No, I'm not in Hawai'i. I wish I was though! It's been so gray and dreary the last couple days. So, for day 10 of the challenge, I decided to do tropical sunset nails for my gradient. This was my first time doing a gradient manicure, and I love the way it turned out!!!
Now that St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, it's back to challenge nails for me. Today is day 9: Rainbow. Now, I tried and tried to do traditional rainbows. I tried multiple techniques, but I didn't like how any of them came out. So I thought about it, and I decided that rainbow doesn't necessarily mean an actual rainbow, but just a rainbow of colors. I'd read about watercolor nails, and gave it a go! Now, I think this technique might work better with fewer colors, but I still like how it turned out.
I had this grand plan to do rainbows and pots o'gold on my nails for St. Patrick's Day, but alas, it was not to be. My rainbows just wouldn't turn out!! So I went with plan B: Zoya Holly with pots o'gold that I made using a ziploc bag. For the pots, I started with a base of WnW Black Lace Creme. I decided that didn't look enough like cast iron, so I added China Glaze Stone Cold on top. The coins I made using a dotting tool and Orly Luxe topped with Color Club Take the Stage. I topped the whole deal with Seche Vite. Actually, that's not entirely true. I used Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat on all my fingers on top of the Zoya, then put the decals on my ring fingers, *then* put Seche Vite on just the accent finger. Of course, I had to go and bugger it up by putting the pots on my nails "upside down", but oh well. I'm still really pleased with how it turned out
Day 8 of the challenge: Metallic! I used one of my favorite polishes of all time for this mani. Unfortunately, I bought it years ago (before I really got into doing my nails) and they don't appear to actually make it anymore :(
As I said in my last post, I'm a bit behind on posting my manicures. So today, you get two!
First up is for day 6 of the challenge: Violet. Well, purple at least.
I'm a wee bit behind on my challenge mani posts. It was a busy weekend! Here's what I had for Blue: Revlon Blue Mosaic. Simple, but oh so sparkly!
I started with my normal 2 bases, then put on a single coat of Revlon Blue Lagoon just to give it a base. I don't think I really needed it, since I used 3 coats of Blue Mosaic in the end. I smoothed it out with Seche Vite. The day after I did this, I added an abstract stamp in white. It really made it look like a mosaic! The white was reminiscent of the grout that would be between the tiles. Sadly, I didn't manage to get a picture of it before it got borked :(
Next up we have green! I *just* got this polish and I've been dying to give it a go. This is Jessica "Iridescent Eye" and it's a dupe for Chanel Peridot at a mere fraction of the cost. Yay!! I tried and tried to get a great picture, but between my poor photography skills and terrible lighting (thank you umpteenth day of rain in a row!), I just couldn't capture the wonderfulness that is this polish. I can't stop staring at my hands, flexing my fingers to see the colors change!
The orange really didn't last long. I just wasn't satisfied with the dots :( So, on to yellow!! Unfortunately, the weather here is still dismal and I don't have a good light source yet. I'm planning on putting together a homemade lightbox soon, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. So, this is the best picture I could get, and it still doesn't capture the rainbow loveliness that is Finger Paints Twisted. My hands look freakishly dry too, since I didn't want to take a minute to moisturize and miss the wee bit of, well, I won't call it sun, but brightness that we got.
Manicure number 2 for the 30 mani challenge is orange. Maiya over at Tarts N Talons did a similar manicure not too long ago with white, gray, and black. I decided I wanted to give the look a try, and did it with different shades of orange. I'm on the fence about this one. I think I needed to use more dots, and also I might like it better on a solid background, maybe white.
I apologize for the super craptastic picture. My camera batteries are dead (again!) so I used my phone and the weather here is dismal so I had horrible lighting.
