Pastel galaxy mani

I've been dying to try out a galaxy mani for aggggeesss and finally decided to attempt one at the weekend. I particularly like pastel versions, and a quick search brought me to a tutorial posted by The Nailasaurus here. I pretty much followed it to a T using the list of polishes below.

artificial light

I used the following polishes for my 'basic' colours;

• OPI 'Thanks a Windmillion' (sea foam green) - used as the base
• Sally Hansen 'Yellow Kitty' (yellow)
• MUA 'Bold Blue' (blue)
• Rimmel 'Marshmallow Heaven' (purple)

artificial light

 I then used the following colours for little splashes of shimmer to make it all look more ethereal;

• OPI 'Not Like The Movies' (shimmery green/silver)
• OPI 'Play The Peonies' (pale pink pearl)
• OPI 'Significant Other Colour' (sheer lavendar/yellow duochrome)

natural light, partial shade

 Once that had all dried I dotted on some NYC 'Pinstripe White' to make the stars, and topped with a coat of Seche Vite for strength. Later I then applied two coats of Rimmel 'Matte Finish' to give a matte effect.

Partial shade

 My favourite nail polish in this line up is 'Not Like The Movies' from the January 2011 Katy Perry collection, which is a silvery green and light purple duocrome with some silver microglitter mixed in. Its one of the first few OPI polishes I bought and I haven't even looked at it for at least a year - I'll definitely be using it again in the near future!

all of the polishes together!

What do you think, do you like galaxy manis? When I try this next time I'll vary the pattern across the nails I think, but I'm very pleased with my first attempt!

Fx

Nice mani, but rubbish topcoat!!

After my first go at a gradient mani (I won't post that, it's not worth the two minutes of your life you'd waste reading it ;) ) I decided to have another go combined with a dot manicure. I was really pleased with how it turned out until I put on topcoat - and subsequently ruined it :(

I decided it was still worth posting though, if for nothing else it warns others not to use that particular topcoat!

in sunlight

I started with three coats of NYC 'Pinstripe White' on all of my nails, then waited for it to dry completely. I then applied the gradient on to my thumb and ringfinger using the following colours;

• China Glaze 'Below Deck' (dark purple)
• NYC 'Downtown' (reddish purple)
• Sally Hansen 'Fairy Teal' (teal)
• MUA 'Ameretto Crush' (peachy pink)

before the gradient

 I then dotted on the same colours in a random pattern on my other fingers with a mixture of large and small dots.

You can see the mess a gradient manicure makes in the pic below, total nightmare to tidy up but worth it :)

Indirect sunlight

 The next step was to add white dots on to the nails with the gradient pattern carrying the theme through all of the nails.

Finally, I added topcoat. Now, normally I use Seche Vite but my bottle has less than half left now, and as anyone who has used it before knows it starts to get a bit thick and gloopy about then, and causes some major shrinkage on your nails. So I decided to give another top coat I have a go - OPI Rapidry.

BIG mistake - as you can probably see in the pic below the dots all bled after I applied the top coat. At first I thought I hadn't let everything dry enough (although I was sure I had), but tried using Seche Vite on my other hand and it was absolutely fine. Therefore I can only blame the topcoat and won't plan to use this again!

Sunlight

 What do you think, have you ever used this topcoat before? Did you like the mani before it all went wrong?

I'm away to take this mani off now and put on some plain polish *sob*

Fx

P.s. if the mani was staying I would clean up my cuticles a bit more as there is some staining, but didn't see the point really :)

Spotty dotty manicure

My dotting tools finally arrived last week - yaaaay! So I (of course) had to give them a go with a spotty, dotty mani. I've seen quite a few variations of this so it's by no means a unique or complex design, but I really like it - it's fun :)

in sunlight

I started off with 3 coats of OPI 'Did you 'ear about Van Gogh' from the 2012 spring Holland collection. This is a lovely light beige creme and will be really useful to have as a neutral base for manis in the future!

I then dotted on Sally Hansen 'Grass Slipper' (the green dots) with two big dots and 3 small dots on each nail, followed by the same of OPI 'Anti Bleak' (purple dots).

with flash

  Once those had tried I dotted Barry M 'Shocking Pink'on top of the green dots and 3 smaller dots arond, then Barry M 'Peach Melba' on top of the purple dots and around. I then finished with a topcoat of Seche Vite (of course).

indirect sunlight

I really like this effect and plan to repeat in the future with different colour combinations, and to perhaps spice up with some stripes. What do you think, do you like the colours? Have you tried this before?

Fx

Pastel skittle mani with decal

After a few more complicated manis recently (posts to follow soon), I decided to go for a simple mani with a little embellishment. I ordered some moustache decals from amazon a few weeks ago, so decided tonight was the night to give them a whirl :)

in daylight

A skittle mani is basically five different nails often following a theme. So you could have all with the colour blue, all with stripes etc - or you could throw caution to the wind and go wild!

Fot this one I decided to go with pastel colours, and used the following;

• Barry M 'Peach Melba' (orange)
• Sally Hansen ' Yellow Kitty' (yellow)
• MUA 'Pistachio Ice Cream' (mint green)
• Essie 'Cool Cascade' (pink)
• MUA 'Bold Blue' (blue)

indirect sunlight

All of these are 4 coats, with the exception of the yellow one which needed SIX coats - seriously?!

I then applied a coat of Seche Vite and the moustache decal, then glued on black gems on to each nail (and a pink one on to the nail with the decal). And then finished off with another coat of Seche Vite.

Partial sunlight

 What do you think, do you like the colour together? Have you tried something similar?

Fx

Polishes used

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