Gradient & a Mini Tutorial

So yesterday I showed you China Glaze Something Sweet...here's what I did with it! A pastel gradient!
Some of the lovely ladies in one of my polish groups were trying to figure out how to get that smooth gradient look, so I volunteered to take pics of me doing one. Before you start, be sure to have painted on your base color already and make sure it's completely dry.

Step 1: Apply your colors to the surface you're working on. I'm using all China Glaze - Kinetic Candy, Sweet Hook, and Something Sweet.

I chose to use the clear disc that comes in blank CD/DVD stacks to work on, so you can see what's at my work desk through the disc, sorry! Any plastic surface should work, just make sure you don't need it anymore! Also, using your base color as one of the shades in your gradient helps make the transition smooth.

Step 2. Use a clean end of a dotting tool (or toothpick, or bobby pin) to blend the colors together where they meet. Use a clean end for each color transition.

This pic is actually after I dabbed at the polish with my sponge, simply because I forgot to take one before.

Step 3. Dab your sponge in the polish once.

Don't dab multiple times, save all that dabbing for your nails. The sponge works like a stamp in this case, so only pick up the "image" once.

Step 4. Dab the sponge on your nail in the orientation you want your gradient to be, being sure to dab a few times slightly back and forth to help the colors blend even more.

This is obviously before cleanup, so it's a tad messy, but you can see the blending of the colors is very gradual even before topcoat.

Step 5. Cleanup and topcoat

Voila! Beautiful gradient nails! I did make some mistakes on my nails and noticed a few things, so I figured I'd share those with you in a quick list:

1. If you want the smoothest gradient, use a sponge with the smallest holes. I used Rite Aid brand cosmetic wedges.
2. Don't try to "stamp" multiple nails without redoing the polish gradient on the sponge. I tried on my pinky, and I got sponge lint stuck to it...and it wasn't smooth at all.
3. If you want the tip color (or wherever you put the brightest color) to be brighter, paint directly on the sponge. I tried this on my right hand and I still got a smooth gradient, but the blue (Kinetic Candy) stands out more.
4. Use 3 colors. I know you can barely see the purple, but if it weren't there, I don't think the pink and blue would blend as smoothly.
5. Have fun!!

Now that you sat through all that, here are some pics of the full mani!

Left hand. You can see where I jacked up my gradient on my ring finger when I tried to get a piece of debris out of my polish.

Left hand again. I did the gradient on my index at an angle, just to show you don't have to do it straight.

Right hand. One of the few times you'll see it, but just wanted to show that the blue came out much richer here when I painted directly on the sponge. You can even see a little of the purple!

Wow, that was long, but I hope you enjoyed it and if you were having trouble getting a smooth gradient before, I hope this helped!

Happy Polishing,

J

Something Sweet

I meant to post this up before the end of October, but I didn't get around to it, but it's ok, right? We should be concerned with Breast Cancer Awareness (and other cancers as well) all year round. So today I'm showing you China Glaze Something Sweet in 2 coats. Beautiful formula, thin and great flow, opaque in 2 coats.

No cleanup, I wasn't done with the mani yet.

The color is more accurate on a blue background with the flash on.

See, the yellow background washed the color out!

I've got to take pictures of what I did with this polish, but I think you'll like it! If you're looking for a pastel pink with a hint of lilac that has a beautiful formula, I don't think Something Sweet will disappoint.

Happy Polishing,

J

2 Pretty Polishes...

Don't always make a pretty combo. Last week, I had gotten a few Jade polishes in the mail and decided to use one in conjuction with Lynnderella Golden Rules. First up, a terrible picture of Jade Mystic Gold by itself:

It's way more holo in real life. But it's pretty close to the color of mustard...holographic mustard? Hmmm... this was 2 coats, but it was almost opaque in 1.

My index finger has one coat, and my other nails have 2 coats of Golden Rules. I think I was trying to channel the creative layering skills of Cathy at More Nail Polish, but I think I failed here.

This is a really packed glitter, I should have only used one coat. It took a lot to try and smooth this out...and it still wasn't completely smooth after two coats of Glitter Food.

I do have to say though, the blurred holo on my ring finger looks amazing. Also, the girls I tutor on Fridays really liked this. They thought my nails were fake...even though they are so short! As you can probably tell, I did not do cleanup because I did these late at night, but both polishes applied pretty well, and I didn't do too much fishing for glitter. Next time, I think I'll use a cooler toned gold if I decide to go with a gold base again.

Happy Polishing,

J

Happy Birthday...to me!!

Yes, it's my 23rd birthday, and I have no polish on except for Duri Rejuvacote. My nails are so bad, I finally decided to try Rejuvacote out, and I think it may be my perfect strengthener. It's only been 4 days though, so that may change, but my nails are already less bendy. I have no idea what's been causing the peeling and softness though. Anyway, I decided to come show you one of my fave makeup looks I've done in a while, because I still don't know what makeup I'm wearing today, but that's ok.

So the breakdown of what I'm wearing:
Inner & Outer Thirds of Lid: Sugarpill Mochi
Center of Lid: Tarina Tarantino Sparklicity Nude (used with Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy)
Inner Eye Highlight: Silk Naturals Fire
Lid/Crease Blending Color: Sugarpill 2AM
Waterline: Tarina Tarantino Spark of Envy Hyperliner
Lower Lashline: Fyrinnae Sennyo foiled with Pixie Epoxy
Lashes: Ardell Wispies

I could not get a good shot of my eye closed, sorry!!

Love how subtle the purple in the crease is!

Kinda blurry, but I love how it makes it look ethereal!

So, hope you enjoyed another of my forays into makeup! I may be doing more makeup on here while my nails rest and regrow, but I'm not sure yet!

Happy Polishing,

J

Another She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named Glitter?

Yes, I bring you another Lynnderella glitter today. Why? Because they're pretty and I like them on my nails. As many have said, the drama is ridiculous, but goodness she can make a good glitter! Today's glitter is Shapeshifter. I layered it over 2 coats of China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint because originally, I was gonna layer Attitude Adjust-mint on top, but I really wanted all those shapes from Shapeshifter on my nails. So you'll only be seeing 3 of my nails today, since the PVA base coat works a little too well at removing glitter, and now I can't keep it on my nails. I promise it's still pretty though. But it needs at least 2-3 coats of topcoat to keep it smooth, so my nails were rather thick.

Look at how thick that is! And apparently my elementary skills at applying Seche Vite...I haven't used that topcoat in a while.

Look at all those pretty holo shapes!! Butterflies, hexes, big stars, little stars, diamonds, bars, squares, and even holo micro-glitter!  I could not stop staring at my nails!

Ummm, yeah. I like this. A lot. I think I got all the shapes on this nail. Who am I kidding? I'll probably use this again and a horse shape will come out the bottle! Do they make horse-shaped glitter? LOL!!

This pic is more color-accurate with the flash, so I've got another one for you to drool over.

Excuse the weird tip shrinkage. I have no idea what was happening there. You can especially see the butterfly shape here. 

Ok, I think I've posted enough pics for one post, so I'll see you around the blogosphere!

J

Revisiting a Glitter

So remember these sucky pictures of an amazing glitter I posted a couple weeks back? Well, I decided to pull out that glitter again and wear it over Nails Inc Baker Street. If you don't own Baker Street, you need it. Enough said. But I didn't stop at just Baker Street, I layered over it before I added glitter! On my ring, thumb, and pinky fingers, I added Girly Bits Street Magic, and on my index and middle fingers, I added my unnamed blurple franken with pink shimmer. Street Magic is amazing. I wish I'd used it on all my nails because when the light hits the shimmer so that it glows green, the combo was amazing and perfectly Halloweeny! It was so hard to capture the shimmer when it was green!  But enough of me talking, you wanna see pics!

Here you can clearly see the difference that my franken makes in the base color.

Isn't the glitter yummy over the shimmer? Ignore if it seems lumpy...I got sloppy with topcoat. It's not the glitter's fault.

 

You can see the shimmer on my pinky!!!

Bonus blurry shots where the green shimmer finally showed up!

Hope you guys enjoyed it and I'm sorry you can't be here in person to drool over this combo with me!

J

Delicate Elegance

I love the combo I'm wearing today. I could wear it forever...and that's saying a lot. I have an entirely full Helmer with overflow into 2 Melmer drawers...and one Helmer drawer is entirely dedicated to indies! So today's combo is seriously that beautiful, although I'm sure you wouldn't be able to see all the beauty just from my pics. Enough blabbering from me, you want to know what's on my nails! The pics are 2 coats of Zoya Avery, one coat of Sonnetarium Snowfall, a coat of Glitter Food from Nail Pattern Boldness, all topped with Cult Nails Wicked Fast. It came out a tad thick for my liking, especially since I had to file my nails down to complete nubbins, but I still love it!

Hope you like this combo as much as I do! And apologies for the shoddy cleanup...I did this at work this morning at about 4 AM...before I managed to get sick.

J

Review: Sassy Lacquer All Hallow's Eve

Hello my fellow lacquerheads!

Today's post is showcasing the glitter I promised you last week. Apologies for not having the post up earlier, but I got a new camera and I'm still learning my way around it, so the pictures aren't top notch, but hopefully they'll get better as we go along. 

This polish was sent to me for an honest review, so that's what I'll give you. 

The glitter went on easily, no fishing required. You may or may not see a slight tint in the base if you choose to layer it over white but otherwise, it's negligible. The  glitter lays nice and flat, and I know this because I wore it for several days without topcoat. You could probably get away with just one coat of topcoat for this polish. The suspension base dries nice and shiny and pretty fast. I think it's a great Halloween polish and would look great in a jelly sandwich using a glow-in-the-dark polish. I've got to get one soon. 

You can purchase All Hallow's Eve here, along with other gorgeous polishes for $9 each. The Halloween collection is available now, and the Christmas collection is up for pre-order already. Hope you enjoyed this post, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. 

J

My Nail Graffiti: 1500 Follower Giveaway- Indie Extravaganza!

Ordinarily, I would post this on my giveaways tab, but that needs to be revamped, so I'm just going to tell you ladies to go enter this awesome giveaway which ends in less than one day! Click the link to be taken to the giveaway post!
My Nail Graffiti: 1500 Follower Giveaway- Indie Extravaganza!

Underwear Preview!

No, I'm not showing you my skivvies, but I did want to show you my base colors for a polish I'll be reviewing shortly! I frankened most of my base colors since I just recieved a shipment of suspension base and pigments, but I think they're close enough to colors that already exist so I won't create any lemmings. :)
Only 2 pics today, but they're with my new camera, so I'm pretty excited!

With Flash

The colors with flash are a little washed out, but you can see the holo in the red franken better on my middle finger. I frankened a red holo on my first try, yay!!

No flash, indoors.

You can see the pink shimmer a little better on my pinky now! The color is absolutely gorgeous, and I'm so glad I purchased the Libra Blues pigment from TKB for this franken. If you're looking for a similar color, Dare 2 Wear Our Secret Eden is what I was trying to dupe with this franken. The green on my index is made with a couple drops of black polish and Chromium Green pigment from TKB. The red holo is made with the Magic Holographic suspension from TKB, Zoya America, and A-England Perceval. The white is good old Wet n Wild French White.Whew! 

Everyone kept asking me why I have either the Mexican or Italian flag on my nails, but it wasn't on purpose. Oh well! Glitter shall be up on the blog soon!

J