NOTD: Flannel

I'm finally jumping on the flannel bandwagon! Since autumn rolled around we've been seeing lots of flannel and plaid inspired nails, so I thought I'd give them a try! I stamped over these with the musical plate from Vivid Lacquer, and then I added a little more detail with acrylic paint and a striping brush. To give it an extra soft look I topped it off with a matte top coat.

Polishes used:
Loka- unnamed green
Perfect Chic- Must Have (red)
Borjois- In The Navy (blue)
Golden Rose matte top coat

NOTD: Goth skittles

Now isn't that a pair of words that you would not expect to see strung together. but that's the only way I can really describe this particular manicure. I was trying for a jet black holo look, but I ended up getting a gunmetal holo instead so I shrugged and added some red accents. Initially the stripes were the same color as the red hex glitter, but when I added topcoat they bled to a pale pink so I painted over them. And thus, I ended up with two different reds and a gunmetal grey, when all I really wanted was a black holo. Sigh. Still, I made lemonade and I think these came out pretty nice, if unexpected!

Polishes used:
Ga-De Black Swan (black base)
Beauty Care almost-black holo
Orly Smoulder

NOTD: Matte blue skittlette

I bought a whole bunch of stamping plates from the Born Pretty Store for black Friday, and as soon as I got them I immediately needed to play with them. The plate I used for this mani is BP-L 005. I'm really adoring how this one turned out! I forsee these stamping plates ending up in a lot of future manis.

Polishes used:
WOW Cosmetics 427
Konad white stamping polish
Fedoraharp Powdered Sugar
OPI Matte topcoat

NOTD: Holo color blocking

Hi all! Recently I purchased a whole bunch of holo polishes from Color Club, and I decided to make a mani using a whole bunch of them! I don't remember the names of each polish I used (and right now they're kind of scattered all over the place so I can't go look), but each one is a Color Club polish except for the beige base, which is from Golden Rose.

NOTD: Slapdash skittles

Day two, just under the wire!

This is my manicure from yesterday- I actually didn't intend for it to be nail art, but it was simple and I balked at leaving my nails plain at the last second. Also, I forgot I wasn't using seche vite and went to sleep too soon, so that little bit of "texture" there? That's pillow wrinkles. Whoops!

(And since I put this off till the last second no watermarks right now. Hopefully I'll remember to edit them in later!)

I used ANNY Blue Bikini Girl and Flormar Satin Matte Skyeblue to create this look. Nothing besides a simple fine brush.

NOTD: Springy Skittlette

I'm back to shorties! I've been playing the harp more recently, so I need to keep my nails short for the forseeable future. Still, there's a lot to be done with tiny short round nails, if you are creative enough. I recently picked up China Glaze "For Audrey", which I've been given to understand is a collection staple. So I immediately needed to use it in a skittlette!

Polishes used:

China Glaze- For Audrey

China Glaze- Secret Peri-Wink-Le

Sacara 104 (I think... there are a few similar ones and I forget which I used)

NOTD: Christmas nails!

Merry belated Christmas everybody! I don't celebrate it, and it's not even really noticed in Israel, but the internet's been so festive lately that I couldn't resist.

Pinky: Orly Au Champagne with Konad stamping polish and BM Plate 205
Ring: Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Middle: same as pinky, but with BM plate 208 and a dotting tool
Index finger: Golden Rose 122 (from the Jolly Jewels collection) with China Glaze Twinkle Lights
Thumb: a poor attempt at candy cane stripes where I was too lazy to get up to get my striping brush so I used the bottle brush. Hence not taking a photo of it :P

Last year I also did Christmas nails, it was what I have on my ring finger but on the entire hand.

I have newly short nails, because I just recently went to do some work in a recording studio! And in order to play the harp, I need short nails. There were plenty of pictures taken, so hopefully when they finally remember to send them along I'll make a blog post about it.

I also had two more job interviews (one on Christmas!) so I'm queuing up two more Interview nail posts as well

I hope your holiday was fun and you have a great new year!

31DC2013 Day 10- Gradient nails

Gradients are pretty much a staple for me, so I had to think a bit on what I wanted to do to keep it fresh for the challenge. I decided not to get too complicated with it, and I'm pretty happy with the results. There are some flaws and my cleanup is far from perfect, but I'm still pleased with the overall look.

Also- this took fifteen polishes to achieve. Three shades for each nail. Plus the rhinestones of course :)

Funny thing about rhinestones: I haven't worn them in a really long time. When I fiiiirst started getting into nail art ages ago, I tried to incorporate a couple into one of my early attempts at freehand. It was awful- I was constantly misjudging my hand placement because I wasn't used to being careful where I put my nails. The would get stuck in my hair, I was constantly picking at them, the whole deal. So I decided that they simply weren't for me and scrapped any future plans to use them.

Now, years later, I try them again- and I'm just fine. I barely even noticed they were there, aside for going "oh hey, my nails look cool!" I guess in the interim I've become a lot more spatially aware of my nails, so I know how to deal with bumps. Also I wear texture polish every now and then, so that probably helped desensitize me. Well, I'm definitely going to use them in future designs!

Edit: HANNAH'S BACK! She hasn't had time lately to participate, but today she sent me a picture for gradient nails, so here it is (added in while I'm at work, so unfortunately no watermark)

She was in a bit of a hurry, but I still like how she made it look almost like a duochrome effect. Hopefully there'll be more from her as the challenge goes on :)

To see who else contributed today, click the jump! 

Review: BPS feather decals

A while back I got a big order from the Born Pretty Store. I'm going to review a bunch of the items I received over the next few weeks. Overall I'm really happy about the site, it's good stuff for good prices, and best of all- free shipping! Shipping is impossible to Israel, usually it's super expensive.

לפני כמה זמן קיבלתי הזמנה גדולה מ-Born Pretty Store. בשבועות הקרובים אסקור את רובם. בגדול אני מאוד מרוצה מהאתר הזה- מוצרים די איכותיים במחירים טובים, והכי כיף- משלוח חינם! משלוחים לארץ הם בדרך כלל נורא יקרים, עד כדי שאני כמעט ולא מזמינה דברים באינטרנט.

More designs under the cut!

!עוד עיצובים תחת קאט 

NOTD: It's a hard nub life

Ah nubs, I haven't had them in months. I have kind of forgotten how to deal with them. I had a great optical illusion art planned, but I'd need a little more space for them.

On the bright side, I can wear colors plain without feeling like I'm wasting an opportunity, so silver lining!

Today I decided to do holo skittles- I've swatched  some of this collection before, but they were poorly photographed and didn't really capture the color all that well. So here is my new semi-swatch, mostly NOTD post:

Pretty sure I managed to capture the holo a little better this time. They look a little more linear than scattered in person, but you can see the way they basically explode into rainbows in the sun! These aren't the strongest holos I've ever seen, but I really like that they show up holo even indoors- something that their stronger cousins don't always manage.

I'm pretty sure that the polishes have some generic names like "Lilac" and "Strawberry", but it doesn't say so on the bottle so I'm going to just list their numbers:

Thumb- #35
Index- #34
Middle- #32
Ring- #39
Pinky- #38

I realize that I cheated a little by using taupe instead of yellow or gold, but it's a fairly unobtrusive transgression in person.

The wear on them is decent, mild tipwear after three days, and I'm sure if I didn't change my polish obsessively I could probably get these to last out a week without any significant chipping. The formula is fantastic- two thin coats for full blingy opacity, and they applied like a dream! They don't need any kind of special base or top coat to pop, although in general a topcoat is better because they dry slightly matte.

Pupa is an Italian brand that is also available in Israeli pharmacies. They're more expensive than I usually buy- mini sized but priced as a mid-range full size bottle. Still, occasionally I succumb to the Pupa pretties.

NOTD and a new collection

I have a holo skittles mani for you today, with a diagonal French over it. Originally it was just the holo, but when it started to show a little tipwear I decided to give it a new lease on life.

Sunlight

Shade 

Unfortunately when I applied topcoat, it smudged the black somewhat and left small streaks on some nails, but I don't think it's too noticeable here.

Due to my less than excellent camera work, you can't really see the holo in these, but let me assure you, it's a fantastic holo. As a matter of fact, I fell so much in love with these particular holos that afterwards I went back and stupidly bought the entire collection. Now that I own all the colors, I would probably use a slightly different combination of skittles here, but I still like what I have on now.

I have only owned one entire collection of something before (Chic Metalix) and I accumulated that one over a couple of months. This is the first time I've bought an entire collection in two days.

Click the jump for details and more photos!

NOTD: Crackle skittles

Hi all! NOTD and then a quick update.

Shade

Sunlight

So this is a set of Chic Metalix under a lovely black crackle that I've worn here before by a German brand called P2. Not everything in this picture has been swatched yet , but they're coming!

Life update under the jump: