NOTD: Franken gradient

I learned something new today- apparently I should never take pictures in my yard. I took a few photos at work today, and they came out much nicer in terms of color. My landlord painted the walls around the yard (yes, WALLS) yellow, which apparently reflects onto my hands a whole lot more than I thought! No more yard photos for me!

Colors used:
My frankens- Autodidact
Maybeline Colorama 135
My franekns- Osmia Avosetta

The glitter at the tips was actually a happy accident- I didn't add Osmia Avosetta until a day later, when I decided the original gradient wasn't as impressive as I wanted. I forgot to dampen the sponge first, so a lot of polish got absorbed into it, while the glitter sat on top. So I only got some color, but I got all of the glitter! This is actually a method I'm considering trying later.

Haul of shame: Eye shadow edition

I have a weakness for pretty colors. This should be common knowledge by now, considering how many nail polishes I've bought! But apparently I have an even bigger weakness when the colors are arranged in pleasing shapes with complementary colors.

Which brings me to the L'oreal Paris Color Riche eye shadow quads.

Unfortunately, I don't really know how to photograph eye shadow, so my pictures are pretty crappy. I haven't swatched them, but I've worn some. They aren't 100% consistent, but mostly they are decently pigmented, and they lasted me all day. I probably should have done a more comprehensive review, but I haven't, so have some pictures instead!

Look at the pretty color combos! They're really gorgeous in person. I kept passing them on the way to buy nail polish, and eventually I caved in. There were a couple of quads in the display that I didn't get, because I knew from experience those colors Do Not Work on me. (purple shadow, unfortunately, looks ridiculous on me. True blue I wouldn't even bother with.)

The stupidest bit is- I only know the very basics of eye shadow application. I have a feeling I'm going to go on a youtube tutorial spree soon! Especially since I want to use the green/beige/bordeax/black quad and I have no idea where to start with that one.

My stash

So! There have been a couple of requests that I show you guys my polish collection. So here it is:

I don't have much to say about this, except you can see that I've clearly been hoarding Orly, Chic, and GA-DE polishes. Sadly, it looks like they've stopped importing Orly and are only selling off what's left on the shelves, so I'm scrambling to find as many untried Orly colors as I can (of those that I'm interested in) and buy them all up. I also bought a few backups, fingers crossed that I'll get all the backups I want! (still on the lookout for a spare of Smolder especially).

Also, yes, that is a massive Linux tome on the top right, next to my franken bottles. I don't claim to have read it, but it's on my reading list of "things to consume on my quest to expand my technical writing skills and become super employable". XML and Visual Basic are definitely going to happen first, though. That thing is scary!

NOTD: Art deco

So... supposedly this is inspired by the Great Gatsby? Or so everyone tells me. I have neither read the book nor watched the movie, and unless someone can offer me a compelling reason to do so, I probably won't. Still, I like the aesthetic. I've seen manis like these floating around, and I decided to try it for myself.

Colors used:
OPI Ink
Chic Metalix Frost

Funny story: I wore this mani for three days. I kept meaning to photogaph it after work, but I kept having to stay late and by the time I'd get home the sun would be down. I ended up bringing my camera and polish to work and just ducking out mid afternoon when the sunlight looked right.

These are pretty simple compared to a lot of the other art deco stripe manis out there, but for a first attempt I'm pretty pleased. I've also got to see if they make narrower tape- this is really skinny, but I've seen some manicures floating around with insanely thin lines. It would allow me so much more freedom to make elaborate patterns.

Hey guys, I made some frankens...

...and now I'm addicted. That's not to say every franken I made was a rousing success, but damn, it's fun! I learned stuff as I went along, and you can see my progress.

I made six frankens total (five and a half, sorta- you'll see when I get there), which is the number of empty bottles I had. A good use for empties, fun and thrifty.

Unfortunately, on most of them I couldn't possibly tell you the exact ingredients of each one, so I could never properly recreate any of these.

I happen to have been marathon-watching all of Elementary, hence the names on these.


I'm Ambidextrous

NOTD: Chevrons

Hey all! Quick NOTD for today, not much to explain:

Polishes used:
Orly Faint of Heart
Orly Moonlit Madness
WOW 434 (in which there is a hidden teal shimmer, but you have to know you're looking for it)

I didn't get this perfect, I'm thinking I need a different kind of tape next time. Also I need to give the layers some time to dry before top coat, because I smudged pink over most fingers =/ other than that I was quite happy with this look and I'll probably do it again!

NOTD: Water Marble 2.0

I used to water marble a whole lot more. For some reason, my first ever attempt at marbling came out nearly perfect, and then after that I could never quite recreate my success. Beginners luck,  perhaps? Besides, once I started getting better at other kind of art, I started feeling like marbling wasn't worth the hassle.

For the record, it totally is.

This was an interesting experiment for me, and it started by accident. I was marbling with silver and blue, and the silver was an extremely eager polish- it spread out like crazy, squashing the blue down to nothing. So I decided to break the rules of marbling- I double dipped. In some cases, I even triple dipped. And I loved the results!

It's so much easier this way, because you can afford to be sloppy and it won't ruin anything at all.

Colors used:
Silver- Revlon Sterling
Blue in marble- Cult Nails Time Traveler (which, for the record, marbles just fine, but Sterling overpowers it)
Blue on non-marbled nails- Maybelline Colorama 80

Experiments with liquid sand

I have been putting off this post for a week, because I have been overwhelmed lately, and I can't think of a chatty way to encapsulate my recent life. So I'm going to skip the life bits and get to the polish bits.

I bought one, and only one, liquid sand. Not because I don't love the texture (I do!), but because the only brand that has it here is OPI, and OPI costs about $17 a bottle here!

Still, a lot of bloggers have been gushing about it lately, so I was curious to try it out. The thing is, based on the swatches I've seen, liquid sands are still a largely unexploited resource. I see some glitters, but mostly cream based colors, sometimes with a shimmer. This frustrates me greatly- you have a whole new kind of polish to play with, why are you making creams? And why are the shimmers you make almost exclusively one-note? Where are my holos, my multichromes, my blingy glitters?

So I decided to rectify this problem all by myself. The polish I have is "What Wizardry Is This?" which is a pretty crinkly texture, so a single coat of another polish on top still leaves the texture very visible. After a quick stash raid, allow me to present you with the best of my experiments:

Disclaimer: these swatches are very far from perfect. A number of these polishes are streaky or sheer with one coat, so the base shows through. The idea here is only to showcase the potential of liquid sands to work with a variety of finishes.

Creams:

Sunlight