Konad and Glitter Abuse

EOTD: Hair Dye Gone Wrong (Sort Of)

2012-04-16T21:57:00.000+01:00

Thought I would revist the 80s by bleaching the very life out of my hair (and the Crazy Colour Fire) and it went a bit wrong (sort of). It's not that it went completely wrong, per se, it just wasn't what I was anticipating -- I was hoping for a lovely, uniform blonde with no silly colours in, but it's now white blonde with pink and peach streaks. Observe.

Nails are utterly bolloxed.

I loves it, I do, sorta (still wearing a hat) and, as an added bonus, it gave me a chance to restart the ELF Challenge as I fancied eyes that matched the hair. Didn't have spreadsheet available, so no idea whether I've used these.

Applied the usual base of Two Faced Shadow Insurance, then slapped on some of the A3 (yellowy) over the lid. Some F5 (purpley brown) went over crease and outer eyelid, bit of E1 over the F5 up to the browbone, then some more A3 as a highlighter.

This photo is the wrong size and it's annoying me.

Colours look rubbish on the photo, but they were pretty well pigmented, good job there ELF.

My Creme Egg Was Stolen

2012-04-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

And I was looking forward to that all day after a hard day's coding.

Sigh.

Anyway, I've had a chance to do somthing with my nails as they're in a right state and need colour and care and attention instead of the horrible, horrible treatment I've been giving them.

Started off with a base off Opi Ink Suede, then some Max Factor Fantasy Fire, then some NYX purple glitter stuff, more Fantasy Fire, more glitter, cup of tea then put a little decal of a butterfly and flower on. Top-coat on, bish-bosh, I am now going to kill the bastard who stole my Creme Egg with my pretty, pretty nails.

Boo.

2012-02-16T20:55:00.002Z

EOTD: ELF Challenge: Pink Fr-eye-day

2011-10-28T15:20:00.000+01:00

We are having a Pink Friday today which called for some pink eyes. Couldn't do nails as it wouldn't have worked with the title of this post, and I'm still enjoying rocking the Claire's Accessories Mystery Metallic Purple.

Never a great fan of pinky-pink eyes as they make me look really, really ill, which kinda defeats the point of wearing make-up in the first place. I want to get away from teh ills, not look at the bastards. And, why, yes this is another ELF 100 Colour Palette Challenge Post. Not quite gathered enough groovy pink samples to do anything interesting with.

Half-asleep in this picture. TBH, I was half-asleep when I put it all on, and I'm still half-asleep now.

Started off with the usual Two-Faced Shadow Insurance (which I use, like, all the time so I'm not sure why it's being mentioned in every post) and a base of NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk over the lid, crease and lower lash-line.

Eyeshadow H0 (pale peachy pink) was applied all over and around the duct (didn't show up much, though), E1 (pink) went onto the centre of lid, crease and lower lash-line and F2 (purpley-pink) went onto the outer lid, crease and lower lash-line. As mentioned earlier, this pinky-pink look makes me look really ill, so I went over the crease with some F1 (purple) and it looked a bit better. I expect to ruin/improve this look a bit later on by having a snooze and smearing it all over the place.

EOTD: ELF Challenge: Playing With Purple

2011-10-27T14:42:00.000+01:00

Oh sod it, lets do me eyes to match my nails (and shirt) then take photos of it and include it as part of the ELF 100 Colour Palette Challenge. Yeah, content, baby.

Shall be using colours B6 (goldy-brown), F0 (lilac) and F3 (mid-purple) for this (click on pic on left for bigger colour reference dooberry).

Bit messy but I do like this

Started off with some of the lovely Two-Face Shadow Insurance primer and a base of NYX Jumbo Stick in Milk. B6 (goldy-brown) was applied in the inner eyelid, then F0 (lilac) got patted onto the centre of the eyelid. F3 (mid-purple) went onto the outer lid and crease, and was blended in with the B6 (goldy-brown) with some more F0 (lilac). Could have done a better job of the blending really, looks a bit messy but it was early. I'm not an early person.

This is a colour-combo that normally wouldn't have been worn but will be again.

Right, Bored Already

2011-10-26T16:36:00.000+01:00

I appear to have a couple of days off, and this means I can dig out the Claire's Accessories Mystery Polish and Konad, hurray. Also, history in the making -- I've also managed to be quite organised and have scheduled some posts. Gasp! Shock! Horror!

This is pleasant.

This polish does not come with a name or a number, and is therefore going to be called Claire's Metallic Purple, because I'm quite sure that's what it said on the receipt (but this was back in June so I could be wrong. Regardless of wrongness, it will be called Claire's Metallic Purple). Two coats of this polish did the trick and I decided Konad it almost immediately.

New light shows off the Go-Faster stripe wrinkles on my finger

I was a bit, errrr, out of practise, and the pattern kept sticking to the stamper because I over-filed it and was too lazy to go over it again with a buffer to smooth it out (plus I'm not sure where it is).

Decided to go with the tip patterns on Bundlemonster plate BM 216; here I did the tips (in black, natch) on the majority of the fingers, then applied the design sideways on the accent finger. Looked good but was missing something. I resisted the temptation to chuck yet another skull on there and went for a devestatingly original flower from GCOCL plate A01. Did this in Stargazer Chrome Gold 237 and was actually a bit disappointed in the result. The Stargazer Chromes really pop out when used as a stamping polish, but not this one, it was a bit poxy. Finished it off with some NYX Girls 151 (doesn't appear to have a name, it's a purple glitter) and then I went off to find new and interesting ways to trash this mani.

EOTD: The ELF 100 Colour Palette Challenge

2011-10-25T13:00:00.000+01:00

Got my ELF 100 Colour Eyeshadow Palette the other day, and the husband rolled his eyes a bit.

Click this one for biggers

So, yes, 100 colours for someone who fears teh colour upon their eyes. I've set myself the personal challenge of using every single colour on the palette -- I've done a spreadsheet and everything, and, as the colours aren't named or owt, I've given them numbers and letters, as you can see above.

Starting the challenge with two colours that I would never, ever wear in a million, gazillion years -- shimmery yellow and red. Or, in this case, B1 and G9 (with a bit of A0 at the brow-bone but you can't see that)

Eyes match hair. Win.

Both colours were applied wet over some Two-Faced Shadow Insurance primer and they came out pretty bright. They've been on all day and I've yet to take it off so I must like it. Yeeeeaaaah ... I'm kinda liking the red. And the yellow, actually, despite it all feeling a little Karma-Karma-Karma-Karma Karma Chameleon (red, gold no green).

NOTD: Fresian Cows With Spots

2011-10-23T20:07:00.000+01:00

Now that this blog has a few more followers (hello), I'm going to again try and find out the name of this BYS mystery polish. Also taking this opportunity to mess around with me new daylight lightbulb.

Bit off-colour here.

Not sure why the colour has a bit of a magenta tinge to it there -- it certainly didn't in this photo taken earlier this year. Ho hum. Anyway, I like this polish, it applies well despite the horrible awkwardness of the lid, coverage is pretty sound after three coats. Can't moan about this polish really, tis a shame I don't know the name and can't purchase any more (they stock none in the shops round these parts).

Glitter is smelly, yet effective.

I got these cute skull cherry nail decals and wanted to give them a go. The BYS Mystery White Polish got a coat of some eBay red glitter (the stuff that comes in those funny faux Nfu.Oh bottles) and I hoped it would last.

A Fresian Cow with Spots

It didn't. Here is my standard 'lets make this ruined polish-job last a bit longer cos it's only going to get spoilt again when it gets redone' repair job. Yeah, crackle. Covers up a multitude of sins though. Should probably add that there was further ruination and there should have been a picture of the tips covered with some black polish but I've killed another memory card.

EOTD: A Green, Glittery 100th Post

2011-10-20T16:28:00.000+01:00

Soooo ... I got some samples from Fyrinnae \o/ Went for some goldy green in the form of the sublime Dokkalfar to go with yesterday's nails.

I have my father's eyes and every time I see a pic of my eye I feel like I'm about to be admonished for something. My father wouldn't look good in glitter, incidentally, now I'm thinking about him, all glittered up and wearing an Italian suit and it's all :D

Camera doesn't quite pick up the MEGA SPARKLE

Teamed this one up with some khaki from this Beauty UK palette. I haven't really worn green on my eyes before -- it took me long enough to start liking it on my nails -- but it's on, and it's likeable. Very likeable, in fact. Yeah, getting a bigger jar of Dokkalfar for sure. Wish the sparkle would show up more in the photos, it's brilliant in real-life to the extent that I felt the need to flutter the eyelids at the husband every three seconds. Well in.

A P5 Rover called Sidney

2011-10-19T19:13:00.000+01:00

We once had an old P5 Rover called Sidney (here's a picture from the Torygraph. It's not our one, it belongs to the Queen). Lovely car, it was, sounded good, nice and comfortable, shame it cost about £100 in fuel to travel about 25 miles. Sold it in the end for a pittance.

This is what colour it was:

Lasting Fix, my arse

It was covered in Boots 17 Lasting Fix Exquisite, which is a spot-on British Racing Green with a bit of subtle shimmer. The paint-job on the classic car lasted a lot better than this polish, mind, the tip-wear you see above was caused by the strenuous toils of sleeping and opening up a few spreadsheets the next morning. There may have even been some punishing coffee-drinking involved as well.

I was not impressed with the wear on the so-called Lasting Fix, and smothered it with Boots 17 Black and Gold Crackle.

Oh. This didn't come out how I'd originally hoped

Bit underwhelmed by this crackle, TBH, it looked so promising on the bottle but now it looks like some git has poured glittery tar over the paint-job of Sidney the P5 Rover.

EOTD: Gateway Drug

2011-10-17T16:38:00.000+01:00

A quote from me other blog from 15th January 2011. This was when I gave up the cigs and started on the polish.

"Anyway, one of the things that I've been doing to keep my hands occupied is doing my nails, because I like colouring things in, the smell of nail varnish, as well as dodgy finger bling. I appear to be going a bit girlie with my midlife crisis, dunno WTF is going on. I'll be going bonkers over eyeshadows next"

And it has happened -- nail polish has turned out to be a bit of a gateway drug and I've gone a bit bonkers about eyeshadow. I'm also going to work on getting rid of my irrational fear of colour around the eyes, cos I mainly wear black or brown or BOTH, so until then have some Madd Style Cosmetics Glitter Bitches.

Bright pink glitter on black, swoon, shame it doesn't show up all that well

Glitter Bitches (left) is black with wonderous amounts of pink glitter and I like it very much -- very smooth to apply, doesn't make my eyes fat or itchy and it looks bloody gorgeous. I applied it wet over some primer and it looks spanking enough. Also used a bit of the light pink in this Beauty UK palette as well, and it didn't look ridiculous, so we went out for a coffee. Very nice it was, too.

The Nubbiniser

2011-10-13T15:53:00.000+01:00

Had to take some drastic action on the nails after an unfortunate incident. It's great being able to type again, but they're so short, I'm a bit sadface, really.

Maybe some holographic polish would turn that frown upside down.

Look, it's colourful and shiny, you miserable beast.

Nah, not really. Well, how about a Konad job with some Spectraflaired polish and plate BM201.

Too much holo. Can't see anything.

Hmmmm, well, no, still :( Sulky cow.

Put The Sharpie Back In The Box

2011-09-20T17:31:00.000+01:00

Got bored whilst waiting around for burly men to remove the scaffolding from my house (house didn't fall down, my roof shines), so gave the nails a damn good seeing-to.

Decided on a boring French manicure as I thought I needed a break from all the pretty colours. Started off with two coats of Elf Innocent, which is remarkably sheer but managed to hide the stains quite well. Unfortunately, it also made my nail tips look orange and streaky, like they'd been covered in some awful 80s fake tan, so I've not included any pics of it on its own.

Tips were done in China Glaze The Ten Man, then Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor (blue glitter). It looked rather spanking, actually.

Elf Innocent, China Glaze The Ten Man and Sinful Colours Pearl Harbor with friend.

Accent finger got a full covering of Pearl Harbor, and then I got a Sharpie out and drew a really rubbish skull, stuck some rhinestones on to represent a bow at a jaunty angle, then wished that I hadn't bothered.

Boring Post

2011-09-10T18:15:00.001+01:00

Not posted in a while, so here's an update.

My associate and I have been spending a fair bit of time lately making plugs (or gauges, as some of you like to call them), and it hasn't done my nails a lot of good :( They look minging and paint-stained, and I keep accidentally drilling bits out with the Dremel. I'm ruining me nails as soon as I polish them (but haven't broken any, though, which is quite curious).

Hope your all groovy and froody, see ya soon :)

Wings of the Sparklebeast

2011-08-23T20:47:00.000+01:00

The sun came out the other day, which called for a bit of Kleancolor Holo Chrome.

Two coats of Kleancolor Holo Chrome

It smells of CHEMICALS but it went on smoothly and only needed a couple of coats for opacity. Felt a bit rough though, but that was quickly sorted out with some top coat. I love this polish, it's well sparkly when the sun comes out. Full marks for blingtasticness.

Like the wings of a sparklebeast

The mega-sparkle got a bit distracting after a few days so I went over it with some black Konading, using BM208 and some MUA Shade 2 (black). Good stuff.

I Have Four Fingers

2011-08-11T15:45:00.001+01:00

Found a Boots No 7 Gift Set recently, and have absolutely no idea where it came from :O It's got some nice colours in it, though. Here is Boots No 7 Milan posing on my fingernails.

Boots No 7 Milan Swatch

Milan is a nice, foily pink -- not my usual colour but it's nice too look at. Went on well and only took two coats for full opacity. Posing with four fingers today as I managed to stab my index finger with some very sharp scissors and it doesn't look very nice. Fingers are well on the piss in the pic.

This pattern on m73 covered up all my little mistakes, yay.

Haven't Konaded anything for ages, so I dug out Konad plate m73 and had a damn good stamping. Hurray.

Duochrome Crackhead

2011-07-24T20:56:00.001+01:00

Wotcha,

Wow, it's been ages since me last post, sorry about that but got married (which was very nice), went to Sonisphere (which was very damp) then teh ills came along to join in on the fun. Hands don't work properly again, which is wearing a bit thin.

Played with some light colours as I can apply them at the moment. This one is four coats of Avon Nailwear Pro Star -- a frosty white polish.

Fascinating

Bit boring, really. I put some CND Sapphire Sparkle over the top of it, which didn't do all that much so I've not bothered with a pic. Some Laura Paige Black Crackle went over the top, then some more CND Sapphire Sparkle went over that and then this happened ...

Flipping 'eck, Tucker

Duochrome crackle completely and utterly owns <3

\o/ \m/ \o/ \m/ \o/

2011-07-06T21:49:00.000+01:00

Wow, hello there new followers, and hello there old followers as well.

I have nothing of note to post, except I won't be here for a bit as I'm off to get married to the lovely Mr Luton, go to the Sonisphere festival (probably muddy) and eat loads of stuffed crust pizza.

See ya on the other side ...

Duochrome and Glitter Sandwich

2011-07-03T19:29:00.000+01:00

Wanted something shiny, duochrome and sparkly for my last weekend of freedom celebrations. Nails Inc Chesham Street, I CHOOSE YOU.

Two coats of Nails Inc Chesham Street

Oooh. Can't fault anything about this varnish at all - the application of two coats was smooth, the blue and purple duochrome vibrant, and there was even blue shimmer in there. Amazing looking polish - I liked it so much that I considered forgoing the sparkle for a while. However, I was ~~bolloxed~~ a bit intoxicated at the time and felt the need to smother the glorious duochrome and shimmer with lots of Laura Paige 40 Limited Edition Starlette, a holo glitter.

Motorbike in background is for sale BTW

Yeeeeeaaaaaah ... shouldn't have done that. I attempted to quickly go over it with some more Chesham Street and found that it looked alright mate so I put more glitter over it, and another thin coat of Chesham Street, and then we agreed that it looked fab and should leave it alone.

Give us a twirl

Yeah baby

Also, wore my wedges this weekend and did not break any ankles.

80s Bleached Jeans

2011-07-02T15:54:00.000+01:00

Really wasn't feeling yesterday's yellow and, no matter what I did - sandpapering, aggressive washing up (not my job, you see), picking at things, etc - I just couldn't put a dent in it. This further proves the theory that the amount a polish-job is liked is inversely proportional to the amount of times it lasts. Somewhat annoying.

Horrible picture of two coats of La Femme Ice Blue Cream.

Not sure what happened with the pix as they all came out all blurry - probably an operator issue (hides most of the horrible cuticles though, sorry bout them). But, yes, La Femme Ice Blue Cream is a pastel blue creme that should have been worn sooner (had it ages). Didn't go on too badly and it looked good enough to go at two coats. Have to say that I am quite impressed with the pigmentation on these La Femme Creams, the colours so far have been pretty fab and a pleasure to look at.

Until I get bored ...

Which eventually happened and I thought that I'd give the splatter mani on Jessica's Nail Art a go. It was a right pain to begin with, as I had no joy with a straw and had to go through a number of household implements and the contents of the Stuff That'll Will Come In Handy drawer. Eventually got the splattering to work by using the outer shell of one of those pound-shop pens that work for 20 seconds then conk out.

Seem to make things messier when I clean up

I sellotaped my fingers up, splattered La Femme Blue Cream (medium blue) and Orly Lunar Eclipse (darker blue with shimmer) and Barry M Matt White everywhere and made a lumpy mess on my nails. It was all looking a bit dodgy but a couple of coats of top-coat eased the lumpiness and made everything sunshine and bunnies.

Bit better from this side

Despite the pictures making it all look a bit minging, I like this splatter mani, it reminds me of the days of tight bleached jeans and psychobillies ... mmmmmm ...

Holo is My ...

2011-06-30T17:10:00.004+01:00

Look, I'm wearing yellow! What's going on? And why won't this post show up in Google Reader if I have the word Crack in the title?

Collection 2000 Hot Looks 22 Oh La La.

No, I've not gone back to chain-smoking, instead I am wearing Collection 2000 Hot Looks Oh La La, a pearly golden yellow that simply isn't my colour whatsoever. Don't even know how it came to be in my possession, must have borrowed it from someone. Sorry if it's yours, you can have it back. I'm so far out of my comfort zone right now that I am situated somewhere near Neptune.

Back to the polish - application was not a problem, four coats were needed for opacity and drying time was utterly ridiculous -- it refused to dry and stayed in an uncured state for most of the evening, so possibly the formula has gone off. It is old and a bit smelly.

I'd read about Custom Painting Pearls and their holographic flakes over at Blingernails (thanks Missus Blingernails, you're my hero) and naturally ordered a nice 25g bag. That's a lot of bling :) Immediately after delivery I got to the mad experimentation and managed to produce this franken of Laura Paige Black Crackle and holographic flakes, which are more like tiny holo glitters.

Holo is My Crack franken. It's not really working as it should

I had to add a lot of the holo glitter to get the final effect, which wasn't all that (but better than the above pic). The glitter also left the franken rather dense and hard to work with, and the amount of glitter added affected the cracking and it didn't crackle as much -- the W7 Earthquake Silver hardly cracked at all with the added holo.

The franken was very powdery, had the same texture as dried cement and needed several layers of top coat to bring out the bling. It wasn't all that holo-y but I still named it 'Holo is My Crack'.

Now with added Spectraflair top-coat and a nice tip-chip

I did initially give the crackle the Spectraflair treatment but it didn't show up at all, which was a bit gutting as crackle would look AWESOME with linear holo. So I chucked some Spectraflair top-coat over it.

TOP TIP: Has your Spectraflair polish gone horribly wrong? Never fear, put some thinner in the bottle, let the Spectraflair sediment settle to the bottom and then pour out the contents onto a paper towel. The paper towel should absorb a lot of the thinned polish, leaving you with a pretty pile of Spectraflair on the towel and in the bottle.

Still Cheating At Marbles

2011-06-29T16:38:00.002+01:00

Hello there followers, old and new. You alright?

So I decided to go out of my comfort zone this week, going to try new things, like purchasing a pair of black wedgey sandals because I have too many pairs of black boots. Expect a post about broken ankles, and soon! Also going to try and not stamp my nails this week, for a laugh.

Right, today's new thing is to do stuff with pastely colours. As it's Pink Wednesday, lets have a look at this here La Femme Pink Cream.

Two coats of La Femme Pink Cream. Had worse.

La Femme is a cheap and cheerful brand that isn't too bad really. I've had worse, but I'm old. The colour is like a kick-arse bubblegum pink, it's well-pigmented and TBH I'm not sure it counts as a pastel. It did not like my base-coat at all and had to go on naked nails - even then the application wasn't as pleasant as it could have been, it went a bit patchy and sometimes lumpy. A spot of top-coat smoothed the finish out, though, and it looked alright after that. Actually quite like this colour, yay for trying something new.

It's got this plastic finish wot I love

I wanted another go at the easier marbling (tutorial here), which technically isn't a new thing as I done it t'other day, but I wanted to improve on my n00bskillz. Used La Femme Pink Cream, La Femme Lavender Cream and Barry M Matt White as the marbling polishes.

Did pretty much the same thing as last time, quick circle of base-coat, some drops of different colour polish (made the drops wider by teasing them with a marbling tool), did S-shape squiggles and made it look like an abstract mess that I liked. I applied a very thin coat of the base colour to the nail before applying the marbly polish so it stuck to the nail a bit better.

The pic on the left is my favourite nail as it reminds me of Jupiter. Why, yes, I did manage to dent it at the bottom almost immediately after putting on top-coat :(

Rebel, rebel, your nails are a mess.

By the time I'd gotten round to taking photos I'd ruined a few bits and had to do some repairs and a very rushed clean-up job, so the pix look horrible and lumpy. Still wearing it, though.

Sunshine On A Rainy Day

2011-06-28T16:09:00.000+01:00

Awful weather here, we've had this storm that will not go away and I've left the washing out on the line :O

Anyway, recently got given a couple of blog awards, hurray!

Rules:
1. Thank the person who tagged you and link to their blog.
2. Put the Top 10 Award logo on your blog.
3. List your top 10 cosmetics.
4. Choose 10 bloggers to tag, link to their blogs, and let them know

Thanks fer the tag, Swååfie and your lovely blog (enjoy Roskilde, you lucky mare).

Not very good with this sort of thing as I'm not very girlie, so here is an attempt at my top 10 cosmetics:

1). Right. Nail polish.
2). YSL Touche Eclat (I have run out :( )
3). Black eyeliner.
4). Black mascara.
5). Boots No 7 Illuminating stuff.
6). Actually, the Boots No 7 glycolic acid peel stuff was quite good as well.
7). Hair dye in red or purple, or a mix of the two.
8). Errrrr ...
9). Oooh, I got some GOSH primer the other week and it does the job nicely. I think. It's my first primer so I haven't a clue :)
10). That'll do.

Shall get to the tags in a moments, but firstly it's time for ...

Rules:
Thank & link back the person who gave you the award.
Write a post about it.
Pass it on to 10 bloggers you think really deserve it.

Thank you very much for this, Laura and your Lacquers, it brought a little bit of sunshine in what was a very grey and British day :)

And now for the tags ... I've combined the tagging so there are only ten. Cop-out. Anyway, if you're tagged then pick whatever award you want, and if you've already got both then I will make you a cup of tea with a HobNob :)

1). Blingernails
2). Glazed Talons
3). Gold Speck Nails
4). JuliesNailz
5). Laura's Lacquers
6). Nail Newbie
7). Sara ♥'s Pretty Little Things
8). Swååfie
9). The Student's Guide To Nail Polish
10). And anyone on me blog-roll.

Easy-Peasey-Teasey Does It Marbling

2011-06-26T11:55:00.002+01:00

Wanted to snuggle up and luxuriate in some shade of red. Luckily, OPI Tease-y Does It wanted to snuggle up with me, and I couldn't resist it's wanton charms.

OPI Tease-y Does It. Three coats.

Tease-y Does It is a deep burgundy with a red shimmer that shifts to gold and green in the bottle, but not so much on the nails - you can just about make out the colour-shift in the photo. Application was no problem and it took three coats to get a good shiny finish. Not my usual sort of colour at all, but the red shimmer completely won me over and I, errr, like it.

I can't water-marble, it gives me the right hump, but I wanted to try out some marbled nails with the Tease-y Does It, Urban Decay Twisted (gold) and China Glaze Ruby Pumps (red). The following method came about whilst practising for yet another water-marbling disaster, and I found it to be much easier and less messier than the water-marbling. Not only that but the polishes take a while to dry as well, giving you more time to work. Result! On the downside, it's very slow process as you have to let thick layers of polish dry, this is awful if you're an impatient soul like me.

You will need some polishes, one of those floppy plastic CD containers, a marbling tool/toothpick/watchmaker's screwdriver/small pointy implement and a sharp scrapey thing, such as a razor, knife or Konad scraper.

You will need these things.

1. Draw a large circle with a fairly thick layer of your base colour polish. Try to size it so it fully covers your nail.

It's my rarely seen thumb!

2. Drop a drop of your next polish in the centre of the still-wet polish. It spreads a bit further if you drop it from a bit of a height, and you can spread it a bit further by gently pushing it with the brush/marbling tool. Add another drop if it doesn't spread very far.

3. Same as above with your third polish. You see where I'm going with this, don't you.

Drip the polish, make pattern.

4. Starting from the top, lightly drag your chosen marbling tool through the wet polishes. Looks like a <3, ahhh.

Future Valentine's Day Manicure spotted.

5. Do some more straight lines. Or squiggles, whatever, this marbling is much more fun to experiment with.

Did some more straight lines

6. Now it's time for the hardest part -- letting it dry. It takes ages. Leave it overnight if possible.

7. A few hours or so later, peel a bit using a razor-blade or a Konad scraper-me-do. It should peel off easily, if not leave to dry for a bit longer.

Picking at it, finding it not dry, trying to leave it alone. This is hard.

8. Grab your peeled bit and gently peel it off the plastic with your fingers. Again, if it seems a bit tacky or sticks to the plastic, leave it for a bit longer.

9. Put on a thin layer of top-coat/base colour. Apply the marbled polish on your nail, position it in a way that you like, and trim any excess off with some little scissors. Don't worry if you can't get all of it, that can be sorted with a brush and some nail polish remover.

Oh, that looks so attractive.

10. Apply some top-coat. If you have any peely bits put some top-coat underneath and stick 'em down.

11. Remove the excess, admire your work. I've only done the ring finger on each hand as I am doing things later that will more than likely ruin it all :(

Only did one finger

Removal can be a PITA, depending on the polishes, but the glitter removal trick works well here.

And there we go, easy but slow marbling, and not a spot of Konad abuse in sight. Feels weird.

Hatful of Holo

2011-06-25T10:00:00.000+01:00

I saw a post quite recently on Blingernails about the wonderful Spectraflair pigment and I had to have a go at it because it looked so gorgeous and colourful and blingtastic. In fact, Blingernails is currently having a giveaway and one of the prizes is some of the luvverly Spectraflair. Go enter!

I scored a gram of it from Custom Creation Paints and it turned up a couple of days later. Hurray. As I'd always fancied a good, black holo polish I made one out of some MUA Shade 2 (black)and some Spectraflair and called it Blimey Holographic.

One coat of franken Blimey Holographic

Dodgy photos today as there has been no sun, and my camera could only pick up the holo under certain lighting conditions, so had to make do with my melting desk-lamp. Have to say that the nails looked fantastic in Costa's yesterday, and I may have done a spot of finger-waggling with my large mocha. Such a poser.

Blimey Holographic in the Ferrari Pose

Some nice holo going on there. This is the bit where I'm unfortunately a bit unhelpful and say that I have no idea how much Spectraflair I put in, just added small amounts with a tiny scoop thingee then thought, "oh that looks OK, I'll put some on now". Didn't add a great amount as there is still LOADS left, really was maybe a bit stingy with it.

I had this bottle of silver Konad Special polish that wasn't all that, and spent it's life sitting in a box waiting to be used. It got the Spectraflair treatment and I attempted a Konad with the new holoed up polish and fauxnad Image Plate B (design is also on Konad plate m50). The holo didn't show up at all until it got some top-coat over it, then it looked pretty rainbowy. Finished it off with some dots of holo glitter (an ancient bottle of Boots 17 Party Animal) and was all blinged up for the weekend.

Holo base, holo Konad, holo glitter. Don't think I missed anything.

Where's my holo gone?

I have yet to destroy this mani. Go me :)