. The left one got some weird wrinkling and bubbling going on in the top coat. I think I globed it on too thick because I was worried about smearing the stamping and it just dried weird because of it. But in my defense I was running late for work.

Hand made and painted mask, hand made hat, hand done make up and polish...I am loving this!

Stamped Dotticure

Attending a recent* funeral I decided to try and match the blouse I was wearing. Not a bad attempt I think. I'm fairly certain the color is Covergirl's Star Wars Limited Edition "Emerald Blaze" duo chrome over a black polish. I really should have left it solid black to match my blouse better but I had just gotten that Star Wars polish and was eager to play with it. I think the stamp is a Born Pretty plate with a stamping white over it. I did this mani pre-pandemic and I really don't remember what I used. 

*I started to write this blog post over 3 years ago. It's been sitting in my drafts folder for way too long so trying to finish if off.

In The Valley Of Kings

    Forgive the poor dry cuticles, I'm working on getting my nails back to picture perfect. Well, maybe like picture acceptable? Anyway, this was a challenge to use a plate I haven't yet played with. This is another BundleMonster (now Maniology) plate. BM-S250 which is now M063. A couple coats of Sally Hansen's "Coconut" from the Jelly Belly collection. I really like this polish because it is a "warm" white. Not really a cream or off white, but not super bleach brilliant white either. Stamped with Sinful Colors (I don't remember the name of it but it had "rock" in the title) and Maybelline's "Bold Gold" my fav gold stamping polish. I had a scarab beetle on one finger with a dot of blue for it's shell, but I disliked it so much I redid the whole finger. Sometimes less truly is more.

    This was a simple stamp, but I would like to try more with it in the future. I love the Egyptian feel to it and would like to incorporate more color to it.

Very proud of how straight the lines came out. No waviness at all!

The Spirits Speak

This is the plate that got me back into nail art. I'm so in love with this Ouija board plate (M071 and it's sister the Tarot card plate (M072) from Maniology. This is a very simple stamp of Sinful Colors black with Essie's "Dive Bar" blue duo-chrome over it. The stamped with BundleMonster/Maniology stamping white.

Quoth the Raven...

Yeah, it has been a while. Life got messy, as it does, and though it's not less messy, I feel the need to paint my nails again. I've always loved Halloween and now that I'm working in a library (OMG I love this job so much!!) I wanted something literature-ish and also Halloween-ish. Edgar Allan Poe it is! I don't really have an old paper colored polish, so my pastel yellow "Unicorn" from Sinful had to do the job. I stamped with a brown Sinful Colors that I've forgotten the name to. I think it had "rock" in the name. I really like that brown over the pale yellow. It gives the old paper with faded ink effect I was going for. I stamped over that with BundleMonster's stamping black polish. BundleMonster has changed their name to Maniology, so I'm going to mess that up quite a bit before I get used to the new name. The stamping plate is from when they were still BundleMonster. So the plate I have is BM-S248 but they have remade it so now it's M64.

Old BM plate

But it looks like M064 combines 2 plates, Poe and Vampires, so its like 2 in one now! That about does it for now. I have a Maniology order coming in soon so I hope to share new plates with you soon!

Holographic Pigment Powder

Holographic powder isn't exactly new. Spectacular? Yes. New? Not really. SpectraFlair has been a popular polish additive for years. the difference now is how its used. The holo of old was added to existing polish to give it a holo sheen but balancing the ratio could be difficult. Too little and you see no effect. Too much and you end up with grey sludge. The new powders in holo, chrome, and multi chrome that have recently exploded into popularity are buffed into the nail after it is polished. The coverage is surprisingly complete and I believe it uses significantly less of the precious powders.

One of the first pigments available in brick and mortar stores. I got this at Sally's Beauty Supply a few years ago. (yeah this review has been sitting in my queue for years.) SuperNail came out with Chrome, Rose Gold and Holographic. Of course I had to go with Holo. It was also a great time to use my Seche Vite UV lamp I got on clearance years before but never had polish to go with it. Pigment powders work best with a UV/LED No Wipe Top Coat.

Its really very easy to use. Just paint with the top coat, cure it under a light, use the eyeshadow applicator to pick up just the tiniest bit of powder, and buff it into your cured polish. That's it. All there is to it.

Literally this is all the powder you need for one nail.

This is Layla holo nail polish (with a little stamping for flair). I've yet to find a regular top coat that doesn't "eat" the holo effect so this is not top coated and wears away at the tip.

More Layla polish with no topcoat. Ring was with Black Holo, others with regular Holo.

Holo powder buffed into the nail with another coat of No Wipe on top of it so that it shines too! Index and ring have a coat of black under the top coat, the others are naked.  I'm in love with powders and now have a large collection of tiny pots of powder.

Kiss Nail Dress Stickers

Full transparency here: I've never been a fan of finger stickers. They may seem like such time savers and there are some fantastic designs out there, but the actual techniques, the logistics of it, I don't like. But I was willing to give it a shot. Maybe I was wrong about them. Spoiler warning: I wasn't.

So I've always been under the impression that nail polish strips were actual nail polish, painted thin so you can peel it up and put it on your nail. These arn't. They don't smell like polish and are actually thick and strong. They make me think of vinyl. They do give you alot of sizes and tips. If you're careful you can get a few manicures out of one package. If you just do accent nails, a lot more than that.

My biggest issue with them was the end that you file off the excess. It leaves a jagged edge that picks up fuzz and fur constantly. With my nails in particular, I have a decent C curve (the arch of the nail side to side) but I also have a Transverse Curve (a curve of the nail from cuticle to tip). Both of these curves means nearly all the full nail sized sticker I use wrinkles. I just don't have the skill to make it lay flat.

Jagged tips after just a day or two. The adhesive is very good and the stickers stayed on thru showers and hand washing, but they still just don't impress me.