Neon Lace... Typa Thing?

Nothing to Disclose

No idea what to call this one, lovelies.

I haven't done 'real' nail art in a while, it felt good to hammer something out in less than 2 hours! I consequently have something of a picspam for you today.

I started this look with two coats of French White, followed by 2 coats of Clowning Around and 1 coat of Freckles on the ring finger. On the rest of the fingers, I busted out the colours I used for my Watercolour Floral and started with a similar base, then opted for some kinda floral-ish lace-ish pattern overtop, done in black acrylics.

If you need a refresher on how to watercolour with nail polish, please click through to this post here.

Interestingly, I definitely prefer the look on the accent finger instead of the rest of the fingers. The crispness of the black lines against the white background is just too excellent -- I'll have to revisit this in future.

Polishes used:

Nina Ultra Pro - French White

Zoya - Charisma

piCture pOlish - Sunset

China Glaze - Def Defying (this one stains, be careful!)

Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around, Freckles

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

black acrylic paint

tiny detail brush

I'm hopefully going on a MAJOR hike this weekend (45km in 13 hours, because I'm a nutjob), so there may be radio silence until early next week. I'll be sure to make it up to you! And I may have a bit of a surprise in the next day or two anyway... ;)

xo,

J.

Watercoloured Floral

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

You thought I disappeared, didn't you? No no. I have been exceptionally busy, though, because we're listing the house next Monday (we found out this Monday), and I have been in hyperdrive to prepare!

All that aside, I DO have nail art to show you. ;)

It's been a rare event, lately, that nail art turns out in a way that pleases me, but that's just what's happened here. I had a rough idea of what I wanted, going in, and it turned out pretty well spot on!

I began with two coats of French White, with two coats of In A New York Minute over top. I then dabbed on Def Defying, Sunset, and Charisma, dabbing pure acetone over each colour before proceeding onto the next. Once done, I did all the outlines in black acrylic, using my tiny detail brush.

I've tried to take photos in a few different lighting conditions, but of course the NEON doesn't really come through as well as it should! I think I'm in love with Sunset. Actually, I'm sort of in love with all three colours -- but if you could only pick one, pick Sunset. Put it on your toes if you must. It's gorgeous.

Polishes used:

Nina Ultra Pro - French White

NYC - In a New York Minute (top coat)

China Glaze - Def Defying

piCture pOlish - Sunset

Zoya - Charisma

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

black acrylic paint

tiny detail brush

It may be a while yet before I get to do more nail art, but I'll try not to abandon you altogether! I do have one mani completed recently that I haven't posted about yet, that will go up either tomorrow or Saturday. Wish me luck with all this cleaning!!!

xo,

J.

Tutorial: Jelly Watercolour Nails

Hello!

By popular demand over at Instagram, here is a rudimentary tutorial for the jelly watercolour nails I showed you last Saturday.

We begin with two coats of the base colour (I used Funny Bunny), followed by two generous coats of a thick quick-dry topcoat such as Seche Vite or Poshé. The topcoat is important, as it protects the base colour from bleeding during the watercolouring. The base colour doesn't need to be perfect (i.e. if you use a jelly like I did, don't worry too much about unevenness) because it will largely be covered up in the end. Wait until the topcoat is very dry, or else adding other polishes and/or acetone to it will cause it to behave strangely and perhaps go all sticky/mushy.

Gather all the jellies you want to use, plus a flat brush (I used my small one-stroke brush). The brush needs to have a good-sized flat surface but the shape of the tip doesn't matter.

This one stroke brush is stained from the love of projects past. And that sounds gross now that I've typed it.

Dab a few rounded spots of your first jelly colour onto your nail, then dip your brush in pure acetone and dab the side of the brush onto your jelly spots. This is important! Do not use the tip of the brush, you'll just dig into the jelly and cause bald spots. The key is to dab with the side of the bristles so that the acetone and the jelly polish mix and the resulting liquid can be 'dabbed around' the nail. This is hard to explain, but hopefully that gives you an idea!

I have my brush angled up here because I was trying to show the pale orange liquid that formed when the jelly polish and the acetone mixed. If you dab like this, you'll remove your entire spot from your nail, or else just maim it a lot!!

This is what I ended up with after dabbing around my orange spots:

Now I'll just show you before and after shots of each of the other colours of jellies. The process is the same for each.

Once you've gone through all of your jelly colours, wait until they are dry -- this shouldn't take very long, you won't have used much polish and the acetone will speed things up -- and then clean up your cuticles with an angled brush and acetone, topcoat your creation, and you're done!

Please let me know if you have any questions at all, I'll do my best to be helpful. :)

The list of the polishes I used is in my other post, right here.


J.

Jelly Watercolour Nail Art

Today's look is not exactly how I imagined it would turn out, but it's not bad for a first attempt. :) I've long wanted to do the watercolour technique (wherein you dab on nail polish then use them as watercolours, except with acetone instead).

For this look, I started with a base of two generous coats of Funny Bunny, which I topped with two generous coats of Poshé; this protects the base colour from the effects of the acetone. I then dabbed on Y'All Come Back, Ya Hear? and spread them around with acetone until I was happy. I did the same with Guy Meets Gal-veston, Houston We Have a Purple, Katherine, and Frida.

MY NEVER-SEEN LEFT HAND!!
I started on this hand and kept these nails simpler than the ones on my right hand. I'm not sure which look I prefer.

Once the colour dabs were dried, I covered them in another coat of Poshé. Somewhat annoyingly, the brush I was using for the watercolouring had previously been used in a foil polish, so there are little bits of microglitter in this mani that I wasn't anticipating. (Most noticeable if you zoom the above and check out the ring finger.)

Not content to leave well enough alone, I decided to try the water-spotting technique overtop:

To do this technique, you drop polish into a cup of water (use a glass cup, or a disposable plastic cup) and then, when it has spread out, you spritz the surface of the water with hairspray/perfume/hand sanitizer so that the polish starts glomming together and opening up holes, as above. You then dip your fingers into the design, remove the excess floating on the surface of the water with a cotton swab, and then spend roughly a million years cleaning up the excess polish on your skin! Yay!

This was my first time doing it, so the results are not ideal (hello, pinkie, you pain in the hiney). Through trial and error, I found that my perfume in a travel atomizer worked the best (that's what produced the index and middle fingers).

Polishes/supplies used:
OPI - Nail Envy Matte (base coat), Funny Bunny, Y'All Come Back Ya Hear?, Guy Meets Gal-veston, Houston We Have a Purple
Zoya - Katherine, Frida
INM - Out the Door (top coat)
Poshé (top coat)
pure acetone + small paintbrush

I think tomorrow will be something simpler. I'll institute Straightforward Sunday. :)


J.