Bluesky Gel Polish Swatches | Neutrals and a Neon

Here are some photos and swatches of my newest additions to my collection. Check out the video at the end to see the polishes in action and checkout their opacity.

First colour swatched in the video is A74. A gorgeous, bright, neon coral colour, unfortunately I do not have a picture to add yet but I will update as soon as I have one.

Second polish is 80514 a deep nudey brown, quite warm toned.

Bluesky Gel Polish 80514

Third Polish is 80563, it is a few shades lighter than the previous colour and more cool toned, although I would say it was more neutral than cool. Sorry this isn't the best picture to show off this colour, I will try and update the picture when I get a better one.

Bluesky Gel Polish 80563 (behind chevron)

Fourth polish is A44, this is more of a pink nude, very cool toned mauve pink. Has been a very popular colour.

Bluesky Gel Polish A44 on non marble areas

Fifth polish is Nude 19 (nd19), it is the lightest of the colours I swatched in this video, it is quite cool toned and slightly sheer but has quite nice coverage on the nails after 3 coats. Would be great for a french manicure. 

Bluesky Gel Polish Nude 19 (nd 19)

Final polish was 7409, a medium pink that was too sheer for my liking, I do not have a photo of this colour on nails and it is likely I may never get one as I really do not like the opacity of this one. If you would like to check it out skip to 2.52 in the video below.

Realistic Stone Marble | Gel Polish Nail Art

This is quite a hard one to explain in words, I will try to break it down, step by step. I highly recommend checking out the video at the bottom of this post if my written instructions do not make this technique very clear.

Gel Polish Stone Marble Nail

Step 1 : Apply base colour, in my case 2 coats of white curing each layer completely.

Step 2 : Apply a coat of top coat. DO NOT CURE.

Step 3 : Using a fine detail brush draw in thin lines using a dark grey gel polish. DO NOT CURE.

Step 4 : Dip the same brush in a little bit of ispropyl alcohol and start to blend the lines in a wiggling motion, hard to describe, see video for visual demonstration. Once happy, cure.

Step 5: Repeat steps 2 to 4 using white gel polish instead of the grey. You can also add in a little extra grey if you want. Once happy, cure.

Step 6 : You can now repeat the steps again or topcoat and you are finished.

Check out the video for a better explanation of the technique.

From Short to Long - A Hard Gel Nail Growing Journey.

I recently shared a collage of my friends nails, done by me, on my Facebook page and I thought why not share it here as well. I shall go a little more in depth than I can in a Facebook post.

Katie's Nail Journey

First Visit. Nude Gel Polish with Glitter Fade

Katie first came to me wanting a nice, pretty, natural looking set of nails as she was to be a bridesmaid in her friend wedding. She didn't want extensions at the time because she did not want to be the only bridesmaid with false nails. So we kept it simple and went for a nude gel polish with a bronze glitter fade. You can see how I did these nails here.

2nd Visit. Purple and Gold Negative Space Nails

One week later Katie came back, although the nude design was perfect for the occasion, it didn't quite match Katie's personality. She decided she wanted to try Hard Gel Extensions, so I gave her fairly short, square extensions. We kept them short so that it wasn't too hard for her to get used to them and we kept them square because that is the shape she had always had her natural nails. Again we did a fairly simple nail art design which you can watch here. I will not that the same evening I did these nails, Katie had an incident with a cheese grater and managed to grate off the corner of her right thumb nail extension, so she did return the nest day to have this fixed.

3rd Visit. Dream Catcher inspired nails.

Two weeks later (total 3 weeks since first visit) it was time for a design change, we had a couple of millimeters of new nail growth. I filed off the gel polish design and removed any lifting, there was barely any, then infilled the hard gel and changed the nail shape to more coffin, we did not file down any length, before applying a new nail design. This time she chose a dark teal green which I thought would look great with some dream catcher inspired nail art, you can see how I did this here.

4th Visit. Negative Space and Bling Nails

Another two weeks (total 5 weeks since first visit) and it was again time for a design change. I infilled the hard gel and maintained the coffin shape, we still did not file down any length. For the design this time we kept it super simple with a little bit of negative space and a fair bit of bling. If you would like to see how I did these, click here.

5th Visit. Rainbow gel polish and pigment nails.

Two more weeks later (a total of 7 weeks since initial visit) and we decided it was time for a colourful design. This time while infilling the hard gel, I filed the extension at the free edge down to her natural nail length, turning the hard gel extensions into a hard gel overlay. I then went in and applied the design with gel polish and pigments. You can see how I did this design here.






To sum this all up, in 7 weeks we were able to grow Katie's nails to a length she is happy with. We had no nail breaks barring the one that was attacked by a cheese grater and also minimal lifting. You could definitely achieve this with out adding any extension and just doing an overlay from the beginning and wait for the length to grow. But if your client wants instant length you can do it the way we did. I made this post to say that there is no need to remove extensions to reapply, I personally prefer doing infills and overlays as I feel I can get an overlay to look much more natural and you also don't have the chance of the extension tip breaking off. As much as I love doing overlays, there are certain nails that will not be suited to overlays, if a client has nails that curve too far up or down than you would like, you may need to file the natural nail short and apply extensions every couple of infills, you may find you only need to do this to a few nails and not the whole set.

For reference I use Akzentz Proformance Hard Gel and Bluesky Gel Polish.

I hope you found this nail growth story interesting, and feel free to ask any questions as I am sure I have left something important out.

Thanks for reading.

Updates

It has been a very long time since I last posted, and I don't even have an excuse as to why. Although I have not been writing blog posts, I have been uploading a nail related video to my YouTube Channel once a week for a little while. If you are interested I aim to upload a nail art video every Wednesday at 6pm New Zealand time, with occasional swatch videos or other nail related videos as bonus videos, although if I am low on the nail art videos I may rearrange this schedule.

Anyway, enough about YouTube. I haven't a whole lot else to update, I am still solely working for my self in my beauty business mainly focusing on nails and nail art, business has steadily been getting busier since November last year and I am really enjoying getting to know all my new regulars as well as seeing those that have been to see me since near the beginning.

I hope to continue growing my business, but I am unsure whether I will be staying in Hamilton forever or moving on to somewhere new sooner or later. I am certain I want to continue making YouTube videos, because I find it fun and hopefully someone, somewhere can learn something from my videos.

I think that is enough updates for now, I hope to be posting more regularly on here, perhaps when I have created a design I love on a client but was unable to record a video on said design, who knows, we will see what happens.

Here are a few nail pictures to make this post a little more interesting.

Neon Galaxy Nails - Tutorial for this design will be on YouTube in the near future.

Pink and Purple Gradient Chevron - Not my original design, client brought in a picture but I didn't catch the artists name.
Let me know if you know who it was.

Thanks for reading.

Nail Art Basics | Chevron/Zig Zag Design | Gel Nail Polish

Hand Painted Chevron/Zig Zag Design

If you want to know how I hand paint chevrons, check out my newest video.

If you have any requests for nail art videos please leave them in a comment.

Spring Flowers with Holo Glitter | Gel Polish Manicure

I decided to record myself doing my nails. This wasn't mean as a tutorial more of a nail GRWM but you may learn something from this video. Sadly the video quality is not as good as I had hoped because the colour keeps changing but I think you can still see what I am doing. I hope my next attempt at a nail video goes better. I am hoping to record my own nails every time that I do them and also throw in a few quick nail art experiment videos in between.

Anyway here are the nails I did, I have kept it really simple because I couldn't decide what to do. I wanted to use my new colours and also my new holographic glitter.

Spring Flowers with Holo Glitter Nail Art.

This manicure could easily be recreated in regular polish although I would probably skip out on the loose glitter and use a glitter polish instead.

If you want to watch how I did these nails, here s the video.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to add them as a comment.

Slacking on the blog posts

I didn't post anything last week because I couldn't think what to post, I really want to film another nail tutorial but I am waiting on a mini tripod to be delivered so I can get a better filming angle. I also though of doing a makeup video but it had been the school holidays so we had a full house and I don't like filming with people around.

Although I have been slacking on the blog posts, I have managed to keep up with my weekly vlogs so far. I have to say last weeks vlog was not my best effort but I think the one I am editing now is much better.

I am uploading a weekly vlog every Thursday at 6 pm, so watch out for it over on my YouTube Channel.

I guess this post is just to say I have not forgotten about the blog and I hope to be back into the regular posts next week. Wish me luck, I need it.

Here is a picture of some nails I did last week. Hand painted with Gel Nail Polish.

Red, black, white and gold nails

And here is last weeks vlog, if you want to check it out. It is a little bit shorter than normal.

3 Ways to use Glitter with Gel Nail Polish

3 types of Gl Polish Glitter Nails

All of these techniques can be varied by using different polish colours and glitter colours. You can choose to use the same colour polish and glitter or use a different coloured polish and glitter. This looks especially good with method 1 using your manicure colour as the base polish and adding a gold or silver on top. Also with method 2 a black base and silver glitter look nice together. I think I also need to add that the photos do these nails no justice, it is so difficult to get a good shot of glitter.

Sheer Gel Polish Glitter Nail

1. Sheer Glitter Nail
For this method start by applying your basecoat and two coats of colour polish curing between layers, if your colour is not opaque apply more layers. On a palette place a drop of top or base coat and add loose glitter of your desired colour and mix together. Then apply this mixture to the nail, I like to use a dabbing method as it gives more even coverage. Then cure the glitter layer. You can stop here and apply top coat or you can add another layer of the glitter mixture if you want more glitter. Once you have applied your final top coat check to make sure there are no rough areas, if there are then buff the nail and apply another layer of top coat.

Medium Coverage Gel Polish Glitter Nail

2. Medium Coverage Glitter Nail
For this method you want to start the same way as the first method, apply your basecoat and 2 colour coats curing between layers. Get your glitter on a fluffy brush and press the glitter into the sticky inhibition layer. Then cure in your lamp. Now gently dust off ant loose glitter and apply a top coat. Remove the sticky layer and buff the nail before applying a final top coat.

Full Coverage Gel Polish Glitter Nail

3. Full Coverage Glitter Nail
For this method apply your base coat and one coat of colour polish and cure between layers. Next add a second coat of colour but before curing pour on your glitter until it covers the whole nail, shake off any excess and cure in you lamp. Now brush off any loose glitter, apply a top coat and cure. Next remove the sticky layer and buff the nail before applying a final top coat.








Gel Polish Glitter Nails are so easy to do and add such a great accent to any manicure. The colour combinations are endless. I hope these steps made sense, if anyone would like me to elaborate or make a video tutorial please let me know.

Nail Art Practise

I had a bit of spare time and decided to try a new nail art design. I recreated a design by All Nails Everything. I  used  Gel Nail Polish colours but you could absolutely use regular nail polish for this design. Here is how I recreated the design.

Step by Step Nail Design

Step 1: After applying your basecoat apply a couple of coats of white polish until opaque.

Step 2: Fill in the top corners near the cuticle with black polish as pictured. For this I used a small detailing brush.

Step 3: Paint in five lines roughly then thicken them to be more like elongated triangles as pictured. I used the same detailing brush for this step. These do not have to be perfect, we can fix any mistakes in the next step. My black lines are thicker than the original design, if you want finer lines you can do so. This step could also be done by taping off the areas you want left white but I do not like this method because it can be quite fiddly and does not always give crisp lines.

Step 4: Now go in with your detailing brush and white polish to perfect the lines and make sure the black triangles come to a point at the top of the nail.

Step 5: Time for a second coat on all the black areas. If you make any mistakes or you are not happy with your lines keep switching between the black and white polishes perfecting your lines, making sure to cure the colours between each layer. If I had been doing this design on a real nail I would have continued perfecting my lines because as you can see they are not perfect.

Step 6: Apply a colour of your choice, I chose this coral/ peach shade, in a V shaped french covering the ends of your black triangles. Repeat this step until the colour is opaque.

Step 7: Attach a nail stud to the top of the nail in the white area, I used a gold square stud because I have no triangle studs like the original design. I used clear top coat to attach the stud.

Step 8: Remove the tacky layer and add striping tape in a V shape where the coral/peach shade overlaps the rest of the nail.

Step 9:Apply top coat over the striping tape to help it stay on longer.

Step 10: Top coat the entire nail and you are done.

I hope to try out some of the other designs in the original manicure soon.

Christmas Mosaic Nails

 I found it really hard to decide what I wanted on my nails this Christmas. I wasn't feeling the literal approach (Santa hats, reindeer, snowmen etc.) I had just done a lovely set of white and gold Christmas nails on my friend and they were gorgeous but I didn't want to copy.

I had also just taken part in the Neiru fine lines workshop and was wanting to try out some new techniques. I decided to try out mosaic nails but make them Christmas themed by using red, green and gold.

Mosaic Nails are relatively easy to do and can be adjusted to suit your abilities. If you find it difficult just make your lines thicker, if you find it easy aim for the thinnest lines possible. I did do this design with gel nail polish but I am sure it could also be done with regular polish or acrylic paint.

Christmas Mosaic Nails

I will give a brief rundown of how to do mosaic nails but if you want a more in depth look at how i did my Christmas nails check out the video below.

I started with base coat then applied a nude pink colour as my base so I would have to do less coats when filling in my shapes. Next I took a fine liner brush and painted lines on my nail, some straight, some curved. Intersecting at different points. It's up to you the shapes you want to create and also how many shapes you want on you nail. Make sure not to make the shapes too small otherwise it is harder to colour them in.

After the white outline is set its really just colouring in. Like I said I chose red, green and gold for Christmas but you can use whatever you like. I counted the shapes and tried to divide the colours evenly but I also didn't want any touching shapes to be the same colour. When filling in the shapes you can correct any of the white lines that are too thick.

After the shapes have been coloured in, you may need more than one coat, I traced over the white lines perfecting them as much as possible. Then topcoat and the design is complete.

Braided Nail Art Gel Polish Manicure

Braided Gel Nail Polish Design

Another post starting the same way as always, sorry for not posting in a very long time. I really have no excuse so I'm not going to try make one.

Here is a set of nails I did on myself. I find it hard to describe how to do designs just using photos, so I though I would record myself doing the design. It was my first time doing a braided design and also my first time filming this way. The video isn't the best and I can definitely improve on a few things, like getting closer to the fingers. But hopefully the video gives you an idea of how to do a braided nail design with gel nail polish.

Happy watching. :)

Manicure Monday - Green and Silver Zig Zag Design

Green and Silver Glitter Zig Zag Nails

When I did this manicure my camera battery died and I had to take the picture with my phone, so please excuse the quality.

This is a gel polish design.

This manicure is similar to designs I have done in the past but this is a new colour. My client brought in a picture from the Orly Nail Girls and chose this awesome green colour.

To do the zig zag design first paint the nail with your desired base colour, we chose white, and then dot out the design in your second colour before joining the dots together to make your zig zag.

On the middle finger we did a full silver glitter nail.

The rest of the fingers and thumb were just painted green.

Yay for me getting this post up on time.

Nail Art

So I had two nail designs to upload for Manicure Monday for the two previous Mondays but I kind of forgot to post them up. So here they are now.

Baby Blue Glitter and Diamond Nails

The first set is a baby blue custom blended gel polish colour. It is hard to tell in the photo but the ring finger is a glitter nail. On the middle finger is a diamond design. I did this design by first painting the nail blue, then roughly painting on the diamonds, then cleaning up the lines by going back with the same blue base colour and finally adding some dots in each diamond in a silver gel polish colour.

Black and White Heart Nails

The next set is a black and white design, all nails painted black except the ring finger which is painted white. Then using a small paint brush I painted a black heart on the white ring finger and a white heart on the thumb. I also went back with the base nail colour to clean up the edges of the hearts.





Wish me luck with getting next weeks Manicure Monday Post up on time.

Manicure Monday - Pink and Silver Nails

Acrylic nails with gel polish

Today we have a set of sculpted clear acrylic nails with a custom blended gel nail polish on top. To make the pink colour I mixed a hot pink with a french pink to lighten the colour without turning the colour into a pastel which happens when you use a white polish to lighten colour.


On the ring finger is a silver glitter finger applied in the normal way. I plan to do a step by step post on this, the next time I do my own nails.

Also on the thumb I stamped some flowers using the Konad m57 plate before applying topcoat.

You may notice the Manicure Monday in the title again, I am planning to post a nail design every Monday if I can keep up with it. I have 3 weeks planned already so hopefully that is enough of a head start to keep up with it. I'm not promising post on any other days but there will most likely be a few other odd posts here and there.

Baby Shower Nails

A good friend of mine had her baby shower in the weekend and I offered to do her nails for the special event. We decided to create a baby blue colour in honour of her baby boy. We wanted to keep the manicure fairly simple so went with a blue and white colour scheme and kept the nail art to a minimum. This is a gel nail polish manicure.

Baby Shower Nails

On her right hand, all fingers were painted blue and the thumb white. I wrote her due date over the the first three fingers with white gel polish and a detail brush. On the thumb I did some dots using a dotting tool and the same custom blue gel polish that was used on the other nails.

On the left hand, all nails were painted blue except the ring finger which we painted white. On the ring finger I did a baby foot print using dotting tools of various sizes and the custom blue colour used on the other nails. On the thumb we mirrored the right hand and did white dots on a blue background.

I love this manicure, I think it is so cute and a perfect manicure for your baby shower and also excellent for a maternity photo shoot.

If you live in Hamilton, New Zealand check out my Facebook business page.

Red and Gold Nails

Today I did a set of clear sculpted acrylics and finished with regular nail polish. On all fingers except the ring finger is OPI Red and on the ring finger is Orly Luxe.

These nails are for a wedding, she wanted red nails to match her planned red lips.




Also on the ring finger is some white stamped lace which I did using the m57 plate. We also stamped some lace on the thumb in the Orly Gold Polish.

If you live in Hamilton, New Zealand check out my business page on Facebook.

Day 20 - Lavender Daisy Nails

Today I did these lovely lavender and silver nails with white daisies. My client brought in a photo from the Orly Nail Girls but I can't find the specific photo to link to sorry.

This is a nice simple design that still looks amazing.

I mixed two colours together to make the perfect lavender purple.

The silver nail is a silver polish with silver glitter on top.

I made the flowers using a three different sized dotting tools. The original design also had small dots filling the empty space on the ring finger but my client decided she preferred them without.

This design would look lovely in many different colours and you can swap the glitter to gold. The flowers can be done with more petals or with a rhinestone centre. This is also a great design to do on yourself because it doesn't require too much control with your non dominant hand.

This is a gel nail polish design but this could easily be recreated with regular polish.

Day 18 - Orange and Blue Triangle Nails

Finally, I have a nail design to post about. Today I had a client that wanted a bold and bright  Gel nail polish design. She chose the orange colour and gave me free reign to come up with a design.

I decided to go with triangles and together we chose the contrasting blue colour.

I painted all the nails orange except the ring finger, which I painted blue. I put blue glitter on the ring finger also.




Then onto the triangles, I did a few triangles at a time before setting in the light, then I would add more triangles and add more polish to any triangles that weren't opaque.

Then Top Coat and we are finished.

I know that this colour combination won't be for everybody, but you can swap it out for your favourite colours or use complimentary colours in stead of the contrasting blue and orange that I have used.

This triangle design is quite similar to this design.

Day 14 - Pink, Purple and Black Nails

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Today's post is going to be a really quick one because I have been working all day and I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and think of a good idea for a post.

Here are a set of nails I did the other day. My client brought in a picture of this design in different colours and asked me to recreate it. I do not know who did the original design so I can't link to it.

She chose pink, purple and black and also asked me to add the purple hearts and pink stars to the design. We reversed the colours on the thumbs.

This design is done with gel nail polish.