Test Tube Nails

My god is St. George ever a wonderful stamping polish! Base is 3 coats of Essie Turquoise and Caicos (grumble grumble), stamped with A-England St. George and Bundle Monster plate 210, then topped with a little free-handed silver striping brush action.

They are here! I ordered these MARCH 6, but they got lost in the postal system… I was so sad, but Adina emailed me and promised that she would send me replacements right away!

from left to right: Princess Tears, Dragon and St. George.

They are so beautiful, I feel a little faint. Needless to say what I am doing right now is removing my polish so I can replace it with one of these babies.

twodoxiesandtoomanyshoes replied to your post: NOTD: Red Hot Glass Fleck Ombre

is this a stamp?

Hey there :) Yes it is! It is a system of printing with polish directly onto your nails which was invented by Konad. Basically, the deal is you use a very thick pigmented polish (special or something you just tried that works) and you squeegee it over the plate with an old credit card or something. Quickly, you pick it up using a rubber stamper, and then stamp down firmly on your own nails, transferring the polish like magic. The printing plate is from a huge set I got on Amazon from a company called Bundle Monster. They are a little more economical than the original Konad plates. Mary at Swatch and Learn took some great photos of the whole Bundle Monster set this plate is from. If you are interested in trying this out, there are tons of online tutorials, which is how I figured it out.

The sun is out so I tried to capture how bright and shiny these glass fleck polishes are :) From Pinkie to Thumb: WetnWild 9.0.2.1.Orange, China Glaze Riveting, OPI Animal-istic, China Glaze 108 Degrees, OPI Congeniality Is My Middle Name. Stamped with Konad Special Polish in Black Pearl with BM plate 223.

So this in my new fantastically weird manicure. It’s not actually random: you see, I love when people make crazy nail art based on unexpected inspirations. My inspiration is my favourite Kawaii teacup!

I recently discovered the blog Nail Nerd, and really loved not only her stunning hand painted nail art, but also her insistence that we try to push ourselves with our art in order to improve our skills over time. So I am going to try to do some crazy hand painted manicures every once in a while. Maybe one day they will be a little more complicated than just flying cupcakes.

For the base I used two coats of Sally Hansen Loyal Lavender. I used BM plate 213 and Konad special polish in white to make the starburst shapes. The rest of the design was done in acrylic paint. I used a regular artists liner brush, which I clipped to only a few long hairs in order to outline the cupcakes in black. Then I went back with a teensy detail brush and gently dabbed colour to fill the outlines. I used my dotting tool for the cherries and the blue, yellow and white flowers.

Using an object (or a print, fabric etc…) as inspiration is actually very freeing, you don’t have to spend time fussing over the colours you will use, and instead you can just focus on the design, and how you can achieve it.

This is the first water marble manicure that I really like. Probably because I am a such a glitter-obsessed woman, and glitter polish doesn’t really work with the water marble technique, they have always fallen a bit flat to me. But this is fantastic! Instead of alternating different colours, I used black and a regular (slow dry) clear coat over 3 coats of China Glaze Liquid Crystal, from the prismatic collection.

Here is another angle to show the duochrome purple flash:

Those opens up a whole new world of glittery water marbles people! Think about the untried water marble glitter jelly sandwiches! Mmmm tasty :)

I recently hit up my local drugstore looking for Revlon Royal. The nail blogosphere almost universally recommends Royal as the underwear of choice for many fancy duochrome polishes, including the infamous Clarins 230. What I didn’t realize, is that it is the most amazing deep, bright and luminous blue jelly. I am in love!

After applying 3 thin coats of Royal, I couldn’t bare to cover up its luminous beauty totally, so I decided to just sponge the tips of my nails for a little pop of colour. I used Quo by Orly Celestial Star, which is a very fine glass fleck polish which sparkles with deep purple and blue. I sponged just enough to give a stardust effect. Over that, I layered my favourite flakie polish ever, Nfu Oh 51. If you ever feel like splurging on a more exotic flakie polish, 51 should be it. It looks like a nebula in deep space over blue, it looks like blazing coals over vampy reds and purples, it’s just amazing.

In person, this combination of polishes glow and shine even more! Everywhere I went today I got compliments. I think that Royal is going to see many repeats, it is such an enchanting colour.

hufflepug replied to your post: Danger Pretty Cafe: Succulent

That actually reminds me a lot of Models Own Indian Ocean. I love it!

Oh my god it does! Wow, so it is a dupe, just not an intentional one :)

Introducing Succulent, the new shade from Danger Pretty Cafe. Well, the only shade, so far. I made this franken to satisfy my lemming for Halcyon, the soft sage green with pink shimmer from Rescue Beauty Lounge’s Fan Collection. I didn’t have any pink shimmer, but I did have violet, and I really love the results. These swatches are 3 coats with a clear topcoat.

Here is a closeup that shows the violet shimmer:

The original fan inspiration for Halcyon was the soft changeable colours of dewy succulent plants. I didn’t make an exact dupe, because for me, the green of my dream Succulent polish was a little less sage and a little more aqua. I used about 1/2 tsp of Sparkle Violet shimmer from TKB trading, mixed with about 3/4 parts clear polish base and 1/4 parts ACO Dark Jewel, a deep teal creme.

This colour is very calming and pretty and the shimmer reminds me of silk. I have been looking at RBL’s collection, and there are a few more polishes for Danger Pretty Cafe to dupe in the future :)