Day 4 - Untried Polish Challenge

It's day 4 of the Untried Polish Challenge and today was Neutral, Baby!

No wait, that was too much.  Try it again with less feeling...

Neutral, Eh?

Seriously though, who doesn't love a good neutral nail.  It's a must have in a polish collection.  You don't have to worry if it clashes with your outfit or if its appropriate for the occasion.  A nail's 'Little Black Dress'.

In my amazing Sephora score the other day I picked up two new Sephora by OPI polishes.  Hard to beat $2 polish but to score such nice colors too was just awesome.

The lighter shade, Don't Feed the Hand Models, is a very nude beige creme with pink undertones.  I love the way it nearly matches my skin tone.

** I didn't notice until posting this that my fingernails and skin were both stained from the Illimasqua from the last challenge.  In the light of my bathroom, where I do my nails most of the time, they looked normal. **

Application:  Smooth, self levels very well on second coat
Opacity: Needed 2 full coats, in bright light can still see a little nail line
Dry Time: Average

The second shade, Dance till Fawn, is much darker.  I really like this color as an accent, but I'm not excited about it with my skin tone.  It's a dark grey brown creme with blue undertones. I used it for my thumb and a tip on my ring finger.

Application:  Smooth, self levels very well on second coat
Opacity: One thick coat was really all that was needed.
Dry time: Average

I applied 2 coats of SV for a smooth glossy finish and to shorten dry time.

Don't forget to check out these other ladies doing the challenge with me.

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Lizajane at Organic Neglect

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Day 3 - Untried polish challenge

Ugh!  So I really struggled with this one.  I couldn't figure out how to showcase 3 polishes together - my untried selection appears to be missing colors that go together well. 

Since I was having inspiration issues I decided a little retail therapy was in order and headed over to Sephora.  Omg, they were having a polish sale!   Illamasqua polish for $4, Nails Inc and Sephora brand $2!  I brought home 26 new bottles. 

Sadly, I still managed to have issues.  So here is my 3 color manicure with a 4th bonus color. 

Illamasqua Radium, Viridian, & Baptiste used in fishtail braid.  This nail had so much polish on it!  For a first try its not terrible, but it's pretty bad.  The perfectionist in me wanted to take it all off and do it again nicer, but I realized that 1. It was already getting late and it would take awhile and 2. I'll just get this one over with since I had such issues with it. 

The bonus color is Nina Ultra Pro Electric Slide a really nice neon green jelly glitter. 

Also included is my haul from Sephora.

A little evil but a lot of fun

So I'm a big fan of Dancing With the Stars.  This season Zendaya (I think that's how you spell it) from Disney is one of the stars.  She's doing an amazing job but what I like most about her is her awesome pointy nails.  I needed to have my nails redone anyway (I wear acrylics and was not happy with my last fill) so I had them filed to a point.  Not sure how much I like them, but a friend said they make me look badass! I'll take it :)

I used OPIs Diva Bride with a matte top coat.  The tips are a random black polish with a Seche Vite top coat.  I really like the mix of matte and gloss.

Just because I could...

Steampunk Nails!

I found an amazing site with the coolest steampunk nails.  They had jewelry findings applied to them to look like gears and such.  I found the picture but I can't find the link to the site again.  If anyone knows who I should attribute these to, please let me know.

The original

 And now for mine...

I used OPI's Liquid Sand (textured) polish in What Wizardry is this? from the Oz collection.

I really like this polish.  The coverage is opaque in two coats and I kind of like the texture, however in this manicure I used SV to secure the items in place so I used Gelous as a top coat and covered the texture.

I've used a Jamberry Nails wrap on my pinkie as well.

You can really see how shimmery the liquid sand polish is after topcoat.  It really glinted in the light beautifully.

Day 2 - Untried Polish Challenge

For the 2nd challenge of the Untried Polish Challenged hosted by Jonochi @ Just Add Polish we were to select two polishes we hadn't used before.  I chose Glints of Glinda by OPI and a new OPI matte top coat that I bought today. I hope the top coat counts since it manipulates the look of the polish....

I started with two coats of Glints of Glinda followed by a coat of the matte top coat.  The Glinda is so close to my natural nail color that it made for an interesting nude effect in matte.

I stamped a dot matrix / snakeskin'ish stamp to some nails too.  I left them matte and finished with a glossy pseudo french tip.  I used Seche Vite to give the black a very slick look.

I know the photo is a little weird but it was the only way I could get good light on my left hand.

I wanted a separate shot of my right hand since I had used a special nail wrap for my accent nails.

I'm hosting an online party for Jamberry Nails.  I've used a few different brands of wraps and these are by far my favorite.  They were the easiest to get flat and smooth.  They also have over 200 different styles so my next few manicures will have a wrap accent nail (hopefully I can get them all to match so well!)

Anyway if you're interested you can check out my their page for more info.

I picked out an adorable mustache pattern.  I used most of the long wrap on my index finger, then used the 'leftovers' for my middle finger (It's a little to narrow but that's my fault for underestimating the width of my nails).

Remember to check out the other ladies doing this challenge as well!

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Patricia at Polished and Glittered
Lizajane at Organic Neglect

Day 1 - Untried Polish Challenge

Lately I've found a ton of nail polish blogs doing these cool nail art challenges.  Until now my obsession with polish has been restricted to Facebook, but no longer!  I decided that I would participate in a great introductory challenge being hosted by Jonochi @ Just Add Polish.  This one will use 19 previously unused polishes.  Thank goodness I have a ton to choose from.

For the first challenge we were to use only 1 new polish.  Since I can't stop myself from adding something, instead of using another polish to add art, I glued a dried pressed flower I received from Bornprettystore.com and a few purple rhinestones.

Liquid Sky Lacquer - Sugared Berries

Application - smooth

2 coats for full coverage

1 coat SV top coat

Drying time - average

Indoor without flash

I really love these polishes.  The holo is pretty spectacular on this color, especially in the sun.  Sugared Berries is a light lavender base leaning more to blue.

Outdoors direct sunlight

Overall this brand, and this color, are really top of my current favorites list.

This an every 3rd day challenge, so as I was supposed to start it yesterday, I'll be doing the next one Wednesday (2 days from now) to keep up with all the other ladies.  Speaking of, check out this great group also doing this challenge.

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Sam at Polished Art

Patricia at Polished and Glittered
Lizajane at Organic Neglect