Holo green gradient

I'm so glad I finally worked out how to create gradient nails that don't suck.  My first attempts were terrible, but now that I know the right technique it really is so simple.

I have to say, after my last gradient using the Nailsaurus' technique, I was having trouble with my makeup sponge breaking off and bits sticking to my nail.  Her technique is where you paint your gradient colours on a plastic sheet, mix them together at the edges, then pick it up with a sponge and press it on your nails.  For me, because there wasn't enough polish on the sponge, my sponge got tacky really quickly and started sticking lumps all over my nails.

It was only on the weekend when I read someone's post about painting directly onto the sponge that I had my light bulb moment. So for these gradient nails,  I simply painted lines of the three polishes directly onto a piece of makeup sponge and then dabbed it on my base colour.  So much easier and quicker and I only used one piece of sponge with nail polish on it.  I actually feel like a bit of a dumb-ass cause I didn't think to do that earlier!

This gradient is created with a base of China Glaze GR8, the golden holographic from the OMG collection.  The middle colour is Nubar Reclaim and the bottom colour is aEngland Saint George.

Saint George doesn't have quite the same smooth linear holographic effect that GR8 and Reclaim has, but it still makes the grade ok for this mani.

I love this effect of gradient nails in similar tones (does that make it an Ombre?) I'm definitely going to try this in a multitude of other colours.

Sinful Colors Unicorn and spring floral manicure

Now that it's spring, I finally decided it was time to try the first yellow polish I ever bought! (not including the detailing polish) I only recently had the guts to try the trend, and this soft yellow is perfect. The only problem with Unicorn is that it stains your nails, even with a base coat. Next time I wear it, I'm going to try two coats of base coat to see if that helps.  

This is Unicorn.  I had to use three coats, because it was very streaky and had lots of dragging issues.  Click to enlarge.

The base color is Sinful Colors Unicorn, the orange is AC #10, the green is Pa A32, the sparkly white is Diamond Nail Homei D-1 (the worst quality polish ever if you remember a past post.. I still have to swatch it for you), and the yellow detailing polish is AT #4 Yellow. I used my handy Beauty World dotting tool to make the flowers, and a fine nail art brush for the leaves. I used the mini Poshe quick dry topcoat mom gave me to seal it off.

Spring floral manicure, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

What do you think?

Giveaway!

Yes it's that time again, Giveaway time! We haven't done one in a while, so I thought it would be a fun time too. I have secretly been collecting things for a giveaway and last night I think I got a good one to start the giveaway. Starting in a few days, I will have all the rules for this giveaway, plus an extra chance for this giveaway. So come back and I will update this entry!  We'll be having our first giveaway on our sister blog All Glitzed Up, we will post soon so check that out too ^_~ Thanks a lot guys, you are the best!

Iron Studs

How cool are these steel grey stud rhinestones from BornPrettyStore.com? It's nice to wear something different than clear rhinestones! For this mani I applied two coats of Orly - Iron Butterfly on most nails and Essence - Got a Secret on some accent nails. I wanted a complete matte look so I also applied a matte top coat over Got a Secret. Then I added the stud rhinestones. I recommend applying a layer of top coat to seal the studs or you'll lose them within a couple of hours.

Thanks for watching!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

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Claire's Magnetix Gold stamped

I'm still so much in love with magnetic nail polish.  In fact I don't think I will ever get sick of it as a trend.

I want magnetic polish in ever colour and I want every shape magnet design there is.  I can't wait for the new China Glaze magnet with the concentric circles and the grid, and I just have to get me a bottle of Nails Inc magnetic polish with the fish net magnet.  Which brings me to this post.

This is Claire's Magnetix gold, which is really thick and gluggy, but still a beautiful colour on it's own without the magnet.  I then stamped it using a fish net design.  I really love how these gold magnetics end up looking like the stone Tiger Eye.

Nothing fancy for all us hard core nail buffs, but there was a lady at work in my team who saw these nails and I tried to explain firstly about magnetic polish and then about how to do stamping etc.  Her comment after that explanation was "And your just going to take this off tonight?"

Ozotic 745 layered over black/white gradient

Last week I show you Ozotic 745 duochrome, which has two completely different looks depending on whether you layer it over black or over white.

Rebecca wondered what it would look like layered over a black and white gradient, and I thought it would be awesome to try, so here is the result.

Kinda weird and interesting at the same time.  Unfortunately I did get some bubbling on of few fingers, which made it a bit of a fail, but I was still glad to have tried it out.

OPI Ink with Chemistry 205

Ahhhhhh. Who doesn't love a bit of gorgeous purple shimmer?  Today's combo is the very pretty OPI Ink, which looks a murky dark blurple in the bottle, but on the nail it has a stunning purple shimmer.  Looking at swatches online it seems to be a lot more blue in most photos, but it's definitely more purple in real life.  

This polish was released as part of the OPI Night Brights collection in 2007, the very same collection that had the original My Private Jet in it.  I don't know if this is in fact hard to find these days, but thanks to the lovely Alanna from Pretty Purple Polish that picked this up in Sydney for me.

Hummmmmm. Bar (or string) glitter.  You either love it or hate it.  Me? I love it, except when I get one placed vertically down the nail and it hangs over the free edge.  I always make sure there are no bars too close to the free edge, or else I just know I'm going to pick and fiddle at that bit until I get it off.  I also hate bar glitter that curls up.  That is just wrong.  Luckily I only have one polish that has some curly bar glitters in it, and I'm willing to forgive that shortcoming cause it's such a dang awesome polish (I'm talking about you She Lived in a Swamp!)

Anyway, this is Chemistry 205, which has a lightly tinted purple base, fine silver glitter that spreads out perfectly, and silver holographic bar glitter, which doesn't curl and lays perfectly smooth on the nail. Thanks go to Kristy from The Polish Haven for sending this awesome polish my way!

Two coats of OPI Ink, one coat of Chemistry 205, one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

I'm totally in love with this combo.  How about you? Yay or Nay on the bar glitter?

Wet n Wild Shiver 439D

Vintage polish time! I found this polish and a few others in a box of my stuff packed away a looong time ago. 

Wet n Wild Shiver 439D, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

I'm guessing this is a "newer" vintage bottle, when they added color names on the front of the bottles, not just numbers. I think it was a dupe for vintage Hard Candy Frigid (they were out around the same time. I found out they kept this color through the years, I saw it in several bottles, and they still have it in their Wild Shine line. Beautiful ice blue pearl, one of the "it" colors for polish this season.

After all these years, the application was perfect, not goopy at all. I forget how many coats this is, but I'm thinking 2-3.

Ninjago nails

One of my little nephews turned four today, just five weeks after my little man turned four.  His mum and dad had organised an excellent ninja themed party for him today because he is totally into Lego's Ninjago.

If you don't know about Ninjago, they are a whole story line of Lego, and include the below four original mini figures.

I decided to create each of these characters on my fingers.  Cole the black one on my index finger, Jay the blue one on my index finger, Kai the red one on my ring finger and Zane the white one on my pinky.   If you look closely you can see that each actually has a different facial expression (or should I say eye expression).

There is also a new green ninja now, so I added him to my thumb.

In my hand I'm holding a Kai LED torch keyring, which was part of the birthday gift before I wrapped it up.

I created all of these using temporary tattoo paper, which I originally showed as butterflies here, and also created a tutorial.  The base polish is two coats of Layla Mercury Twilight, which has become my go to silver holo polish - I'm nearly half way through that bottle, I will need to get another soon!

Finally, here is the awesome cake that my brother baked, and check out those very cute take home lolly boxes in the background that they also created!

My sister in law had also organised little prizes for everyone throughout the party, some won them through games, others just for fun reasons.  I received mine for having the best nails. What I forgot to take photos of was all of us dressed up as ninjas, mostly with t-shirt masks wrapped around our heads and dressed in monochromatic colours.  It was great fun!

Gussied Up Green On Steroids

My 'inspiration' for this layering was this mani. Lately I love combining shimmery and prismatic nail polishes. I applied three coats of Gussied Up Green from China Glaze and one coat of Speciallità - Hera. Hera is really pretty on her own, but layered over a dark colour she's magical! :d

Thanks for watching!

Feeling Autumn colours with Pretty Serious

Quick post tonight.

Here is a mani wore earlier this week.  When I saw Pretty Serious' VT100 and Morning Java next to each other, I could see that they both had the exact same gorgeous golden shimmer.  

Gradient nails are all the rage now cause of The Nailsaurus's excellent tutorial, I thought I would give one a go.  My gradient's in the past have been less than stellar. In fact, they have been pretty bloody awful. Therefore I was exceptionally happy with how this turned out. My aim was to represent the last of the fading autumn for those of us in the southern hemisphere, with green changing to brown.

Not perfect, but my best gradient so far.

That's all for today.

Pretty Serious - Hello World part 2

After seeing swatches of the rest of the Pretty Serious Hello World collection, I knew that I had to get the other three polishes.

Morning Java is caramel brown polish with a stunning gold fleck shimmer.  I love brown polishes, they are interesting and unusual, so it was especially exciting to see a brown polishes in this first collection from Pretty Serious. This is two coats of  Morning Java, with Seche Vite top coat. Nice formula, a little thick but super easy to apply. WIN.

VT100 - yellow based green jelly with a gold fleck shimmer.  So far I haven't seen anyone comment on the uber geeky name for this polish.  Kudos to anyone who knows what the VT100 is without having to google it.  Great name that matches the polish perfectly.  This is two coats of VT100 topped with Seche Vite.

Sunning gold flecks in this polish. 

Tux - Wow, this one is so much more than you expect it to be.  Initially it looks black in the bottle, but then you see the edges of the bottle and see a teal and purple shift.  Hummm, will I see that on my nail?? In the shade, pretty much black with a slight speckled finish indicating some sort of shimmer.

In the sun, yep there is that teal shimmer.

Whoo hoo, there is the purple shift too.

This one is so much prettier than I expected it to be.

I'm so happy with this next photo, I managed to get both the purple and teal in the one photo and it was all natural sunlight (with thanks to some carefully angled mirrors).

Great collection Kaz.  People, you can grab these polishes from http://www.pretty-serious.com/