A girl and her love of nail polish

Posts tagged ‘Swatches’

30 Day Challenge Day 30 – Tutorial: Bold Retro Wallpaper Nail Art

It’s Day 30 of the 30 Day Challenge, and I’m proud to say that I made it all the way to the end without missing a day. Not bad for my first challenge!

Off the top, I’d like to thank Rachel from Polished Criminails for getting this iteration of the challenge going and for organizing the InLinkz codes that made it possible for us all to link to each other. And thanks also to all of the other bloggers that participated. I really enjoyed seeing what everyone else came up with.

So on to the manicure, which is inspired by a tutorial. It’s based on this video tutorial from IndigoNova1, recreated with a slightly different color scheme.

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art with Color Club Tweet MeBlack and White Retro Dot Nail Art with Color Club Tweet Me
For the base I used Color Club Tweet Me from my September BirchBox, which is a chartreuse creme. I really didn’t like it in the bottle but I thought it would provide a great backdrop to this design, and I’m so glad I tried it out. I like it a lot better on the nail. And first glance I thought it was yellow, but now I see it as more of a green. As far as formula though, it goes on very streaky and patchy. I used three coats here, and had it not been for the fact that I was going to put nail art on top I would have needed a fourth.

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art with Color Club Tweet Me

For the dots I used Orly Liquid Vinyl and Ulta Snow White, and then Kiss striper polishes in Black and White for the stripes.

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art With Color Club Tweet Me

As recommended in the notes of the video tutorial, I used the blunt end of a wooden skewer as a dotting tool to create the largest dots. For the smaller ones, I used the head of a pin. This was pretty simple to create and pays off big with a strong visual element. It would look good in a lot of different color combinations.

Black and White Retro Dot Nail Art With Color Club Tweet Me

And here’s a look at Color Club Tweet Me on it’s own:

Color Club Tweet Me

Thanks very much for reading. I hope you enjoyed some of the manicures I came up with for the 30 Day Challenge. Next up for me is the Nail-aween Challenge from datyorkLOVES (not too late to join, if you’re interested) and the Polish Us Pink Breast Cancer Awareness campaign organized by The Subtle Shimmer and several other bloggers (another not-too-taxing one that you can still join).

30-Day Challenge, 30 Days of Untrieds

Please visit some of the other bloggers that participated in the 30 Day Challenge this month.
I know we all needed a lot of encouragement to get through, so thanks for providing it! Click here to see them:



Category:

30-Day Challenge, NOTD

Tagged with:

Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Color Silver Elements

Today I’m showing you Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Color in Silver Elements, my first foray into the world of magnetic nail polish.

I actually don’t own this one but was able to borrow it (sorry, no bottle shot!). We were at a family gathering in Rhode Island when all of the pre-teen/barely-teen cousins started an impromptu polish party on the front porch. I of course had to check it out to see what they were doing, and what they were doing was putting on this polish, which one of their moms had purchased for them.

This was the tail end of our gathering, and all of the menfolk were champing at the bit to go home, so this was a very quick application for me. Really I just wanted to see how it worked, and I have to say that I was more than pleasantly surprised.

The polish went on very easily and looked great on its own (like a silver foil). But then the magnet creates darker black holographic-ish waves, eye-catching but not too flashy.

Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Color Silver Elements Magnetic Nail Polish

The magnet, which comes as a separate cap over the top of the bottle, has a small guide to help you line it up at the cuticle end and not hit the top of your nail. I found it very easy to use. My trick was to turn my finger so that I was basically pointing at myself; that let me see where to place the guide and how far it was from the top of my nail so that I could make sure it was level.

I followed the instructions on the bottle: put one coat on all of your nails, apply a thick second coat to one nail and then hold the magnet over it for 10 seconds. Move onto the next nail and repeat.

Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Color Silver Elements magnetic nail polish

I happened to have a small stash of polish, including my Poshe topcoat, so this is two coats of Silver Elements plus one coat of Poshe. I got a little over-confident in Poshe’s drying ability — maybe not taking into account that it was a thick second coat — so I ended up dinging my index finger in the bathroom, which is why it’s not included in these photos. *sigh*

But all in all I really liked this polish. It’s an easy way of applying “nail art” without requiring too much time, energy or skill.

Sally Hansen Magnetic Nail Color Silver Elements magnetic nail polish

I recently used my Ulta Rewards to procure a bottle of Layla Magneffect, so we’ll see how that one goes. Right off the bat, the magnet on it looks like it will be harder to use than the Sally Hansen one, but who knows. Will show you what I end up with!

What magnetic polishes have you tried? Any favorites?

Category:

Swatches

Tagged with:

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

In honor of today’s launch of the Aphrodite Lacquers Friday Night Glitter Bombs collection, here’s a look at one of Rebecca’s older polishes, RumRunner.

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner was actually the second-ever addition to my ever-growing collection of indie nail polishes, but for some reason I hadn’t swatched it yet.

RumRunner is part of Aphrodite’s The SandBar Collection, which celebrates summer-y cocktails. Genius!

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

The polish is a berry-colored jelly with dark pink and silver glitter.

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

RumRunner was a dream polish for me. It went on smooth with great application; the formula was perfect for me and it was easily removed, no staining. Plus not too many stray glitters left stranded on my skin, which is often a problem with glitter polish after removal.

This is a base coat of Gelous, two coats of RumRunner, another coat of Gelous and a coat of Poshe.

Aphrodite Lacquers RumRunner

RumRunner is currently available via the Aphrodite Lacquers shop on Etsy, along with the new Friday Night Glitter Bombs. And check out my weekly Restock Radar blog post for more indie polish launches coming this week.

Category:

Indies, Swatches

Tagged with:

Sinful Colors Swatch Spam

Like a lot of polish groupies out there, I took advantage of last week’s Walgreens sale to stock up on Sinful Colors. The company recently made headlines for all the wrong reasons in the Blogosphere after stealing bloggers’ photos for its advertising materials. Shame on them (parent company Revlon has since issued what seems to be a sincere apology on Facebook). Despite the drama and calls from some bloggers for a Sinful Colors boycott, I was still curious to try out their polishes since their colors are pretty rich and their prices are extremely low. They were only $0.99 during the sale, but even at full price they’re only $2, so I felt like it was a good chance to try some colors out that I might not have spent more on (I actually had a yellow shade in my cart for awhile but couldn’t commit to it in the end!) These are a few of the bottles I picked up, and I really liked each of them. The formula on all of them seemed pretty consistent, which is to say they went on pretty easily. I apologize in advance for the increasingly sloppy manicures; a storm came on very quickly and I was losing my light for outdoor photos. Here’s a look at what I got:

Social Ladder is a sheer-ish pink polish with a subtle iridescent shimmer. This is three coats, no top coat.

Sinful Colors Social Ladder

Sinful Colors Social Ladder

Sinful Colors Social Ladder

Next up is Frenzy, which sports purple and teal micro-glitter in a clear base. Here’s one coat over Social Ladder, no top coat. It was pretty hard to clean up. You can see remnants of it around the edges after I switched to the other colors. But it’s very eye-catching.

Sinful Colors Frenzy over Social LadderSinful Colors Frenzy over Social LadderSinful Colors Frenzy over Social Ladder

This one is my favorite of the group, Cinderella. It’s a really nice, elegant pale blue with a very subtle pink shimmer. This is two coats, no top coat.

Sinful Colors CinderellaSinful Colors CinderellaSinful Colors Cinderella

Moving on to Slate, a medium gray with frosty silver shimmer. I think this would be a great color underneath a lot of the popular glitter layering polishes. This is two coats, no top coat.

Sinful Colors SlateSinful Colors SlateSinful Colors Slate

Last of this bunch is Amethyst, a grape purple cream. After taking these photos I added a coat of Poshe and wore this one for a week with only minimal tip wear, so very pleased with its longevity.

Sinful Colors AmethystSinful Colors AmethystSinful Colors Amethyst

That’s it for now. What Sinful Colors did you pick up in last week’s sale?

Category:

Swatches

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud