Beetle Watermarble

Hello lovelies! Today I have a look I am extremely excited to show you! I have been wanting to do this look for FOREVER, but it's very difficult to find cheap and good duochrome, particularly in my teeny-tiny town. So when I went on my Kleancolor spree, I got some duochromes.

Turns out, Kleancolor doesn't make very good duochromes. All of them need 2-3 coats to get a decent color, and they don't watermarble. Their metallics, however, are awesome.

The idea for this mani came from this post. I fell in love the moment I saw it. So, I tried to recreate it without the textured base. The duochromes I bought from Kleancolor didn't work, but I was not giving up! Plan B was the metallics, and man did that work!

These pics are taken in direct sunlight:

The next few pics are using a new technique: taking the pics under water. It really worked!

So I'm in total love with the metallics collection from Kleancolor. It's extremely versatile, and plays so nicely for me! Well, except for the green and blue, they don't spread so well, but it's still not bad :)

I used a base color of Black on Black by Sinful Colors, then marbled over top of it.

Got any plans for this weekend?

Barbed Wire and Roses

Happy Friday!!

So with my recent paycheck, I got a hefty bonus and decided to treat myself. So, I bought 28 bottles of nail polish, 10 more swatch wheels, and a new storage system for my polishes. I'm very excited about all of it, because the items that were shipped weren't supposed to be here until at least Monday, and I got them all between Wednesday and Thursday! 

So on Wednesday night, I just had to use the polishes that came in, which were the Kleancolor Metallic collection and the Kleancolor Chunky Holo collection. I ended up just using the Metallic collection, though.

I keep hearing Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" whenever I look at this design

Stamped with Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes, which decided to soak up the purple pigment -_-

For this look, I used Kleancolor's Metallic Fuschia, and stamped with Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes. On the accent, I laid down two coats of Sinful Colors' Black on Black and stamped with Kleancolor's Metallic Pink. I used Bundle Monster's BM-323 stamping plate. I'm loving this look! I absolutely love the Metallic Fuschia, it's an insanely gorgeous color, possibly one of my favorites.

I got the swatch wheels and the Kleancolor Duochrome collection on Thursday, so I'm going to be playing with those tonight. I've already gotten the polishes swatched, going to be putting everything away soon and playing with the new colors a bit more. Maybe do some reviews for you guys if anyone's interested?

Have a great weekend! Please subscribe and share, and if you have any questions or requests, please leave a comment!

Cool-Colored Grunge

I had a totally awesome idea for these nails. ...It did not go as planned. I am disappoint. 

BUT! These still turned out really awesome, so yay!

I'm really glad I've finally got a regular schedule at work, so I can keep a regular schedule with the blog! Even though I almost forgot tonight (oops)!

So I visited a look I liked a while back from Thanksgiving 2013, and gave it fresher colors :)

This is a very, very easy mani to do. Base coat, base color, and then scrape the polish from the brush until you get off as much polish as you can. Then put a minimum amount of pressure and glide the brush over your nail. Start in random places all over your nail. BAM! Awesomeness! I've already gotten compliments, and I JUST put these on last night :)

The colors that I used are Finger Paints' Inkblot Blue and First Edition and Sinful Colors' Irish Green and Dream On over two coats of Revlon's Spirit. I used a thin coat of Fairy Dust by China Glaze on my thumbs and ring fingers. For a top coat, I used L.A. Colors' Rapid Dry Top Coat. It was only a dollar, so I thought I'd try it. I... like it better than Seche Vite so far: less shrinkage and it smells better. We'll see how it goes in a few more manis.

What colors would you use for this? Please comment, share, and subscribe!

Spun Sugar in Neons

Hello gorgeous peoples! Today I wanna show you a success!

The topcoat smudged everything. :(

To create this look, I used Sinful Colors' Black on Black and Neon Melon, Salon Perfect's Haute Melon, Fing'rs' Meet Me In The Green Room, Zoya's Robyn and Charisma, and NYC's Matte Me Crazy for a topcoat.

To get the look, I put two coats of Black on Black, then a top coat of Matte Me Crazy. I put a drop of the neon nail polish on a sheet of tin foil and let them dry a bit while stirring. Once the nail polish started getting stringy, I placed a glob next to my nail ON my finger, then stringed it from one side of my nail to the other. Back and forth back and forth and then on to the next color. I used an orange stick. pretty easy!

Gradient Tutorial

So today I'm gonna show you how to do a gradient, the way I'm most comfortable with. A lot of my friends see what I do and wanna know how I do it. So here goes!

What you'll need: At least two colors of nail polish, a damp makeup sponge, top and base coats, nail polish remover and q-tips for cleanup (or tape if you'd like. I don't recommend using petroleum jelly or lotions on the edges of the nails). 

Step one: Base coat. Paint the less opaque color on the nail. Get it as even as you can, but you don't have to go nuts and get it perfect. You'll be adding another couple of layers later. If you're using a more transparent nail polish (or any neon, really), use a white base color first. If both of the polishes are fairly transparent, just use a layer of white and sponge directly on the white.

Step two: Apply polish to the sponge.  Place the colors right next to each other, so they're touching. If they mix a little, that's fine. For this gradient, I used two shades by Finger Paints, Fifteen Minutes of Frame and Pop Art Purple.

Get them touching. Like that awkward Trojan commercial.

 Step three: dab the sponge onto the nail going back and forth across it. Go across and back a couple times, and then wait. Let it dry. Do it again.  Like so:

Back and forth.... Baaaaaaack and fooooorth...

Thanks to my buddie, Jaxo for the .gifs!

After a couple of coats, viola! A gradient!

I used this nail to practice sugar spun nails. I like it!

I hope this helps! If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments :)

Simple Gradient

Just a simple gradient today. I was gonna top it with a stamp, but the Seche Vite shrunk the polish and it would've looked odd. 

Indirect Sunlight. Man I love this blue! And the green omgomgomg!

Direct Sunlight. It's blurry, but it shows off the colors accurately.

For this mani, I used three colors. Sinful Colors' Snow Me White (base), Fing'rs Meet Me In The Green Room, and Sally Hensen's Co-Bolt Blue. 

I laid out two layers of Snow Me White, then two layers of Meet Me In The Green Room. A makeup sponge with Meet Me In The Green Room and Co-Bolt Blue and viola! This was so gorgeous. I really regret using Seche Vite, it would've lasted longer.

I really am in need of a good topcoat. I have a ton of bottles of Seche, but my manis keep shrinking after only a few hours. Even after making sure the mani is dry, it shrinks :/

I have to say, I absolutely LOVE Meet Me In The Green Room. I wish it had a better formula, as it's really quite thin, runny, and streaky. I'm really jonesing for a neon that's opaque...

Hope everyone is having a good summer!

Happy Independence Day!

It's the Fourth of July, which to Americans is basically the day that we go nuts with alcohol and explosives. No wonder the rest of the world think we're crazy...

Another part of this tradition is that everything gets decked out in red, white and blue. While I'm actually not very patriotic, I did do my nails for the holiday.

Half-moons with metal stars, red and blue jewels, and red and blue glitter make this a red-white-and-blue make this a Fourth of July spectacle!

Hope yours was safe, and fun!