Subway Map

Nothing to Disclose

HELLO LOVELIES!!

Have you missed me? I missed you, too. I've had a quiet holiday season, which is a good thing in my books. I hope yours was everything you wanted it to be.

I'm, in fact, about to go play some drunken Super Smash Bros. Brawl, because we have a Wii and it's the right thing to do, but first-- I have nail art for you!

I don't even know. Really, not even a clue. I think it was vaguely inspired by subway maps?

My base for this was one coat of Silver Sweep, followed by two coats of Atomic. The thicker lines are done in Camelot, using my striping brush. The wee thin lines are cheater lines; I did those with a .005 Copic liner pen.

Sorry about the cat hair above. Didn't realize I had to sticky-roller my lightbox. If someone would stop sleeping in my lightbox, this would probably not be an issue. Alas, it IS a box, therefore it is to be slept in, apparently.

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

piCture pOlish - Atomic

A England - Camelot

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat)

.005 Copic liner pen

liner brush

What are you hoping for in 2014? I'm hoping for a job, mostly. That'd be a killer start to my year! :)

xo,

J.

DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK: Black & White Music Notes

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

SO BEGINS DIGIT-AL DOZEN WEEK #2.

This week, we're doing black and white manis. This is exciting to me. I love constraints like this, I find it helps me to imagine nail art possibilities better than being told to do anything.

For Day 1, I opted to combine my Digit-al Dozen prompt with my ABC Challenge prompt, which was M for Music. This mani started with two coats of White On and one coat of HK Girl on all fingers.

I then put two thick coats of Moonlight on my thumb and ring fingers as accent nails. To be honest, this is one place where I rubbed against my Digit-al Dozen prompt a bit. This would have looked so BOSS with a brightly coloured glitter topper, and I had just the one in mind (Moosh by Happy Hands). Argh! Oh well.

The designs were all done with Camelot and my trimmed-down long liner brush and tiny detail brush.

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen - White On

Indigo Bananas - Moonlight

A England - Camelot

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

Glisten & Glow - HK Girl (top coat -- trying it out, have heard good things, will report back soon)

tiny long liner brush

tiny detail brush

I'm really happy with how the lines came out in this mani! They would have been even better if I'd used a fluid acrylic paint, but for something done with nail polish, I'm quite pleased. :) Come back tomorrow for another black & white mani!

xo,

J.

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

Smudged Lines

Nothing to Disclose

... not to be confused with blurred lines. Very different things.

Hello lovelies! Today's post is an attempt at practicing my line work. It's still SUPER shoddy, but practice makes perfect, right? To do this, I aped this beautiful design by Sammy over at The Nailasaurus.

I began with that polish I told you was the least-me polish I own: two coats of Oui! by Marc Jacobs. I've taken a photo in natural light, at the bottom, to show you what the real colour is like. It's this crazy almost-frosted pink-fuchsia colour. I bought it specifically because I knew I'd own nothing even remotely like it already. :P It's definitely a bit loud for me, but I can see myself pulling it out for flashier occasions!

The silver is all done using a liner brush and Silver Sweep.

It didn't take too long, and the hardest part was keeping the silver from thickening up, since that affected the quality and thickness of the lines I was doing. I kept having to dip my brush into acetone and then into the polish to get a good consistency. AND THEN MY TOPCOAT WENT AND SMUDGED THE LINES (hence the title of this post).

I think next time I'll buy silver acrylic paint. Heh. Oh, and here is a funnily-lit shot of Oui! on its own. My skin looks awful, but it's actually quite colour-accurate for the polish itself:

I cannot pose my cinderella hand to save my life.

Polishes used:

Marc Jacobs - Oui!

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

liner brush

I have no idea what to do next! The rest of my week may be working on prep for Digit-al Dozen week in October... *wiggles eyebrows* If I disappear until the weekend (when I tackle the G prompt for my ABC Challenge), you'll know what happened!

xo,

J.

Lined French

Nothing to Disclose

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.

Aztec Calendar Nails

These nails drove me MAD. I'm apparently far more patient with painterly nail art than linework. These didn't turn out as nicely as I'd have hoped, but I'm at my wits' end with them.

Topcoat made the black crackle-- unsure what's up with that?

Aztec nails were requested of me on Instagram, and I didn't know quite what to do make of the idea. A Google Image search indicated that most people interpret "Aztec nails" as "tribal nails" (both terms really put me on edge, I'm sensitive to cultural appropriation stuff). I thought it might be best to pay as sincere a homage as I could to an awe-inspiring piece of culture: the Aztec calendar.

So, for this, I started with two coats of Ridnitsohkka and one coat of Atomic. I then painted on the designs with black and white nail art ink and a tiny brush. I used designs from the calendar as faithfully as I could, with some adjustments for nail shape and/or my incompetence (i.e. details too small).

Polishes used:

Elevation Polish - Ridnitsohkka

piCture pOlish - Atomic

black & white nail art ink

detail brush

Rejuvacote (base coat)

Poshé (top coat)

I think I'll go back to painterly next! I'm thinking scenery of some sort...

J.

Flakie Swap Mani + Stamping + Matte

There has to be a more elegant way of phrasing these things.

When The Polishaholic's collaboration shade with piCture pOlish, Mallard, arrived in the mail, I decided it really needed to be paired with its kissing cousin, Sephora by OPI's 212-Sephora. And then I had to screw around with it some more, because that's how I roll.

DOUBLE CLAW ACTION (flash on left, daylight on right)

I cropped that one aggressively to spare you the sight of my awful little wrists. You can kind of guess at the horror as it is, but I promise the worst got the chop.

For this, I did a swap mani with Mallard on my left hand and 212-Sephora on my right, switching the polishes for the double accent nails (middle and ring). I then stamped the giraffe(?) print image from Bundle Monster plate #BM-313 on both my ring fingers using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep. Then I top coated the double accent nails with Essie's Matte About You.

Whew.

As I tenderly pat the leather couch.

This was my first time stamping, ever, so the outcome was a little wonkier than I'd like, but it'll do. The following photo shows the flakies in action: while Mallard's show up very orange and very green at the same time, 212-Sephora's are predominantly copper-orange that shift to green at extreme angles.

Stamping wonk!

A close-up to show how the matte topcoat brings out the flakies more:

go macro lens, go!

A bit about these polishes... Mallard applies slightly thick, but it isn't at all unmanageable (like buttery, but a notch more viscous). Its first coat shows off the (surprise!) VERY teal base of the polish, and it's opaque and emerald-shimmery at two coats. The flakies are sparse and medium-sized, and it's easy for the base polish to cover them up. 212-Sephora was a huge PITA. I know lots of bloggers are fond of SOPI polishes, but I've yet to find a single one that doesn't make me want to punch something. It was alarmingly streaky on the first coat, and super-watery. I expected the base to be thinner to account for the different kinds of glitter, but I haven't had a polish make a run at cuticle-flooding in a long, long time, and yet this one did. It's a black-brown base that ends up looking like a dark bronze-khaki when at opacity. It needed a generous three coats to get there and to even everything out. Its flakies are smaller and more numerous, and its shimmer is coarser (almost micro-glitter) compared to Mallard's. It also technically contains holo particles, but good luck finding those on the nail. Mallard's thickness meant that Good to Go again played its magic shrinkage trick, though it wasn't so bad this time. I think I'm going to have to start a database of which top coats shrink which brands of polish...

And I leave you with an awkward and vaguely evil hand-clasping. Deploy the skeleton fingers!

In case you find this way intimidating, know that I took this photo with a blanket over my front like a bib.

Polishes used:
piCture pOlish - Mallard
Sephora by OPI - 212-Sephora
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Silver Sweep
Essie - Good to Go
Essie - Matte About You


J.


PS: LOOK WHAT I JUST GOT! Tortoiseshell mani, here I come.

Elevation Polish nail mail! <3