Day 8 - Untried Polish Challenge

Day 8 - Untried Polish Challenge

First off, I know this is late but my family and I were on vacation and, well I just was too busy having a great time to think about blogging.  I even wore the same manicure for the last 6 days!

Today's challenge was for my newest polish.  This was from a recent trip to Ulta when I went fishing for Jellies.  I've seen so many jelly sandwich manicures lately and realized I didn't really own any jellies so I had to quickly rectify that.

This was my first attempt at a sandwich manicure.  Its like a million coats (more like 7) of Zoya Katherine layered with OPI Which Witch. I used a few coats of SV in between some of the layers to speed dry time.

I think I got some pretty good depth with this.  It's hard to get a picture that really shows it though.

Make sure to check out the other ladies doing the same challenge.

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

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

Missy at Gnarly Gnails

Uni at Acetone FIles

Erica at Coat of Mani Colors 

Day 7 - Untried Polish Challenge

Day 7 - Untried Polish Challenge

Oldest polish

This was tricky for me to figure out my oldest polish.  A few months ago I threw out over half of my polishes because they were old, seperated, bad formulas, or just colors I don't like.  I know I've had this one for a long time and haven't used it but it's just a guess that it's the oldest...

I ended up doing a Southwest manicure using OPI San-Tan-Tonio and My Vampire is Buff for a nice gradient.

I used OPI Matte top coat but thought that it looked a little plain.  I also thought it had a little southwest coloration so I found a stamp and added a decoration to dress it up using Konad special polish in white.

I'm having issues with stamping.  I just started doing stamping a couple months ago and I can't seem to get consistant quality.  You can see the broken up pieces of the stamp, though I don't think it takes anything away from the overall look. Anyone have any suggestions?  What am I doing wrong?

Day 6 - Untried Polish Challenge

Cool Colors - much easier time with this as I have a ton of untried cool colors.

First off, I did this manicure a few days early.  My family is taking a well deserved vacation in early May and I needed to get some of them done early since I won't be changing them while we're gone.  These got done kind of quickly so I have fuzz on my nails from removing the previous manicure and not taking the time to really fix them up again before painting again.  I was being lazy.

So what's cooler than a pale blue?

Pale blue with stamping and glitter!

Base is Sea Spray by China Glaze - another clearance score a couple months ago.
I used Konad's special stamping polish in White and BM-212 for the design.  Not my neatest stamp job, but it was okay.

Sea Spray
Application: Smooth, evened out with 2 coats
Coverage: 2 Coats for full opacity
Description: Pale blue creme with pearly shimmer
Drying time: Slower than average.  It's an older polish though so that may have a lot to do with it.

I applied a coat of Snow Caps by China Glaze to give it an icy feel.  Snow Caps is a thin glitter polish with a very thin white base.  The glitter is an iridescent yellowish gold.

Application: Smooth even on first coat
Coverage: thin - great for a top coat
Drying time - average for a glitter

I finished the manicure off with a coat of SV for glossy finish and speed drying time.

Remember to visit the other doing this challenge with me

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

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

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors 

Day 5- Untried Polish Challenge

Warm Colors

This is tricky sometimes because even a gold can be warm or cool.  It's not as cut and dry as Reds = warms and blues = cools as my husband thought.

I had a tough time picking colors on this one because I have used almost all of my warm colors as they tend to be my favorites, though I have many many more cool colors.

While my indecision lingered I tried another brand of nail wrap.  I know, I am sure other polish lovers would probably throw me the stink eye for using them, but I honestly like them.  I also scored about 10 different ones from Sephora for $3 each.  Not a bad deal as most retail for around $10.

I tried the Trend Tips by OPI - Snake Sparkle

I've tried a number of different wrap brands and this one has the absolute best application.  I had ZERO folds!  (that's exciting) and the excess peeled off easily with a little filing.  They are more like nail polish than a sticker.  I prefer that.

The sun didn't quite catch the shimmer of these.  The glitter reflected in every angle.  I got no less than 12 compliments on my nails with these which is pretty awesome since I only wore it for 2 days. 

Now let's talk about the downside to these - removal.

It took forever to get them off with acetone.  I still have micro glitter all over my fingers. (as seen in later picture)

So as much as I love the look, I don't know that I will wear any of the other glittery ones anytime soon.  

I decided that I would just try and replicate the pattern instead, so for today's Untried Polish Challenge I did a warm version of these wraps.

 Base is China Glaze Magnetix in Gold Fusion - I recently got this on clearance from Sally's.
Its a nice flat gold creme polish.  Two coats was plenty for a nice even polish.  I didn't use the magnet.  I'll admit, I tried using the China Glaze magnet and it barely changed the polish.  Not sure if that's the polish's fault, or the magnet.  I'll have to try one of my other magnet polishes to see.

This picture is without a top coat

You can see some shimmer, but it looked kind of matte to me so I used my matte top coat and really flattened them.

Then I used BM-215 to stamp on a snake skin pattern.  I used another untried polish, OPI's DS Mystery.  It's an odd polish to me.  It's deceptive in the bottle.  Very dark purple jelly with gold glitter.  I've had it a really long time and have never used it. Worked well as a stamp polish though, so maybe I'll keep it after all.

Remember to check out the other lacquerista's doing the challenge with me.

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

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

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors 

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.