Studs and Pokeballs

Hello!  Today I have two more manis to show you.  

The first is using a polish I recently acquired from Orly's Cool Romance Spring Collection, 'Faint of Heart.  This colour is a light brown-ish gray with a very interesting finish.  In the bottle it looked like a flat creme, but once I got it on the nail  I noticed there were little black specs in it.  The finish is very interesting, and reminds me of concrete (in the best way possible).  The PolishAholic has a great close-up picture showing the finish on this polish.  Formula was a little goopy and streaky, but workable. This is two thick coats, with 2 coats of Seche Vite to seal in the studs.  I used studs from a Color Club Nail Art kit that I found on sale at Winners a few weeks ago.  I got a lot of compliments on this one!

Artificial light

With an effect I added before posting to Instagram

 Second, I have a mani inspired by Sammy at The Nailasaurus from Day 2 of her 'Week of Geek'.  For this one I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'White On' and 'Cherry Red', as well as a mini OPI that I can't find a name for.  I realized when I was getting my polished together to do this that I don't actually own a plain black polish (besides my Konad Special Polish).  This one took me 3 hours. *Hangs head in embarrassment*.  In my defense, I was using tape to get perfect lines and so I had to wait quite a while between steps.
Excuses.

With one coat of Seche Vite

I don't think I'll ever take a picture like this again. It looks like a spider and creeps me out.

I didn't get to post yesterday because I spent the entire day running back and forth from the dance studio to the theater for rehearsals and competitions.  Results?  Our lyrical group got 1st place, and our jazz got 2nd, both out of 7 groups competing.  Our lyrical also got the highest group score overall in our level. :)
That's all for right now, as I'm off to paint my nails with Orly 'Fowl Play' that I received in the mail a few days ago and is as of yet untried.  More will be posted tomorrow!

Swatch Time!

Today I've got some swatches of a few random colours to show you; one Essie and two Sally Hansen.  At the moment I'm on a break between rehearsals.  I'm in the middle of our busy season, with rehearsals, competitions, and shows nearly every weekend.  Best time to start a blog, right?  Anyways, on to the nails. 

First I've got Essie 'Super Bossa Nova' from the Braziliant Collection; this colour is a hot fuchsia pink with blue undertones.  This is three coats; you could make do with two but I could see a little nail line in certain lights and it bothered me. 

You might be able to see in the bottle, there appears to be some blue-ish and silver shimmer, but unfortunately that doesn't come out on the nail at all unless under direct light. 

Pardon the background in those two pictures, this was before I realized the importance of having a solid backdrop.  Below is 'Super Bossa Nova' with one coat of Essie 'Shine of the Times' on the accent nail. Unfortunately 'Super Bossa Nova' isn't very smooth, even with the two coats of Seche Vite you see in the pictures.  'Shine of the Times' is a flakie that shifts between orange, red, and green, and is unfortunately top-coat hungry. 

Next is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'Lacey Lilac'.  This is a pure creme, opaque in two smooth coats.  I love this colour, and will definitely be wearing it a lot this spring/summer.  This is the colour I used as a base in the mani in my previous post.  This is with one coat of Seche Vite. 

 Lastly, I have Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'White On', by far the best white I've tried.  Whites often have a tendency to be streaky or require multiple coats to be opaque, but this went on very smoothly with no problems.  I could have done with one coat, but I have a compulsive need to apply at least two coats of any polish.  This is with one coat of Seche Vite, since I was doing nail art on top of it.

All of these pictures were taken in artificial light, because the weather where I live is cloudy and rainy almost every day.  

Tomorrow I have dance competitions all day, but hopefully I'll find a few minutes to post some more pictures. Wish me luck! 

My First Blog Post!

At the moment I'm wearing 'Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?' from OPI's Spring/Summer 2012 Holland Collection, a muted grape-purple with micro-shimmer that shifts between red, orange, and pink. Unfortunately my camera doesn't seem to love this colour as much as I do, so I thought for my first few days of blogging I'd play catch-up on some of my past nails. 

First I'll show you one of my Easter manis from this year. I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'Lacey Lilac' (which I have and will post swatches of soon).  After that was dry, I taped off the area I wanted to leave purple, and painted on Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'Mint Sorbet', which is exactly the same colour as mint chocolate chip ice cream!  Next, I repeated the taping and painted on OPI 'Mod About You'. 

There is one coat of Seche Vite between each of the colours; I like to do this when I'm doing tape manis because it drastically shortens the wait time between steps. Impatient me!

I finished it off with one more coat of Seche Vite.  I love these colours together; so spring-y!