Purple Posies - One Stroke Nail Art

Ug, I should totally be doing homework right now, I've a paper that's already a day late.  So what am I doing instead?  Nails of course, what else.
While I love the one stroke nail art that I've seen on several other blogs, I've had limited luck with it myself.  But I figured it was just like everything else and I just needed to practice, so here's more practice. 

Products Used

While I'm not perfect by any means, my one stroke flowers are have started to actually resemble flowers so I thought I'd start sharing some of my one stroke manis with you.  I hope you like them, perhaps it will inspire you to try it too.

Indoor lighting

For this look I used three coats of Color Club Alter Ego then for a little extra  flash of color I added a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple.

Using white and a dark purple acrylic paint as well as a small flat brush I dipped each corner of the brush in a different color and painted in the petals.

I used the purple to fill in any bare spots in the center then applied a top coat.  While the top coat was still wet I applied the half pearls the the center.

I think my thumb turned out the best, I'm rather proud of it. 

So have you tried the one stroke method on your nails yet?  You should, once you get the hang of it, it's not all that difficult. Thanks so much for reading, until next time, have a great one!

My Color

Shade

For most of my high school and early adult life I claimed purple to be my favorite color.  I'm a little ashamed to admit the amount of purple that was in my closet, to include way to much velvet. Now that I'm older, I don't claim to have any one favorite color, rather I find merit in them all and my wardrobe contains more neutrals to be dressed up with colorful accessories. I do however feel that purple is just one of those colors that always looks good on me, and it really is beautiful.  Please pardon the photos for being fuzzier than usual, I'm not sure what happened.

 Here I've taken Savvy Deep Amethyst and applied three coats to get a nice saturated base color.  I love this true purple that leans just this side of being a red purple.

From there I took OPI Sparkle-icious from the Burlesque Collection and did a slight fade.  I applied one coat to the whole nail,  The next coat to just half of the nail,  the next to just a quarter.  I tried doing the second two layers in a c-curve, sort of like a french although I'm not sure how much that shows up. 

The purple glitter in Sparkle-icious pulled the whole look together even though it's a more pinkish purple, the whole look was just fun.  It dried fairly quickly even with all those coats.

I don't know why but I didn't use Seche Vite as my top coat, rather I used the Nina Ultra Pro top coat for some reason, and it's significantly thinner than Seche.  It would have been that much better if I had used Seche, as is, it looks rather rough even after the top coat, but over all, I like the look.

Shade again

So do you have a color? One that usually always looks good on you?  

My Mermaid's Lagoon

Hello my lovely readers.  Today I am super excited to share with you one of my most favorite manis that I've created as of late! 

 Can you see why I love it?!  It's gorgeous! 

 Ok, now don't go thinking I'm being all conceited because really, I didn't do anything but apply the polish.  This beauty is all thanks to the two awesome polishes I used. 

 Dying to try this look yourself?  It's super, super easy and the polishes are two of the least expensive brands available.  Wet n' Wild Teal of Fortune and Sinful Colors Nail Junkie.  Some of you probably named Nail Junkie at first glance, it' really popular, and for good reason. 

 I started with OPI ridge filler then applied two coats of Teal of Fortune for my base color, then I used two coats of Nail Junkie over that.  The two are a match made in heaven and create a magical finish that makes me think of a mermaid's lagoon with the sunlight glinting off the rippled surface.  From somewhere I can hear a splash as a mermaid comes out to sun herself on a warm rock, she's brought her dinglehopper with her, and soon a beautiful song of mermaids and nail polish washes over me. ;-)

 With a combination of mylar flakies, and several sizes of glitter you almost expect the finish of Nail Junkie to be rather gritty.  This wasn't the case, it finished quite smooth.  I wanted to extend the wear and up the shine though, so I finished it off with a rather thick coat of Seche Vite.  This made the colors glow even more and added even more depth, the price paid was a bit of shrinkage at the nail tips.  Small price to pay in my opinion, small price indeed.

I'm so pleased with this manicure and I really hope you enjoyed it too.  Thank you so much for stopping by and reading.  I wish you all your very own mermaid's lagoon. Until next time, take care!

Edit:  If you try this look yourself, use two coats of a thick base coat.  When I took this off I had some serious nail staining.

More Pink

I came to the realization that I've purchased a lot of pink nail polish as of late so I better stop my grousing about not not caring for the color and start wearing it. Please forgive my horrid cuticles, this was after I'd been cleaning like a mad woman in preparation for company and had my hands in water nonstop. 

So this is OPI's La Paz-itively Hot, a bright fuchsia pink with a great bit of shimmer.  I applied three coats here (and not all that well from the look of my middle finger...oops), which still left a visible nail line, good thing my nails were clean. :) 

In my defense, it was a bit streaky going on.  I tried to fix it with more coats (thumb) but it started getting goopy so I left it be.

This is pretty similar to Orly flirty but again, more on the fuchsia side, the difference is most obvious in the shimmer which is much more subtle than Flirty.

It's not a unique pink in any way, but it is pretty, obviously if I didn't like it I wouldn't have bought it.  Hopefully the streaking and goopieness was due to my waterlogged nails and won't make a repeat performance. 

Thanks so much for reading, until next time, have a great one!

Quick Nail of the Day, Essie- Wrapped in Rubies

I'm being responsible today and trying to get homework done so this will be a short post. 

I changed my polish last night, this is Essie Wrapped in Rubies.  It's a very pretty warm red with a lovely gold shimmer.

I used two coats and got beautiful coverage.  The application was flawless and smooth, but I managed to ding a couple of nails before they dried.  Sorry, but I didn't feel like stripping them to redo so you get to see proof of my clumsiness.   

I love Essie polish, they have a great color selection and a great formula, and now that the mega huge retail store that shall not be named so I don't have to admit that I shop there carries them, they're even more affordable. 

I love the gold shimmer in this, it makes it warm and sultry.   It's nice to have another facet to the base color, it really ups the interest.

As far as I know this is part of the regular line by Essie and you can get it year round but I personally think this is a lovely color for autumn, what do you think?

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading, until next time, take care!

Taming the Beast - pic heavy

With Color Club's Alias being such a mess, it only lasted one day, but rather than removing it, I figured I'd use it as a base to play around with. I hope you like the finished look, I know I really do.

 It was super easy, the first step was to take Wet n Wild Black Cream and sponge the tips and up the edges to give a gradient french. 

 Then I sponged OPI Grape...Set...Match over the entire nail using a light touch towards the base so a hint of Alias came through.

 Lastly I took OPI Servin' Up Sparkle and did two coats over everything. 

 I just love the shine from the holographic glitter and hexes.

 Here it is in the shade, you can see the base colors a bit better.

 Pretty pretty pretty!

One final blur shot so you can see all the rainbow prettiness.  Can I just say again how much I love this?  I'm glad I was able to take a hot mess and turn it into something gorgeous.  Thanks so much for stopping by and reading, until next time, have a lovely one!

Beast Polish

This is Color Club Alias and can I just say how much I love this color.  Really, it's such a stunning, bright fuchsia with gorgeous flashes of purple. Unfortunately it is a beast polish that refuses to dry.   Maybe it's just me, but I have tried it two times with two different base coats and Seche Vite top coat and hours later it is still soft, and a hot mess of dents and scrapes.  What's more, as you can see from my photos, it's prone to shrinkage from what I assume is the top coat.  Shrinkage is not a problem I usually encounter, at least not to this extent.

The first time I used it, I started off with Orly Ridge Filler as my base coat, and three coats of Alias which, since it's rather a thin formula are all needed. You'd think a thinner formula would dry quicker right? Wrong.  When I noticed that it was exceptionally tacky after letting it sit for a while I topped it off with a coat of Seche. That surfaced dried it and it seemed to set things up pretty well so I went about my way with my usual care that doesn't cause too many issues, but about an hour later I looked at my nails and they were a wrinkled mess,  and even after that period of time, the Seche was dry but Alias was still wet underneath, I could literally move the polish around on my nail.  I thought that maybe Orly and Color Club didn't like to be mixed and off it came.

Second round, I used OPI's Ridge Filler as my base coat, again, three coats of Alias with about a minute dry time between coats, instantly followed by a coat of Seche.  While they dried a bit better,  I had massive shrinkage at the tips, and a couple of hours later I was still able to make deep dents in it with my  nails.  You'll notice that there are no pictures of my thumb, that's because  there's huge gouges in it.  

I've been using a the ridge filler base coats because they seem to forestall the staining of my nails better than the more clear bases, but I'm wondering if that's the reason that it's not drying.  Even so, I've not had this problem with any other polishes.  Because I love the color I may bite the bullet and try it again either with a clear base or maybe even without a base coat. 

So have any of you had this problem? Any suggestions would be appreciated.