Day Two - Technically I already failed

My first post was actually posted at 12:04 am on February the 2nd, so my plan for a post every day has already gone out the window. Lets just pretend that didn't happen, it was still the 1st in parts of the world......

Anyway onto today's post.

I am already struggling to think of ideas for posts, I dread to think what I'll be writing at the end of the month. Today I'm going to stick with something I know, a nail post.

These are a set of nails I did on myself using gel nail polish and fine craft glitter. I'm not going to go into too much detail on how to do these, but if you have any questions just ask. :)

I started by doing a basic french manicure with gel nail polish on all fingers except for the ring finger (i'll explain that one in a minute) and adding the gel topcoat, then I lightly buffed the shine from the topcoat so my glitter wouldn't slip around to much. I then drew a line in a gel nail polish colour similar to the glitter colour I wanted to use. Before setting the green line I sprinkled fine glitter over the wet polish and then cleaned up the lines with a brush. If you have a lot of excess glitter where you don't want it, gently blow on your nails. Once I was happy with the lines I set the nails in my UV light. Once set I brushed off any loose glitter with a nail brush, the kind you use to clean under your fingernails. Then I sealed the whole design with a gel topcoat. If the glitter was still a little ruff I again buffed the topcoat and glitter area until it felt more smooth and applied another layer of topcoat.

Now for the ring finger, I applied my base coat, set in lamp, then one coat of colour, set in lamp, then another coat of colour, before setting I sprinkled the green glitter over top until the whole nail was covered in glitter. I then set the nail in the UV lamp. Next I brush off any excess glitter and applied gel topcoat. I buff the surface smooth paying extra attention to the free edge. Then I painted on the lace design with white gel polish. If you would like a step by step let me know. If you're not confident with hand painting you can also do this with Konad stamping if you have the right plate. 

That's all for today, hopefully there will be more from me tomorrow.

Mint and White Heart French Manicure

Long time, no blog. Feels like I start every post with something along those lines and a promise to post more frequently from now on. No such promise this time, I will do the best I can to post more often but I will most likely fail to do so. 

The upside to being absent for so long, I have plenty of photos of nail designs that I can now share with you. Instead of lumping them all together in one post, as I have done previously, I thought I would give more detailed explanations of each design in their own separate posts.

This first design is using three polishes, a white (Orly White Out), a minty green (Orly Gumdrop, is slightly more minty in person) and an optional glitter polish I used Wasabi. I can't remember the brand name of the glitter polish, but if anyone needs to know I can search it out for you.

I start with basecoat as always then apply a few coats of Orly Gumdrop, you can use any colour you prefer. Then using the white polish draw to semi circle shapes at the tip of the nail overlapping in the centre, creating the heart or lip french. This shape of french is very easy to do because the brush does most of the work for you. You may need to do two coats of the white if the colour underneath is showing through. You could stop here if you want to, but I chose to continue and using a dotting tool and the same white polish I added a few white dots along the line of the heart tip.

You may see in the photo I added a few rhinestones, which you may like to do also, although I prefer the design with out. At the time of this manicure I had on some very grown out acrylics which I was being lazy about removing so I added the rhinestones to disguise the acrylic nail which was most obvious on my ring finger.

I know that was a very rambly explanation, so if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask.

Manicure of the Week and Nail Polish Review

My manicure for this week is quite simple because I can finally start growing my nails I thought I would do a coloured french manicure, so instead of doing a whole lot of tutorial photos I thought I would review the nail polishes that I have used in this manicure.

Coloured French with reverse ring finger.

I applied my regular base coat, OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener for Sensitive and Peeling Nails (it's the one with the orange writing). This base coat works well for me, I don't have sensitive or peeling nails so I can't judge it on its ability to help with that but it helps to prevent staining on my nails. I do still get slight staining when I wear green and blue polishes, so I recommend trying two layers of base coat if you are using blue or green polish.

Next I applied two coats of OPI Pink Flamenco to all my nails except my ring fingers. This colour applies nicely to my nails and is opaque in two coats. It is also very shiny, even without a topcoat, but I always apply a topcoat so I get as much wear as possible.

Next I applied three coats of Revlon Orange Pop, which is scented when dry. Like all Revlon polishes that I have tried this colour needs three coats to be opaque. It is less shiny than the OPI polish but this doesn't matter because I put a topcoat on top. At first I thought the scented when dry idea was a silly gimmick because you can't smell it after you have put top coat on, but I find it useful. I know that when I can smell the orange then the polish is dry and ready for another coat.

I then free hand painted french tips on all my nails with the opposite colour. I did two coats of the Revlon Orange Pop and one coat of the OPI Pink Flamenco.

Once it was all dry I applied Nailene Acrylic Strong topcoat. This gives a nice shine and helps prolong the wear of my polish. But I do find that I can get bubbles in my nails when I use this topcoat.

Overall I like this combination of polishes and it usually lasts at least a week on my nails, although I do find that when my nails are longer the polishes tend to crack after a few days because my nails have more flexibility than the polish. I try to prevent this by adding a layer of topcoat every couple of days.