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: 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.

Technique: Missoni Gradient

This Technique was inspired by the Missoni Print. Below is a swatch of Missoni pattern for reference. My rendition almost looks a little easter egg-ish, but oh well!

For my base, I started out with thisa yummy yellow-green color (Fiercely Fiona by OPI).

then I did my first zig-zagged line as close to the top as a could. Almost like a zig-zag french! For all the lined detail I used a Nail Art Polish called "Magical Nail" by max Makeup Cherimoya. You can get like 12 of them for $15 on amazon. This one is Lavender.

Next color I used was Miss Sergeant. This one I tried to draw as close to the first line as I could, bit still leaving some space between.

Next, I used Blood Diamond. This one is much more spread out.

And lastly, to make it look more like a gradient, I filled in the yellow triangles on my nail tips with this blue color, Neon Aqua.

Tada! My try at a Missoni Gradient. I think if I do this again, I will try using tan as the base color and try to make the zig-zag more vertical. Then maybe it would look less easter eggy haha.

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: White makes it BRIGHT

This is the most simple and cheap tip ever. In this post, I used 3 colors from a cheapo nail polish set I got from Claire’s. The point of the tip is to make any shear polish really pop. The above photo was taken on a verrrry cloudy day and look how bright pink the polish looks!

To make bright shear polishes even brighter, all you have to do is start with one even coat of bright white nail polish. On top of that you will only need one even and light coat of your color nail polish. To the left are 2 photos of examples I did. In each photo, the left finger has 2 coats of the nail polish alone, and the right finger has 1 coat of white and 1 coat of the color.

The difference is clear (and not shear haha). The left finger in each photo you can even see the whites of my nail, which means if you get dirt under your nails you’ll still be able to see it... gross. Below is just another picture of the difference in color. 

Another pro of this tip, it doesn’t just look neon in the daytime... Because you are putting a white underneath a shear, your nails will also glow under a black light. Looks awesome at a night club ;) 

Technique: My take on DOTS

dot, dot, dot...

I just did these bold and bright nails yesterday. I was trying to think of something original that would catch your eye. Surprisingly this look came out just how I was picturing it in my head, well close at least... I was picturing a close up of an old style comic. My boyfriend says it reminds him more of a rubber duck and bubbles… either way I think its fun!

Colors used: Pull Over by Sinful Colors, and Nail Art Pen in Bright Blue by Sally Hansen.

I am officially in love with this nail art pen. It was soooo easy to use, even on my right hand! It wasn’t gloppy and it has a very pointy tip ideal for any type of design you can think of! Just try to think outside the box (and not use the tacky designs on this box haha)

Now, everyone can make a dot..  I'm sure you all have seen dotted manicures or even experimented a little yourself. However, starting with larger circles and reducing to small dots like this makes a gradient effect that looks 10 times more stylish, and just as simple with the nail art pen. 

I didn’t look up comic pictures until after I was done with the nails.. I guess it doesn’t really look the same *tear* but it's around the same idea haha. I definitely want these nail pens in every color so I think I might try something more like this pixilated pic soon ;)

<3 Lala