Deconstructed Snowflakes

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Hello lovelies! Just a quick post tonight, as I'm off babysitting with my friend Andrew and we literally just took the toilet apart because one of the kids threw a toy train down it earlier in the day and it was irredeemably clogged. Ah, children. Little bundles of joy and unrestrained havoc.

Anybody who follows me on Instagram or Facebook saw something sort of vaguely like this that I did yesterday. Well, that started chipping almost immediately (blasted Marc Jacobs polish!!), so I decided to redo it in more seasonal colours.

All of this vertical-line-ness started with my seeing this manicure by the inimitable Spifster. She's an amazing nail artist and you should be following her. At any rate, I could do various iterations of this design over and over again forever.

I started with three coats of Dream, and the white is Tempest, all done with my striping brush and a dotting tool. With these seasonal colours, I thought I'd do something that looked, well, seasonal. When I finished, I thought it looked like Picasso's take on snowflakes, hence the title of this post.

Polishes used:

Zoya - Dream

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

striping brush

dotting tool

Like I said, expect more of this kind of thing from me in future! But I will go a bit more detailed in my next nail art for you, my lovely readers, because you're here for the Good Stuff. ;)

xo,

J.

DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK: Black & White Lined French

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Hello lovelies! Saved you the best for last.

At least, I think they're the best. I may be biased, though, because this look was done before the move, when my nails were in their long, squoval glory. Oh, how I miss them. GROW, NAILS, GROW!!!

You know, I only noticed that the lines on that one stud were facing the wrong way after I'd taken photos, so I'm going to pretend it was on purpose.

This look started off with a coat of Nail Foundation and a coat of Nail Glow. Once dry, I taped off the French tips with those sticky guide thingies (you know the ones), and sponged on a gradient of Tempest and, if memory serves, Recycle. I then removed the stickies, used Camelot to freehand on the thick lines, and topcoated/stuck the studs on.

At the time, the following ring was brand new to me, so I had to include it in photos. Mostly because it's by Bliss Lau, and she rocks killer geometric nail art like this all the time.

Ooh, aah.

I really AM pretty happy with these. Better than the last time I tried this, don't you agree?

Polishes used:

Cult Nails - Tempest

China Glaze - Recycle

A England - Camelot

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Dior - Nail Glow (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

studs from The Nail Room (a word of note: these come holo-looking, but acetone removes the holo)

liner brush

cosmetic sponge (for the gradient)

I can't believe that's it for another rendition of Digit-al Dozen week! Where does the time go? Next month is full-on festive, so you've got a month to whip out your Non-Denominational Wintery Holiday decorations and get in the spirit! (And I promise not to mention anything more about said N-D.W.H. until then!!!)

xo,

J.

CHECK OUT WHAT THE OTHER TALENTED LADIES OF THE DIGIT-AL DOZEN ARE UP TO:

DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK: Pond Skittle

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Hello lovelies! Another skittle for you today, and this one's kind of Skittle-coloured!

For this mani, I whipped out my... trusty jellies. YEAH. JELLIES.

This technique is called a 'pond mani' because you sandwich layers of designs between layers of jelly polish, making it look like there is a lot of depth to the manicure. It was invented by someone very clever, and that person was assuredly not me.

The order of polishes, thumb to pinky, is: Guy Meets Gal-veston, Y'All Come Back Ya Hear?, JS34, JS29, and JS28. 

My favourite is JS34. That shade of green makes me go weak in the knees. One might even say that it is particularly... pulchritudinous. *wiggles eyebrows*

There is a fluff in the above picture. You have my apologies for the oversight. But the bows are cute, aren't they??

Polishes used:

OPI - Guy Meets Gal-veston, Y'All Come Back Ya Hear?

Nfu Oh - JS34, JS29, JS28 (all of the JS are discontinued now-- insert sad face here-- you'll have to find jellies elsewhere. I know that Twee & Honey make some!)

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Rica - Glossy Glam (top coat)

My favourite skittle is tomorrow! Favourite one! I am excited! Watch me deploy my exclamation marks!!

xo,

J.

CHECK OUT WHAT THE OTHER TALENTED LADIES OF THE DIGIT-AL DOZEN ARE UP TO:

DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK: Skittle Tips

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Hello lovelies!

OH BOY OH BOY HERE WE GO

Day 1 of Skittles week! To be honest, throughout this endeavour, I've learned that I'm crap at skittles. I just don't think disjointedly like that. The gestalt of nail art requires some ability to think of the greater whole in a whack of differences (i.e. every nail must be different), but there is some leeway to be found in doing something similar on each nail and tweaking it slightly. Hence, today's mani.

Say goodbye to that thumb, you're never seeing it again.

So, here's a funny story. I did all of these manis in advance, and patted myself on the back, and then completely did not write down what I used for any of them. I'm going to do my best to guess at the polishes I used, ok? But don't hold me to them.

This was a super-easy but super-effective look. Paint nails in No Way Tawdry, paint tips in various colours, and top with top coat and studs. Na naaah! But I really liked how this looked. I will revisit this in future.

I failed to get the rectangle stud in the middle of my middle finger and, no gonna lie, it's driving me nuts. But see, SEE the flakie goodness in No Way Tawdry?! It's a beautiful beautiful polish:

Polishes used:

Arcane Lacquer - No Way Tawdry

Lime Crime - Pastelchio, Parfait Day

Cult Nails - Tempest

la couleur couture - 1977, 2013 (top coat)

studs from The Nail Room

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

See you tomorrow for yet more Digit-al Dozen Week fun! I'm kind of giddy!

xo,

J.

CHECK OUT WHAT THE OTHER TALENTED LADIES ARE UP TO: 

Breast Cancer Awareness

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Hello lovelies!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. This weekend is also J for Jellies in our ABC Challenge. I decided to mix the two together. I present it here because I feel like it's an opportunity for me to address something that bugs me every time this month rolls around: pinkwashing.

"Jolène," you are saying, "what the heck is pinkwashing?" Well, it's the pernicious way in which many companies and organizations pretend to care about breast cancer and breast cancer awareness without, you know, actually doing anything useful about it. Here's a website for you, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. And here are two excerpts from the Advertisements section of the Breast Cancer Awareness article on Wikipedia:

Business marketing campaigns, particularly sales promotions for products that increase pollution or have been linked to the development of breast cancer, such as alcohol, high-fat foods, some pesticides, or the parabens and phthalates used by most cosmetic companies, have been condemned as pinkwashing (a portmanteau of pink ribbon and whitewash).^[25]Such promotions generally result in a token donation to a breast cancer-related charity by taking advantage of the consumers' fear of cancer and grief for people who have died to drive sales.^[9] 

and

Two significant campaigns against pink consumption are the National Breast Cancer Coalition's "Not Just Ribbons" campaign, and Breast Cancer Action's "Think Before You Pink" campaign. NBCC's "Not Just Ribbons" campaign sought to focus awareness efforts onto substantive issues such as genetic discrimination, access to cancer treatment, patient rights, and environmental breast cancer research.^[26] "Think Before You Pink" encouraged consumers to ask questions about pink products (e.g., to find out how much of a donation was being made).^[27]

A good example is antiperspirants. Companies continue to manufacture antiperspirants, whose active ingredient has been proven to increase the risk of breast cancer, all while pink-ribboning their overall product line to seem like they care. Here is an article a friend sent me on cause marketing (which covers breast cancer awareness as well as other causes). Stuff like that drives me insane. But I'll stop ranting now. I just firmly believe in conscious consumerism.

This skittlette was done using Flamingo Kisses on the thumb and index (three coat), as well as pinky (two coats). Two coats of She Walks in Beauty were then applied to the pinky. The middle and ring fingers are a pond manicure done using Vitral *** and Tempest, and took a good 5 coats to achieve the opacity you see here -- definitely not meant for that.

She Walks in Beauty is a pink and gold glitter, two colours that are totally unlike me, but I love the polish to bits. Vitral *** is too hot pink for me, but Flamingo Kisses (a polish created by Dandy Nails in memory of Sandy Hook) is beautiful, a cold pink with pink and purple flake shimmer. Really nice, and an easily smooth three coats.

Polishes used:

Dandy Nails - Flamingo Kisses (I do not believe this ever went to market; I won it in a contest)

A England - She Walks in Beauty

Colorama - Vitral ***

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Rica - Glossy Glam (top coat)

medium detail brush

Sorry to ramble away on ya! But guess what tomorrow is: DIGIT-AL DOZEN DAYYYY!! Well, the first of five. I've got four of my five manis done, and photos taken and edited, but man oh man am I stumped for the last one. That's my project for today. ;)

xo,

J.

*** IMPORTANT NOTE: A good friend brought this to my attention. I can certify that all polishes used in this mani are, at the very least, 3-free. EXCEPT FOR VITRAL. Brazilian polishes are all switching over to 3-free formulae as far as I know, but I do not know the status of Colorama polishes. Please be aware that non-3-free polish has ingredients that are linked to cancer (I don't know about breast cancer, but cancer in general). While I promise I am not profiting off the back of breast cancer awareness, lest I appear hypocritical, I wanted you to know!

Tweed for Fall

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Hello lovelies!

This looked better in my head. But it isn't a total failure, so up it goes!

It was IMPOSSIBLE for me to get a good photo of the base colour for this mani. I suspect this might be an ongoing battle between my camera and darker colours. They always end up way too dark. I have no idea how to rectify this because I know basically nothing about cameras or how they work. (True story.)

The base for this was Creeping Moss. The tweed accent nail didn't come across quite as well as I would have liked, but it was pretty easy and fun to do; just do the spun sugar technique both horizontally and vertically. I used Aciiied, Desert Fruit, and Xixabangma on a base of Tempest. Next time, I will do it on a dark base and use white as one of the spun sugar colours.

This photo is the only one that is vaguely colour-accurate. It's crappy, but the colour is as light as it appears on the right-hand side.

Polishes used:

Contrary Polish - Creeping Moss, Desert Fruit

Models Own - Aciiied

Elevation Polish - Xixabangma

Cult Nails - Tempest

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Rica - Glossy Glam (top coat)

Studs and rhinestones from Born Pretty

dotting tool (for spun sugar technique)

Many posts upcoming! One tomorrow, then one each day all next week becaaaauuuseee... Digit-al Dozen week is starting! Holy moly! I'm kind of nervous.

And to any lovelies who are Canadian, happy Thanksgiving!

xo,

J.

Galaxy Nails

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Hello lovelies!

I cannot lie, I'm pretty happy with today's nails. I did them while half-drunk last night, which would usually portend abject failure, or hilarious hijinx, but in this case: success!

Today's ABC Challenge prompt is G for galaxy. Galaxy nails have a long, honourable tradition in the nail art world. They're fun and low-pressure; usually you just sponge on various colours, have at it with a dotting tool and some white polish, and voilà! But noooo, Jolène had to go all realiiiiistic.

Here's my source image: 

Save this photo if you want an awesome galactic background for your computer. Oooh, aaaah!

Obviously, I didn't try to replicate the source photo exactly, but I did try to keep my design sort of in line with the spirit of the thing.

I used so many polishes for this. I've listed them all below, but I can't really get into the process of painting this. It kind of went: black, dark colours, medium colours, lighter colours, turquoises, white. That's as descriptive as I can get. I was really feeling this one through! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, though. :)

And, frankly, I'm also super-pleased that I did it all with nail polishes. Woot woot! Sometimes polish is actually more appropriate a painting medium than acrylic, and galaxies are one of those instances.

This photo can be super-zoomed to see all the detail, including the faintest starts that are a combination of Galinda and black + acetone (the only thing that doesn't come across is the faint holo from Greatest Treasures):

Polishes used:

A England - Camelot

OPI - Germanicure, Rally Pretty Pink, Funny Bunny

Maya Cosmetics - Smolder

Nfu Oh - JS42

Pretty Serious Cosmetics - Nightmaren

Literary Lacquers - Greatest Treasures

Nubar - Stardust

Modha HD - Ousada

American Apparel - Moon

Cirque - Galinda

Liquid Sky Lacquer - Still Waters

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Cult Nails - Tempest

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

Have you ever tried galaxy nails before? (Fun, hey?!)

xo,

J.

Lined French

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Hello again lovelies!

Two posts in one day because I've got something very simple and kind of out of the ordinary for you.

I wanted to take on the challenge of doing a French mani in an interesting way, because they've never held any appeal for me before. This is what I came up with:

Things I learned from this adventure:

1) I am crap at linework;

2) I need to thin my Glitter Food.

For this look, I began with base coat and a coat of Nail Glow. I then freehanded the moons in Gossip Over Gimlets, did the exaggerated French tips in Recycle (using French tip guides, because whoa let's not be over-ambitious here), and the linework in Tempest (which also needs to be thinned). Topped it all in Glitter Food for optimal smoothness, and top coat to finish it off.

Polishes used:

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Dior Couture - Nail Glow

China Glaze - Gossip Over Gimlets

Rescue Beauty Lounge - Recycle (which is a beautiful dark green, but not as dark as pictured)

Cult Nails - Tempest

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

liner brush

I could see a better-executed version of this being a really classy look for a cocktail party or other style-forgiving event. It holds up on its own without being too complex. :)

I bought a Marc Jacobs polish today that is literally the least me-like polish I now own, and my next challenge is to incorporate it into a mani! Eep!

xo,

J.

Elegant Rose

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 Hello lovelies!

Today's manicure took a smidge longer than usual-- not because of the design, but because I was a bit loath to paint over the base colour!

This is what I came up with for the E prompt of my collaborative Follow the Devil ABC Challenge: elegant! I think roses are pretty elegant? Don't most people think that? They do, right? Anyway.

Base colour is two beautiful, no-clean-up-required coats of Let's Get Dirty, a super-sophisticated greyed out lavender (or lavendered-out grey, depending on how you see these things) with pinky beige tones. Kind of hard to describe! I love the wax finish it dries to, but I wanted to speed up the process (and seal my art), hence the glossy top coat.

The whole design was done with watered-down white acrylic paint and my detail brush.

I kind of think this would make a neat bridal look (and it could be tweaked to match the bouquet!), don't you?

Polishes used:

Cult Nails - Let's Get Dirty

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

white acrylic paint

detail brush

Next prompt is F for food, and I have no bloody clue what I'm going to do about that one. Help?!

And, in passing, I should mention that I'm sending happy vibes to all those who might be starting school against these past few weeks. September is always hard, but you'll make it through!

xo,

J.

Pointy Shapes?

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Hello lovelies!

Today's endeavour is C for Colour Blocking. 

I did not colour block. I'm not sure what to call this, but most colour blocking I've seen involved striping tape, and I am not on speaking terms with striping tape. 

So this was (messily!) freehanded with four different polishes on a clear base: Rendezvous (ironically takes FOREVER to dry and WILL smear in top coat... What gives, Seche? What happened to the Vite part??), Love at First Sight, Streetside NYC, and Xixabangma. Of note is that all of these shades were 1 coaters, which I know because I did a plain skittle on my Cinderella hand. ONE COATERS!

I think my top coat and base coat decided to get together and have tons of little bubble babies. I cannot otherwise explain their presence. (Though I didn't see a stork, so I might be wrong.)

I think this look would be pretty sharp if I were to redo it in acrylics. I'd be able to get in a lot more detail. So that's a scheme on the back burner for now, along with all my other schemes, 90% of which I forget the moment I consign them to the aforementioned back burner.

Polishes used:

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

Seche - Rendezvous

Cult Nails - Love at First Sight

Elevation Polish - Streetside NYC, Xixabangma (discontinued! sob!)

detail brush

I'm off to the mountains (actually, I'm already IN the mountains-- I am transmitting this from the past by magic)! I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, so I hope to get in my D prompt for you darlings tomorrow evening. :)

xo,

J.

Simple Aquatic + a Guest Post!

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Hello lovelies!

So, I survived part of the Skyline Trail. 36km worth of trudging around with beautiful views. I pinched something in my right hip and my feet have a collective 6 huge blisters, so the last major ascent/scree was not going to happen. I need to work out more before tackling 12 hours' worth of hiking!

But I do have nails for you today!

I'm doing an ABC challenge with my buddy @thedevilwearspolish on Instagram. We're calling it the Follow the Devil ABC Challenge and doing one prompt a week. This week: aquatic! I decided to keep it simple.

I started with two coats of Lavender Cloud, followed by Skylar for the water. I then went over Skylar in some places with Arctic Sunrise, Aqueous, and Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut. Little shine details in Tempest, topcoat, and done!

Zoom in on this one for all the shimmery awesomeness of the polishes I used:

And I have a surprise for you! I did a guest post over at Gnarly Gnails, run by the inimitable Missy! I love Missy to death, she's the sweetest and has always been so encouraging in my blogging endeavours. One thing I've always appreciated about her swatches is that they show you exactly what you need to know about a polish. They're professional and sharp-looking, but they do not sugar-coat how a polish actually behaves. It's really refreshing! And did I mention she's sweet? Click this teaser image to go see my post, and give her blog some love!

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen - Lavender Cloud

Zoya - Skylar

Girly Bits - Arctic Sunrise

Tryst Lacquers - Aqueous (custom)

Scofflaw Nail Varnish - Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut (limited edition)

Cult Nails - Tempest

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

I'm working on another surprise! I will have that for you on Wednesday sometime. I may even be able to get something up either tomorrow or Tuesday, fingers crossed!

xo,

J.