Moving on with the 30 day challenge, I did lines. This is a pretty simple mani, but a wee bit different. See, I just redyed my hair. Until a few days ago, it was teal. But I decided it was time for a change, and went and bought a few different colors of dye and then spent 2 days trying to decide what to do to it. I ended up going with orange and pink. Bright orange and pink. So, I did my nails to match!
See? Pretty close, I think!
I started with Orly Bonder as a base. I skipped my normal Nailtiques 2 this time. I couldn't come up with a mani I liked, and after the 3rd time I took it all off, I decided to stop wasting the treatment. That stuff's expensive! I think when this bottle is gone I'm going to go back to one of the NailTek treatments. They seem to work just as well for me, at about 1/4 of the cost. Anyway! After my base coat, I did 2 coats of Kleancolor Neon Pink and slapped on a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat. I've started using the Revlon between my base color and any design elements I do. It seems to even out the base if there are imperfections and helps seal it in. My manicures have been lasting longer since I started doing this. Once that had set, I striped it with Kleancolor Mango and topped the whole thing off with Seche Vite.
I'm still trying to decide if I like the pink and orange hair. I might just do all pink next time I dye. Or try combining the two differently. Or do pink and purple. Or some other color combination. Who knows!
I'm finally back to the 31 day challenge! Today, we have dots. I utterly failed at capturing the true magic of this manicure. I think I need to take a photography class or something.
I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out and put in a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat to seal it. Then I dotted it with, from cuticle to tip: Pure Ice Tease, Kleancolor Forest Fairy, Mari Moon Artsy, Jessica Iridescent Eye, Wet N Wild Gray's Anatomy, and Sally Hansen HD in Byte. The beautiful duo/multichrome goodness of Artsy, Iridescent Eye, and Gray's Anatomy really comes out in person, but this is the part I couldn't capture. The Pure Ice and SH HD colors look very very similar dotted like this. I need to swatch them, because there's a possibility they might be dupes or at least very very close.
Overall, I like it! I need some practice getting straight lines when I dot. They tend to go a wee bit diagonal on me. But that's ok, it gives it character!
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.
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 :(
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.
Hiya! I'm starting this blog mostly to help myself remember what manicures I've done, and to share with my friends. I'm not a professional, not even close. My clean-up may suck most of the time, and my designs aren't always perfect. And that's just fine with me! I'm also not a photographer. I do my best, but my pictures don't look anywhere near professional. Hopefully, I'll get better with practice.
So I've decided to start with the 30 day/week/whatever challenge that has been floating around for a while. I know it's old news, but I needed inspiration this morning, so I've decided to go with it. I don't paint my nails every day, nor do my manicures *ever* last a week, so I'll just be going down the list as I redo my nails. First up: Red!
For this, I started with Nailtiques 2 ('cause I have peely nails. They're getting better, though!), and then a coat of Orly Bonder for grippy goodness. After that, 2 coats of Orly Star Spangled and a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat. The dots were done with Spoiled Bite Me and China Glaze Poinsetta. I put a coat of Seche Vite topcoat over everything, to seal it in and give it that shine I love so much.
