Week 9: Rainbow

Week 9 theme of the 52 week challenge is RAINBOW. This is also the first time I have done this technique on my blog. I decided I'm calling this a dripping paint rainbow.

Just for fun, I painted my nails with matte polish first for a nice contrasting base coat.

So here is my set up: Polishes for the nail I'm doing, 2 cut off plastic cups (one with a couple drops of each polish and one filled with nail polish remover), a thin paint brush or nail art brush, and a folded paper towel.

Below on the left is the red. On the right is after I painted the light pink and hot pink. Not much to this technique. I just dipped the thin paint brush in the polish and painted some thin stripes of alternating lengths.  I did this once with each color, then repeated each color to get a sort of layered look.

In between switching colors, I swished the paint brush in the cup with nail polish remover then wiped it off on the paper towel. 

Here's all the colors I used! (I listed them all left to right)

For Red/Pink:  Burgundy Flirt by Rimmel London, I'm Indi-a Mood for Love by OPI, and Brushstroke blush by Finger Paints

For Orange/Yellow:  Harvest Moon by China Glaze, Peachy Keen by China Glaze, and Pull Over by Sinful Colors

For Green: Navigate Her by Essie and Kissy by Sinful Colors

For Blue: Want my Bawdy by China Glaze, Why Not by Sinful Colors, and I Vant to be A-lone Star by OPI

For Purple: It's an original by Finger Paints and No Plain Jane by China Glaze

phew!! That was exhausting typing all those polish names out. Here's one more pretty dripping rainbow pic!

week 6: inspired by a game

Week 6 of the 52 Week Challenge theme is “Inspired by a Game". I couldn’t think of a good idea for the life of me and then I looked at my desk and saw my Rubik’s cube. Not really sure it is considers a game, but I love playing/sloving it :) My best solve time is 1:26. I had to paint it with nail polish because I used it so many times and the colors were wearing off. Anyways, so that was my inspiration!

Here is my left hand with the first two colors.

Here’s the added blue. I just took my time and did it freehand, but you could also use tape for straighter lines.

Then I used a black nail art polish to do black lines separating the colors.

Here’s the steps to the Rubik’s cube I did on my thumb with the black nail art polish.

Here is the right hand with the orange, white and green polish. Turned out pretty good I think!

These are the colors I used. From left to right they are:

Pull Over by Sinful Colors, Why Not by Sinful Colors, Lacquered Up by Essie, Limelight by Ulta, White On by Sally Hansen, and Orange, It’s Obvious! by Essie.

Technique: Sparkly Pumpkins + Week 5: Orange

So this is kind of a combined post. Theme of week 5 of the 52 week challenge is ORANGE annnnnd I did a new nail art/technique, hence the long post title :). Here are my sparkly Halloween pumpkins! I usually steer away from any nail art that is too corny looking, but I just love these little cute pumpkins for Halloween. And it really wasn’t all that difficult to do!

First I did a coat of Peachy Kean as a base for the sparkly orange. I don’t have a picture of that, but any orange color would have worked as a base. On top of that I used Fall of Surprises! by Finger Paints. This is two thick coats of it:

So here is 3 pics of how I did the mini pumpkin tips. I did all this black nail art with a nail art polish (has a thinner brush). You can see my critique of nail art tools here.

1. Draw a vertical line in the middle of your nail. This is so you know where the middle of your pumpkin will be. It helps avoid having a crooked and uneven pumpkin.

2. Draw your two humps. I found it easiest to start from the vertical line I drew first, draw half a hump, then start at the edge of the nail and draw the other half of the hump. Then repeat with other hump. Hope that makes sense haha.

3. Then fill in the rest of the area with the black nail art polish.

After that I added a cute little green stem (also with a nail art polish) to these mini pumpkins.

For the thumb, I had a bigger canvas so I did a jack-o-lantern instead of a mini pumpkin.

The right thumb jack-o-lantern doesn’t look this good, but it doesn’t look bad. Just did a smile instead of teeth and did the best I could for triangle eyes on my right thumb. No sweat!

Here is one more pic with the nail art polishes I used! Love this festive look :)

week 3: REDDIT!

This is a little late since it is already week 4 of the 52 week challenge… but better late than never! I actually did paint these on last week for week 3; I just delayed doing a post about them. The theme last week was inspired be Reddit. So for my design I did my interpretation of the Reddit alien. Ended up being pretty fun and easy nail art. So here it is! I’ll do a post about week 4 in a little bit.

Technique: Freehand Fishtail

I just saw this technique the other day on Reddit Laqueristas. It looks sort of like a fishtail braid. I've seen people do it much thicker than this, but if you layer the polish swipes you can get the stripes much thinner... like this!

After you've done your top coat on all 10 nails, set up all your striping polishes unscrewed in the order you want to use them. Here is mine all set up. Colors from left to right are: Why Not by Sinful Colors, Orange It's Obvious! by Essie, Houston we have a Purple by OPI, Fly by OPI, and Electric Pineapple by China Glaze.

Here's a step by step pic tutorial of how I did this fishtail look. Basically its just an alternating layered striping technique. You just use the polish brush for the stripes. The last step is in the next pic.

After you finish the striping you cover up the bottom in your base color. I used a nail art brush for better control.

Tips:
- Use a thin polish if you can and make your stripes as thin as you can.  The thinner the stripes the less the layers mix together.
- Use a sheer polish if you want the layer overlaping to show up.
- GO SLOW. this is why I only did two nails each hand. I had to go very slow to paint in a straight line.
- to have more control of your brush, steady your "painting hand" on the surface your painting. i.e. rest the pinky or ring finger of your painting hand on the table your left hand is resting on. This should steady your hand a little bit.

Combo: Fall Flecks

So the whole point of this blog is that the nails *should* be easy enough for you to try yourself. I'm all about struggling through a manicure and then posting my tips/techniques/critiques so my readers don't have to suffer with what doesn't work like I did. However, sometimes I just find a nice combination of polishes that look good together that I want to share and then I think "wait a minute, that isn't a tip, technique or critique....so I can't post it"

Therefore, I decided to add a new type of post... From now on, "combo"s will be posts that are simple and to the point with what polish colors I found look good together. Or maybe it will be an old technique I've already posted about with a new combo of colors. So here is the first COMBO post!!
  
I did this combo because I thought it looked very Halloweeny! I love Halloween and October in general so why not start with the Halloween nails a little early. Besides it's not like I'm painting a pumpkin on my thumb nail. Pretty fall flecks:
  

I have used this glitter polish before in this technique. It's funny how flakie polishes look completely different depending on what sort of base coat you use. On the technique linked above, the flakie glitter I used (Luxe and Lush) looks more diamondy and blueish silver. On the black I used in this combo it looks orange and green... Almost like copper metal flakes embedded in clear polish. Perfect for pumpkins! And on top of the black polish I think the glitter stands out more. Very Halloweeny/Fall like.

I hardly ever wear black polish so the base coat I used is just the solid black I've had for years. It's Beguiling Black by Maybelline Express Finish. Still worked pretty good though!

This is another polish that looks like orange glitter flecks when you paint it on a dark color. I know the polish looks pink but the glitter looks orange and green.

Technique: Summer Stripes

These fancy stripes are such a fun summer look! They take a little bit of time, but they are worth it. I’ve gotten tons of complements since I did these nails.

These fancy stripes are such a fun summer look! They take a little bit of time, but they are worth it. I’ve gotten tons of complements since I did these nails.

The way I usually do taping is to tape one whole hand first. I suggest taping your least dominant hand first because your second hand will have to be done with wet nails. 

After your taping is done on your one hand, start with the painting. Before you start, Set up your bottles on a paper towel opened and in the order you want to use them. This way you can paint and remove tape quickly. 

Colors I used (left to right): Fly by OPI, Fiercely Fiona by OPI, and Orange, It's Obvious! by Essie

Paint one nail at a time, and remove the tape immediately after taping. Below is the first painted nail before the tape is removed. Try to not run the paint into each other so your brush colors don’t mix.

Don’t forget to finish with a good topcoat! Don’t want all your hard work to chip right away. Make sure your nails are dry before you apply topcoat.

Good luck and happy summer times ;)

Tip: Alternating 3 Colors

This tip is simple and maybe obvious to some, but I just did my nails this way so I thought I’d blog it. It is about alternating 3 colors on your nails. First thing to mention I guess would be color. In my opinion, the best color combos are either all warm colors (reds, pinks, oranges, yellows) or all cool colors (greens, blues, indigos, purples). Another good way to do alternating colors is shades of the same color (like lavender, purple, dark purple). For this one I used some happy spring citrus colors, i.e. grapefruit, orange, and lemon. The polishes I used from left to right in the below photo: Essie in Mod Square, China Glaze in Peachy Keen, Sinful Colors in Pull Over.

Okay, so in terms of which colors to paint which nails. The obvious way to do it would be ABCAB CABCA. However, if you do it this way your pinky and pointer finger are polish A on both hands. In my opinion that pattern looks too symmetrical and a little funny looking. I would rather have none of my left side nails matching my right. So the is the pattern I decided on is: ABCAB CBACB. My painted nails are below. I think it looks more random which is what I wanted!

Have fun and happy polishing! <3 La

Tip: Spring 2012 Colors

I know not everyone loves spending time on nail designs so I thought I’d do a Tip on colors. What better day to post about spring colors than the first day of spring! Above are the spring 2012 colors (according to Pantone) and all their fancy names. In terms of nail polish, I researched different sites and spring collections and I found these to be the most popular nail polish colors this season: Purple, Green, Hot Pink, Orange, Blue, and Nude.

Below I showed my fav nail polishes in these spring colors in three different types: Pastel, Shimmer, and Bold… have a look!

Purple

ESSIE in To Buy or Not to Buy (PASTEL)

NARS in Diamond Life (SHIMMER)

China Glaze in Gothic Lolita (BOLD)

Green

RBG in Dew (PASTEL)

ESSIE in Navigate Her (PASTEL)

China Glaze in Agro (SHIMMER)

Sephora by OPI in Totally Karma (BOLD)

Hot Pink

Nicole by OPI in Great Minds Think Alike (PASTEL)

Essie in Tour de France (SHIMMER)

Sephora by OPI in What Aura Gonna Wear (BOLD)

Orange

Essie in A Crewed Interest (PASTEL)

China Glaze in Riveting (SHIMMER)

Essie in Orange, It’s Obvious! (BOLD)

Blue

China Glaze in Kinetic Candy (PASTEL)

Sephora by OPI in Bright as a Feather (SHIMMER)

China Glaze in Shower Together (BOLD)

Nude

RGB in Vellum (PASTEL)

China Glaze in Fast Track (SHIMMER)
Sephora by OPI in Neutral Beauty (BOLD)