NOTW: Girly Pink Nail Art!

Hello and happy Friday!!

Today I am excited to show you some nail art. There were a lot of steps involved and a lot of dry time, so I did this over the course of two days. First I applied my go-to basecoat (Sinful Colors Nail Hardening Base) and two coats of OPI Bubble Bath, a very light pink. I followed that up with a coat of Seche Vite, so it would dry sometime this year. Once I was sure it was really, really dry and wouldn't be marred, I worked on one nail at a time using scotch tape to cover up part of the Bubble Bath and painting a generous coat of Zoya Shelby, a bubble-gum pink, over the entire nail (tape and all). I immediately removed the tape so the lines would be clean (I did have some issues with the tape tearing, but a gentle-handed tweezers put it right.). Then, I did nothing... for a long time to make sure I didn't ruin it. I did bump my right hand, but the left one came through unscathed! Finally, I added another coat of top coat to protect the fresh polish (I think I used NYC's topcoat).

I waited until the next evening to stamp the houndstooth pattern on--nothing worse that wrinkling not-quite-dry polish with the stamper. I used a very old and very thick bottle of Pure Ice Gossip to stamp the houndstooth pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM19. I used the same tape method to cover the parts of the nail I did not want the pattern on. At this point, I was planning to be done, but it looked unfinished. I used the pointed end of an orange stick to make three tiny dots in a triangle pattern then drug the polish between the dots to create a heart on each nail. I finished it up with another generous coat of NYC's topcoat.

Here is the result:

 Left picture is indoors, under artificial light, no flash. The right is outdoors in direct sunlight--super glossy!

 Here you can see the details and you can tell on my thumb how I drew the hearts--guess I didn't get those edges filled in all that well. It's not as noticeable in person as it is on the macro shot, but it gives you a good idea of what I was talking about up there

Indoors, artificial light, plus flash.

I thought this ended up being incredible girly and fun. Maybe it's almost too pink and girly?

Outdoors in direct sunlight.

This was my first attempt at using tape this way, and it turned out better that I was expecting. I'm suddenly flooded with ideas....

Have a great weekend! More Monday! ^_^

Stash Swatch Initiative: China Glaze Love's a Beach

 Hello again!

China Glaze Love's A Beach

Just a quick swatch again today.

Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

This is China Glaze Love's a Beach from their recent Summer Neons Collection. This collection snuck up on me--I didn't think these would be anything I had to have. I was wrong. I have six of the twelve and on the hunt for two more! Love'a A Beach has a fantastic formula that could be a one coater. I used two, per my normal, which just deepens the color. As with all neon polishes, this dries matte, so I've shown it here with New York Color In A New York Minute Fast Dry Topcoat. However, unlike many neons, this needed nothing underneath it for the color to pop--no base coat here! This does have a shimmer to it, which I completely failed to capture on camera. I owe you guys a sunlight picture soon.

Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

China Glaze is available from a lot of retailers. This bottle came from Sally Beauty, but you might not be able to find this easily anymore since newer polishes have been released and have taken over the displays. Head2Toe Beauty is a great place to reliably find older polishes (cheap too!), but sometimes hunting for that one item on your wishlist in an actual store is fun too.

I love pink! More soon! ^_^

Stash Swatch Initiative: OPI Skull & Glossbones

Hello again!

OPI Skull & Glossbones

Just a shortie post today!

Here is Skull & Glossbones from OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection. The formula was thick and a bit of a pain. I didn't use a base or topcoat with this. The first coat was really streaky and I was worried it wouldn't even out. I ended up needing three coats to get to this:

OPI Skull & Glossbones. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

This was on my first ever wishlist--when I first started getting into this little hobby, I spent hours pouring over blogs, looking at swatches. I made this giant list of polishes that I had to have. This was one of them, and that list ended up getting nearly completed. You'll get to see them as I continue to try and swatch them all during this little project of mine.

Even though this was a pain formula-wise, I do like this polish. It has a nice cement look to it. It reminds me of Halloween for some reason (maybe the name?), and I have plans to use this in a Halloween mani a few months from now. OPI is sold in salons, which is where I found mine. I'm not actually sure where else to get them, or how to find older polishes. I've since stopped buying OPI for a number of reasons, accessibility is one of them, but I'll continue to showcase the ones that I do have.

OPI Skull & Glossbones. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

More soon! ^_^