Nail Art / Tutorial

   Here is a very quick and easy manicure!  Last spring pond manicures exploded onto the scene, no doubt thanks to the prevalence of jelly polishes and the fact that nail art creators everywhere were loving the effects those sheer washes of color can give.  A true pond manicure involves a dotting tool and a bit of skill as you create small white designs (usually flowers, hearts, dots, etc) between layers of juicy transparent polish.  I set out to create something even easier!

   September.  Month of Multichrome Madness.  And Also a Baby!

   Of course you know that on the 15th my daughter Freya was born, so here's a quick rundown of the other little pretties I picked up this month...

   I couldn't resist preordering the new I Love Nail Polish brand multichromes.  (Website here.)  Left to right they are Cygnus Loop, My Little Glacier, Birefringence, and Mutagen.  These look pretty awesome, can't wait to try them myself.  =)

   I did a bit of blog sale shopping for the L'oréal jelly polishes Bananarama Love, Creme de Mint, and Bubble Trouble.  I also snagged the discontinued glitters Ozotic 528 and 530.  These five bottles all came from Jacki at Adventures in Acetone.

   Then I placed a very exciting Digital Nails (on Etsy!) order.  I bought Convergent, along with the Starship trio!  Serenity, Galactica, and Leviathan.  Sadly these multichrome glitters are suffering the same end as their Ozotic cousins above... once they're gone, they're gone.

   So, definitely on a bit of a multichrome kick.  But that's okay, the grey days of fall are a perfect time for appreciating these color-shifting gems.  Of course, I probably won't be paying too much attention to my nails until my little girl can go more than 3 hours without eating.  ;P

   Today I'm reviewing a fun glow-in-the-dark polish by Different Dimension named Light It Up Blue.  This polish was made to help raise money & awareness for Autism, which is something that affects my family personally.  It really does light up blue, that's for sure!

   I put Light It Up Blue over a white creme, and China Glaze Caribbean Blue (a blue polish with shimmer flecks) on my accent nails.  I used two coats of Light It Up Blue except for my ring and pinky; those nails got 3 coats to see if it would make difference in glow power.  I ended up taking a bunch of pictures and even tried my hand at pictures of this polish in the dark to show all it's glowing glory!

   My computer was "in the shop" recently.  Afterwards I was so busy that I didn't immediately get it all back to where I need to be for proper image editing and blogging.  Basically I've got an awesome new hard drive... but it's still missing some of my most-used programs!  I had to set up my watermark again, and so it is a tiny bit different now.  I found a few old pictures on my camera (from April...) to test it on, and figured I may as well slap them into a blog post.

   How's that for meaningful blogging inspiration?  =D

   The above nails are showing tip wear because I had already worn the mani for two days.  The colors used were Zoya Sweet (pink) and Yummy (blue).  I love them both and have a couple pictures of them without the crackle.  I used China Glaze crackles and the gradient technique should be self explanatory, with the key being layering them properly - check out my really old how-to post to learn how to do this perfectly!

   My nails alternated colors all the way across, so my left hand had a pink bare accent nail (can an accent nail have no art?  I think so!) and my unphotographed right hand's was blue.  Very easy manicure!


   There, a quick little post!  One of my projects is to go through the two SD cards of pictures from this spring and summer, and post the various swatches and manicures I had done.  This is a start!

   A bit of exciting news on the photography front:  I'm finally getting a little tripod for my camera during these close-up polish shots.  My hand is just too shaky on it's own.  I've been meaning to get a tripod for ages, but it's all thanks to my husband that I have one coming in the mail.  Woo!  ♥

   I did a super-quick mani to compare a couple of magnetic polish colors.  The Black Sparkle from Icing has been on the blog before, but I wanted to see how it compared to the Claire's Silver that I found not too long ago.

   More pictures and observations after the jump!

   My nails today are done in one of the colors I'm giving away!  Don't worry, I used my personal bottle, not the one up for grabs!  ;D  This is the Blue Shimmer Icing MagnetiX polish with my star-design LCN magnet.  My goal was to make nails that looked like little gleaming star sapphires.

   Yes, I totally screwed up my pinky nail, I know.  The camera flash made it look worse than it does in person.  That is what happens when you put top coat over magnetic polish too soon.  This stuff dries fast but you should still have a little patience!  Yesterday I did not.  >.<'

   This is a really nice polish, though, and I have more pictures and thoughts under the jump!  =)

   Here are my nails with one coat of China Glaze Drawn To You.  I used the magnet from my blue Icing MagnetiX polish - which I'm giving away a set of - don't forget!

   My alignment on some fingers was a little wonky and my ring finger didn't turn out so well, sorry about that!

   Title based on polishes used!  I chose China Glaze Pull Me Close which is of course from their new Magnetix line.  I did a coat of Pure Ice Don't You Wish on each ring finger.  Sadly my pictures didn't turn out so great today.  My nails look better in person despite the topcoat issues I had - it kept creating bubbles!

   Hello all!  I don't generally put up two posts in one day but this is related to my previous post about the Icing magnetics - it's the polishes on my nails!  If I had added my manicure the post would have been too huge, I think.  So, here are some additional pictures and thoughts about my nails... and some exciting news - I have a new camera!

   The colors are Rose Sparkle, Antique Brass Sparkle, Black Sparkle, and then Rose Sparkle again.  I skipped out on using Blue Shimmer because it doesn't have a glittery finish like these do.  I'll do that one another time.  There is top coat in these pictures,  but not a very shiny one.

   I think the magnetic designs came out better on my right hand.  I used the wavy-design magnet on all my nails save for the black ones.  I used my LCN star-pattern magnet for those.  I love the wavy magnets.  It looks like ribbons running down my nails!  And each ring finger got a holographic silver star paillette applied to one side.  The magnetic pattern looks like shine rays coming from the stars.  =)

   I just have to say it's so much easier using magnetics on my own nails, rather than swatching a nail wheel.  Having to hold both the wheel and the magnet - carefully! is just about as much as my shaky hands can muster.

   I just got my camera a couple days ago, it's a Canon which I never thought I would buy.  My boyfriend has a Canon and while it takes great pictures I never liked using it myself.  This one has the kind of controls I like, though.  In fact, it mostly done by touchscreen.  Anyway, I'm still getting used to it and what settings I should use.  I'll probably make a separate post about my camera when I have less awesome nail polish to blog about.  ;P  But I have to ask: can you notice a difference for the better?

   My kitty was in my lap during my Nail-of-the-Day pictures.  So, here are my nails, on her pretty fur!  This actually came out really well-focused (click to see larger).  I don't know about you but I think she looks great with these polish colors, too.  Good thing cats don't have fingernails.  =P

   One more picture of my nails for the road!  Thank you so much for reading and if you have any thoughts please share them.  =)

   Over the weekend I saw on Icing's website that they were carrying a new line of nail polish - 4 magnetic shades.  I love magnetics!  I went to Icing, went around the whole store and was afraid that they didn't have them yet.  When a girl working there asked if I needed help I told her what I was looking for - she knew what I was asking for because they had just gotten these nail polishes in and were up on the check-out counter!  I did some serious nail polish haulage!  Thus I bring you swatches and a review of the new Icing magnetiX line!

   I am seriously impressed with these nail polishes, and I have to give a nod to Icing for putting out magnetic nail polishes before most major brands have even announced a release date for their own.  Find out more of my thoughts and see more pictures after the jump!

   I've got more magnetic nail polish swatches to share with you today!  Last week I tried two more colors by the Layla brand.  One I loved, one I was slightly let-down about.  First I tried Brown Sugar:

   There were very few swatches of this one Online and it was really hard to judge if it would fit my skintone or not, so I chanced it.  I'm very glad I did!  I ended up loving this even though it is an unusual polish color for me.  It tends to look just a bit darker, like this:

    It is a very neutral brown and doesn't lean too red, too orange, or too anything else.  The silver magnetic particles really pop, and the diagonal line design made me think of turkey feathers.  I tried straight lines on my thumbs... not bad.

   The other thing that was just great about this polish was the application.  This is just one coat and it was completely opaque.  I didn't have any "dead" spots where the magnet didn't effect the polish, and it dried on it's own fairly quickly.

   I'm going to venture to say that Layla Magneffect Brown Sugar has a lot of movement, meaning that the magnetic particles show a strong illusion of moving within the polish.  The silvery lines in this were constantly shifting and changing width, disappearing and reappearing.  It's a fun color to wear.

   The next polish I wore was Layla Magneffect Velvet Groove.  I was hoping for a rich cool-toned burgundy red, but to me it looks mostly purple.  After enjoying Nails Inc. Houses of Parliament I was hoping for something different in my collection.  I did use the Nails Inc. magnet on this color, though!

   The pictures show it as being more red-tinted than it looked in most lighting.  A pretty color anyway, though... oh well!  Hopefully another brand will come up with the perfect rich red magnetic polish.  (Or Layla could just come out with more colors - that's cool with me!)

   The good news about both of these colors is that they both wore well with just minor tip wear.  What do you think of them?

   More swatches that I needed to upload!  Having a post of still pictures will be handy for the times you need a quick reference to each color in the collection.  I've already shared the HD video that I made, which also gives my color descriptions and shows the magnets.  Without further ado, here is the entire collection of LCN Magnetic Nail Polish!

   Each swatch is done with one coat of polish, and two nails each to show the star and line designs.  The bottles are smaller than average, containing 8ml of polish.  8 more pictures after the jump!  Click images to view them larger~

   Today I have some quick magnetic polish swatches.  I'm comparing green-blue colors.  These swatches were done super-quick and I apologize for the slight mess.  Layla brushes hold more polish than Nails Inc and I wasn't expecting it!

   On my nails here you see Layla Turquoise Wave, Nails Inc Whitehall, Turquoise Wave, Whitehall.  In my opinion Turquoise Wave looks like the teal color, and Whitehall, often mentioned as Whitehall Teal, is an evergreen.  It is a deep green that definitely leans blue, but not quite enough to be called teal.  And Turquiose Wave?  Well, to me turquoise is a much brighter, lighter aqua color.  Either way they are pretty polishes, especially if you're a fan of darker jewel tones.

   On the nail wheel I swatched LCN Green Temptation and Ferromagnetic Blue.  Green Temptation is a true green color, Ferromagnetic Blue has a hint of purple but mainly appears blue.  The fingernail swatches are Whitehall and Turquoise Wave.

   Here is one last shot of Layla Turquoise Wave using the Nails Inc. wave-pattern magnet.  Perfectly pretty!

   I hope this comparison post was helpful to you, these colors are pretty similar and you most likely don't need each one in your collection.  Now that I have them all I don't know which one to let go of, though!  And in other news WOW I have hit triple-digit followers!  Be sure to check out the giveaway poll~

   First the polish, then the explanation of why my blog has been neglected for almost a week.

   You may remember my recent post of trying my new Nails Inc. Magnetic Effect Polishes that ended in great disappointment.  I was hoping it was just a fluke and so I've tried them again.  Looks like I found what these polishes need!  I didn't do anything differently in my application or technique, but I did use a different base coat.  The first time I snagged my old Poshe bottle, which is a fast-drying base coat.  Last night I used Orly Bonder.  This time my polish applied evenly, did not destroy itself with bald spots, and actually stayed wet long enough to make perfect little magnetic waves.  So huzzah!  ...Now I'm really bummed that I missed the Nails Inc. 3-polish set (twice)!

   When it is working properly Houses of Parliament is a nice dark purple with lavender-looking magnetic particles.  This was just one coat, the way it should be.  Shown here with top coat because magnetic polishes don't dry very shiny.  Also, can you take a guess at what is layered on my ring finger?  It is a very thin coat of Cult Nails Clairvoyant.  =)

~~~

   So, my nails are done differently.  This is the shortest and squarest I've ever shaped them.  I like the squared look, but I'm really missing my length.  All of these nails were in good condition but I shortened them to match my very tragic thumb.  Over the weekend I had a major nail break while trying to pick something up and the nail broke down into the nail bed.  Ouch!  It is still hurting me now.  So needless to say I was pretty discouraged and didn't feel like blogging anything.

   When I started this blog my nails were very short, and I was having trouble with them peeling.  For years I had healthy, long nails.  Since the start of this year they wanted to do nothing but break off.  I had fallen very ill and I don't know what happened but that seems to be the start of my nail problems.  Break and peel, break and peel.  When I started blogging some polishes I found I really enjoyed it, and it inspired me to get my nails back into shape.  They are gradually growing out to be healthy and I'm not making the rookie mistakes that I was.  I'm even taking supplements for nails!  The break to my thumb is probably the last remaining growth "before vitamins".  Still it is a downer and I'm worried about it growing back properly.

   To go along with the nail problems I have been extremely busy and hardly home at all.  I have all sorts of pics that I meant to share last week, and even some half-written posts.  My blog is really just a hobby so when life gets crazy it has to take a back seat.  I apologize to everyone for not being here and want to say Hello to all new followers.  Wow, I did not expect to be over 90 today.  I'll try to treat you all to some pretty polishes and haul posts for the rest of the week.  =)

   My last Sephora order included the new Nails Inc. color Whitehall, which is probably the least logical color name to give to a polish that is not white in any way.  I also picked up Houses of Parliament.  (Two days later the set of all 3 colors was available and I wanted to scream.  >_<)  Anyway I was really looking forward to what I've heard are great polishes and the easiest-to-use wave-creating magnets.  I fought with them and this is all I got:

   Somehow this photo actually makes them look better (yes, better) than they did in real life.  They barely responded to the magnet.  It's not like I don't know how to use them - I have LCN and Layla magnetics and do just fine with them.  The formula on these was really weird.  Not opaque in one coat because they went on so patchily, self-destroying and prone to unpaintable bald patches if you tried to even things out.  After a couple fingers I changed tactics and went for one thin coat to be followed by a thicker coat, and then create my design...

   That didn't work either!  As soon as a second coat hit these it was like it became instantly tacky and non-magnetic.  My thumb was a very sorry case, I should have took a photo - only one small stripe down the middle had any magnetic design at all.  I did throw a top coat on these which had no effect on the polish design, but realized after two minutes that I was not going to wear this out in public looking like such a sorry mess.  I took it off.

   As for the magnet caps themselves, they just seem okay to me.  They are easy to place over your nails but nothing ground-breaking in my opinion.  With my LCN magnets I often rest the end of the magnet on my cuticle in the same way; likewise the Layla cap magnets are very friendly to being used the same way.  If anything I'm wondering if I got dud magnets and plan to test them with my other polishes.  Or it could be dud polish, as it barely reacts to a magnet being held directly against the bottle, regardless of what brand it's from.

   So I'm thinking this polish isn't the greatest.  Sad, considering how great magnetics should be.  Hopefully it was just a bad first run of it.  The other swatches I've seen Online of this Nails Inc. line are really beautiful and that's why I jumped on these colors.  I plan to try using these again and if they work any better for me I will post an update.

   I didn't plan anything special for today being all eleventy-one, but I did try out my new magnetic polish, so I guess that is what I will remember for the date 11-11-11.   I have Layla Magneffect polish in Silver Galaxy here, and I used both the magnet in the cap that it came with and the star magnet from my LCN polish set.

   This polish contains small square glitter, which sets it apart from all other magnetic colors so far.  The base is a sheer gray which is loaded with the magnetic particles and glitter.  I had to use two coats and even then it is slightly sheer.  Here are nail wheel swatches done in one coat:

   After swatching L.A. Girl Pink Steel I decided I wanted to jazz it up somehow.  The first thing to jump to mind was a glittery top coat, but none of my glitters were saying "pick me, pick me!".  Then I thought crackle, of course!  I knew black would look good but I just did black nails, and wanted something more colorful.  So I poked through my China Glaze and settled on Oxidized Aqua.  It's a perfect match!

   The China Glaze Crackle Metals collection are foil finish crackles, and Pink Steel is a super pigmented foil itself.  So, seeing these two get together on my nails made my day!  I did China Glaze Crushed Candy on my ring fingers because it's close to the color of Oxidized Aqua, and I do like the contrast with the pink foil underneath that, as well.  Sadly my lighting wasn't too good when I snapped these pictures, the look is much more eye catching in person.

   But let's focus on the foily goodness for now, shall we?  This makes me think of cotton candy at the State Fair of Supersaturated Colors.  I personally haven't found anyone layer their crackles with foil + foil finishes, and all I can say is that is is awesome.  You must try it!  The above photo was without a topcoat.  I finished this mani off with a topcoat which has brought it into the land of glossy foil shine wonderfulness.

   Anyone loving this as much as I do?

   When it was time to paint my nails again I asked the boyfriend what he'd like to see.  Another magnetic polish!  He had me list off the other colors I have (since we already did blue) and requested red.  I'm not really a red nail polish girl, and I was in fact really wanting to try one of my new Nyx glitters, but relationships are about compromises, so I came up with this:

   I decided to try two "accent nails" - both the ring fingers and thumbs.  I like it!  Feels more tied in somehow.  Also I used the star magnet to keep with the intergalactic feel of Frizz Spots.  Because I took several pictures I'll share more after the jump!  (Click pictures to see them larger.)