Polish All the Nails

As you can imagine given the size of my polish collection, I'm pretty well known at the beauty supply places around Toronto.  My main source of Zoyas, Trade Secrets in the Eaton Centre, is good but they're slow on getting the new stuff.  It's gotten to the point where I hassle the nice manager man to get more and have raided his stock even before it gets to the shelves.  Anyway, I was super excited about the Zoya Magical Pixie Dusts polishes cos you can't lose with holo + texture.  Turns out you kinda can...

So I found a new site to be obsessed with, Aliexpress.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of nail art bits and pieces on there - charms, glitter, decals, you name it - all for ridiculously cheap prices.  I sound like a shill but seriously, the stuff on there! I mean, look at this .  Squarely up my alley.  Anyway, I ordered some circle glitter from there, all is good but the reason I'm annoyed is I did not moisturise properly.  So instead of being able to focus on the sparklies, all I can see in these pictures is where I tried and failed to properly photoshop out my dry skin.  URRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  I'm showing you anyway though, even though I'm probably going to have to do this over so it's right.

OH MY GOD what a pain in the arse these nails were to do.  They don't look it but all the way along, pain, pain and suffering.  First I tried to do white with blue stripes but it looked weird.  Then I did this but the blue and white both bleed, but in different ways.  Then I didn't clean up right and had to spend ages photoshopping the white bits off my fingers.  Just urgh.  Don't even get me started on the anchors.  I've spent like hours on this for no reason, all because I like anchors and stripes.  URGGHGHFGHGHGHGHG.  Just squint when you look at these, ok?  Looks more like how I want it then.

Let me set the scene.  Imagine it's two years ago.  I was just starting this blog and had become obsessed with indie polishes because I liked the glitter.  Then, on the horizon, comes a magic collection of "flakie" polishes.  Why would you care about flakie polishes?  Well, they were these plain looking bottles of weird shaped glitter that just happened to explode with amazingness when you put them over a black polish.  Unfortunately they were only sold at Sally Beauty store and I missed out on all but two of them.  Given they were sold on ebay for up to $70, I never got to complete the collection.  I very nearly actually died when I found out that Finger Paints were doing another collection of flakies, the Kaleidescope Collection.  So much so that I made my friend Kirsten drive me to a Sally's in Etobioke when I live downtown.  Let's take a look at the full collection, now, shall we?

I don't know about you guys but I do my nails every day.  Unless I'm sleeping.  Then I do them when I wake up.  Anyway, given I post only sporadically, that leaves a lot of nails I do but don't post.  They're even usually pretty complicated!  Just somehow, somewhere in how the photos came out, my colour choices, my execution or the way the wind is blowing, they don't get posted because they're not the best they can be.  In the interest of transparency, let's have a look at some that didn't quite make the cut. 

I'm pretty good with glitter.  Give me a pattern and a little time, odds are I can produce it with glitter.  Acrylic paints, on the other hand, yeah, not as good.  I think it's because with glitter it's really easy to correct mistakes - just move the glitter around - but paint is so unforgiving.  I'm jealous of the incredibly talented people who do amazing things with paints so I trimmed down a few more brushes and gave a new pattern a try.  I saw a great tutorial from Nailumium for Geometric Skittle nails  and gave it a shot.  Well, two shots, and this is the better one.  Let's take a look, shall we?

I get asked a lot about how often I do my nails.  It's every day.  Unless I'm sleeping.  That means though that you guys don't get to see all the nails I do.  I have to like how the photos came out, how well I cleaned up, etc for me to actually post it.  So these nails were from a little while ago and I think they'll do for today.  Let's take a look at OPI Incognito in Sausalito, shall we? 

I wonder sometimes what you think when I write a more critical review of my nails.  I hope it's not that I'm fishing for compliments - I swear that's not me.  I just like to be honest about how something turned out sometimes.  Like this ruby slippers mani:  looks a bit like fruit in jello, doesn't it?  And for some reason that just skeeves me a bit.  It's still pretty though!  I guess!  Let's take a look, shall we?

I've had this little bag of gold holographic square glitter sitting on my desk for a little while now, taunting me.  "I'm not that small!", it says. "You can totally start a mani with me now, at 11.45pm, and you'll totally be done by 1am!".  IT'S A LIAR AND I SHOULDN'T LISTEN TO GLITTER.   I was talking to my new friend Antonia and she had the great idea of doing an art deco mani with glitter instead of tape.  See how these two things came together?  Yeah, well, I love the idea and hate the glitter.  And my execution. 

My favourite thing about the nail art community is that every single person is just about the nicest person I've ever met.  Everyone is so encouraging, so supportive, it just makes me so happy.  I'm not so rosy-glasses about myself.  I know I can't produce masterpieces every day so let's take a look at a mani I'm not so happy with, for a multitude of reasons. 

I'm getting back to routine now I'm setting into my new job.  A new activity appears to be spending large amounts of time on a weekend day spending a lot of time doing the most crazy nails I can think of.  I've had this square black glitter for a little while now and wanted to see what it would look like over a horizontal rainbow gradient.  So that then. 

I'm still brainstorming ways to show you glitter mosaic manicures that don't take a million years to do and one of my favourites are the 3D glitter cubes.  I had the light bulb moment about a year ago that you could fit diamond-shaped glitter to look like baby's blocks and I've been a bit obsessed ever since.  It's super easy to do and is super sparkly, especially if you're using larger, holographic pieces.  Let's take a closer look, shall we?

I'm always on the look out for new glitter. ALWAYS.  Because I like to wander around Etsy when I'm bored, I found a store that sells all kinds of interesting glitter sets.  A pot of rainbow hex and square matte glitter caught my eye and I had to have it.  The problem was then how to make best use of it.  Pastel rainbow gradient background then hand-placed glitter on top of it is clearly an answer. 

Hello!  Again, not dead, just still trying to find time for getting home after work at like 7ish, going to the gym, making dinner, doing my nails, taking the photos, editing them and writing the post all in the one night.  I used to have a good system where I'd take the photos at night and write the post at lunch at work but damn my new socialable co-workers! Anyway, like any person who ranks how awesome something is by how rainbow and/or sparkly it is, I was pretty damn excited to see the new China Glaze Holographic polishes show up at my local beauty supply place.  I mean, you all saw how great the OMG Collection was, right?  Yeah, this isn't that great.  Not by a long shot, especially with the stunning effort Color Club is putting into their new holographic polishes which I just found at the Winners on Spadina.  Run on sentences, hooray!  I very nearly bought all twelve of the China Glazes on the spot, thinking at the time that the fluores...

Oh man, it's getting super hard to keep coming up with ideas so I'm just going to keep on plumbing different techniques.  I'm super into sponge gradients these days so I thought I'd try my hand at overlaid gradients, in rainbows of course because they're the best.  And that way, I get to show off my giraffe ring!  We all win!  Well, we would have had I taken more care to remove the yellow polish stains from my fingers :/ To start, I applied two coats of my new white, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  Everyone seems to be using it these days and I can see why, it's one of the nicer, more even whites I've used in a while.  Next, I loaded up a makeup sponge with stripes of China Glaze Pool Party and Surfin' for Boys and American Apparel Neon Yellow to create the underlying gradient.  I'm getting pretty good at gradients these days, I find that I just need the two coats of gradient.  Makes things quicker.  After a coat of Seche Vite, I applied my...

Urgh, today is just not a good day for nails.  Not only did I cut myself twice on the cheese shaver (in addition to the two other times I've done it) but both cuts were on my photo hand.  Acetone + fresh cuts = owies.  To top it off, the design I had in my head for Australia day didn't work out that well and I feel like I've cheated if my glitter doesn't line up properly.  I can't even re-do it cos I can't face the acetone again!  So we're all just going to have to deal with less-than-amazing Australia day nails.  I thought about doing Australian flags but it felt too hard so instead, the call of the wild Australian: Aussie, aussie, aussie! Oy, oy, oy!  Believe it or not I've heard it in bars all over the world.  To start, I applied two coats of the greenest green I have, Revlon Posh.  Then, using my usual technique, I slapped the glitter on.  I couldn't work out which way round the pieces were supposed to go to sit together pr...

I just want to cry looking at these pictures.  I mean, it looks awesome if you make the pictures super small and squint at it from a distance but the second you get closer you can see how my top coat betrayed me.  I'm so super sad right now guys :( I'm going to pretend the millions of bubbles aren't there for a moment and just talk about what was supposed to happen.  A while ago I did this  mani, rainbow herringbone nails.  I wasn't happy with the execution then and I'm still not so I decided to redo it so that the glitter all sat down properly.  Using the diamond shaped glitter is always a PITA because of how easily it sticks up and catches on stuff.  I've found though that if you use my usual technique but make sure to tamp each piece down into the top coat as you go, you can make it all smooth and nice.  All was going perfectly until I was brutally betrayed by my combination of Essie Everyday Top Coat and Out the Door Top Coat.  I do...

I hate water marbling, mostly because I'm intensely jelly of all those out there that manage to make these amazing manis that I just can't seem to reproduce.  Every time I try, my polish just doesn't spread out.  If it does, after two or three drops, it stops spreading and I get sad.  I've tried different polish brands, different temperature waters, bottled water, seemingly everything with no consistent results.  I combed through some more videos and tutorials and noticed that some people used just OPI polishes with good results, so I tried that.   To start, I applied two coats of Orly Dayglow, my current favourite white.  Then, after taping off my fingers, I got to work with four different OPI polishes.  I filled a small plastic cup with room temperature water and got to work.  I found the best way to do it was to get an almost-ready-to-drip drop of polish and dab it in the water, then repeating as quickly as possible.  I found though t...

So it seems as though everyone's doing the nail strips these days, huh?  I was in Joe Fresh the other day an found a set of three Christmas-y themed nail strips for $10.  Not bad, let's take a look at how they actually are on.   Because their website is terrible, I can't actually show you which ones these are but they came in a gift packaged box with three designs - snowflakes, red and white stripes and a silver glitter.  I'm usually a little sceptical of nail strips, especially after a rather disastrous run-in with China Glaze strips.   Looking at them closely, they did seem to be nail polish strips instead just stickers.  I can't stand the stickers, they peel off almost immediately and are difficult to get to fit to your nail.  I cleaned my nails ready for application and got to work - I have a tutorial here, if you want to see how I apply them.  They seemed to apply like the nail polish strips but soon I noticed peeling...

Something I try to do on this blog is be open and transparent about how I feel about polishes and manis.  I've been reasonably good at it but I felt I should show you some of the manis I've done recently that make me angry, be it poor choice of colours, photography, style or application.  Let's take a look at some of them, shall we? First up we have what should have been a simple swatch of Nfu-Oh 51 over Sally Hansen Navy Baby.  I thought the navy would bring out the nice blue in the 51 but it was just too dark.  My application and clean up was bad so my cuticles and fingers look a bit dirty and weird.  In cleaning up also, I removed just a bit of the top colour from around my cuticles which I hate.  It's too thick, too!  Urgh, I just hate everything about this.  I will find a way to review this polish properly soon, though.