Duochrome Crackhead

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/

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

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

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 ...

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.