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.

Celtic Knotwork

I think this is from St. Patrick's Day 2015? or 2016? I don't think the color is my beloved China Glaze "Running In Circles". I'm pretty sure it's Wet n Wild's "Emerald City"? I'm pretty sure it's layered over another green, but I'm not sure. It could just be several coats of "Emerald City.  Stamped with a black, probably Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" and a gold that might be Maybelline's "Bold Gold". A lot of this is guess work. It's been a long time since I did these nails.

Dot Mandala

I love the look of dot mandalas. I just don't have the hang of doing them myself quite yet. While this isn't bad, it's not quite right yet. This mani was done a few years ago (I'm working on getting my old posts up) so I'm not entirely sure what colors I used. As a guess I'd say mostly Sally Hansen.

Pokéball nails

Perhaps you remember a couple years ago me talking about a game called Ingress? Yeah, no one remembers really. I love Ingress, but it just doesn't get the attention it deserved. Well, the people who made Ingress, Niatic, have made a new game. I know you've heard of it. You'd have to have been living under a rock or in a coma for the last couple months not to have noticed the sensation Pokémon has become!

These nails have been so popular that I've worn them for almost a month. Not that I get that much wear out of my manicures. When the chip I just repaint the same thing over again. If I didn't get so many compliments, I would have changed them by now, but everyone loves them.

Super simple to do. I painted my nails white with Orly's "Invisible Jet Plane" from their Wonder Woman collection then swiped red over half of the nail. I used a Sally Hansen color that I've forgotten the name to at the moment. Sorry. I'm writing this post while I'm out camping and don't have the polish with me right now. Don't worry if your line isn't all that straight, you're gonna cover it up with a black stripe. I used Orly's "Black Vinyl". Then a big dot of black and a smaller dot of white on top of that. Easy and so fun!