52wkCrumpet10: camouflage and dark green

This is week ten of Crumpet's 52 week challenge! The "rules" are very flexible and you have all week to accomplish the mani. As always, must be done on your own nails, using the colours suggested (or parts thereof).
This week's prompt: camouflage design and dark green (either each alone or combined). I combined. I decided to do camouflage French tip nails with a strong dark green skew.

I started with a two coat base of OPI Don't Pretzel my Buttons. Halfway through this decision I remember that I really do not like this colour. Always seems streaky. I think it is a good nude for my skin tone, but prefer it as a base for full coverage nail art. Oh well, I had already started.

right hand

Then I drew the French tips by hand with Zoya Flynn, the caramel brown. Underneath that I painted a thin line of Zoya Hunter, my dark green. The camouflage design was created by painting on a mixture of Hunter, Zoya Evvie (grey green) and Zoya Louise (choc brown).

Am a bit hum-ho on this mani. The nude is too nude and would probably look better with a softer very light coffee tone. The nude is just too stark and in your face. The camou is more apparent in real life than in the pics, as well. Live and learn, I say. Cheers girls!! x

An InLinkz Link-up

Confessions of a gelicious nature

Tad pic heavy!
I have a confession to make. For the past many weeks I have been guinea-pigging gel polish.  I know gel polish has a bad rap and I am an advocate for healthy natural nails. So I feel like I am selling myself out. But, I also paint my nails heaps of times – sometimes in one week – and that is abnormal. So many clients and people ask me... "how long does it last?". I always chuckle at that as my immediate thought is: well, how long do you want it to last? A year? Ten months?? Really... what do they think? People want nail art or polish to last forever, at the same time they do nothing to keep their nails healthy, neat or non-chipped. And who wants to look at blue forever???? I get bored too easily. So my thought was to offer gel nails (no tips, just on natural nails) in my studio to those who want them. We all know that art lasts much longer on a gelled nail than on natural nails. But in order for me to honestly offer a gel nail mani I had to be sure that 1) your own nails do not get ruined in the process and 2) it actually works.

So after some research I decided on the gelicious nail system from Australia (gelicious website). The LED lights are safe, curing takes 30 seconds a layer, no need for a base coat, acetone takes it all off, their colours looked like proper nail polish and their prices are very fair (plus free postage!). To cut this really short right now, I will say I am hooked and in the meantime I have 13 shades of polish. This is not to say it did not have a teething stage. Nor that I am foregoing all other polish - what, am I crazy???
The first mani I did was using the nude Recover. Took no pics. But Recover is a sheer nude, perfect for a natural look, under other polish as a base or for French. It probably lasted two days before chipping. Not really chipping, the polish loosened itself from my nail. Very clean, but still loose and therefore came off in bits. Not impressed, was I. So, I thought about this some more, remembered what my manicurist used to do back in the Stone Age (!) and did some research.

My second attempt was with their bold dark blue, Yacht Race. I bought this as they were out of the black and I wanted to offer a good dark base for duochromes and holos. This stayed on perfectly for four days before I had to touch up two nails as the gel had loosened. Still not ideal. So more refinement was needed.

The blue is gorgeous on its own, though. A navy blue with shimmer flecks that catch the light. I practiced some more - all unknown to everyone as I covered up my gelled nails with normal polish. Then came my breakthrough (I will elaborate on this further down).

day one

day eight (8)

My Dressed Up Nude challenge mani. As a base for this challenge I used a normal gel mani of Recover, that very sheer nude. After the nail art (you can read all about that in the link in above line) I top coated with Out the Door. I top coated again after three days. And that is all I did to my nails for over a week. A whole week!!!

You can see from the pics all taken on day 8 that the mani was still perfect. Absolutely no chips or loosening. The art was still perfect, shine still there. Excuse the blue blobs but I was working on jewellery. I was very impressed with gelicious now that I figured out how to make it work. So, onto another mani....

My current mani is 7 days in as I write this and looks just like in the pics. This is Hit the Gym, a fab tomato red. This is two coats and then top coated. Each layer is cured for 30 seconds (I promise I will talk about the method soon!). Since it is dry immediately, I got right into nail arting. This is a great plus if you want to do tape manis as the base is dry immediately and you can tape away!

I started with four dots of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky to create a flower. Then topped with two or three smaller dots of OPI My Paprika.... A small white dot was added in the middle of each flower and around to connect them. A bit a black added depth, or something. This was top coated with Out the Door and during this week I top coated once. I will remove this tomorrow as I want something new.

right hand

So, how does this all work???? The great thing about gel is that you can goof off with it and make your nails perfect before curing. I use really thin coats. In fact, the first coat doesn't even cover properly. I finish four nails on my left hand, then four on my right, then the thumbs (so three cycles). Before I cure each coat I do cuticle clean up (also the sides) and make sure my lines are neat. If it cures, it is there forever. Here is what I have learned and how I do it:

1) Totally totally totally clean your nails. I mean, totally. All polish off and wash and dry them. Then I use rubbing alcohol and clean the surface three times!!! The nail has to be absolutely oil free (otherwise loosening occurs as the gel has nothing to stick to).

2) One nail at a time, apply a thin coat of polish to your clean nail. I remove as much polish as I can from the brush (gel polish is thick and the brush is short) and apply. Seal all edges with polish! This is a crucial step. You must paint the tips and sides with polish so that the gel runs around the nail and adheres to the undersides. Using rubbing alcohol (not acetone!) and a brush I do cuticle clean up and remove any unwanted polish. Then the next nail. I do four fingers then cure under the LED for 30 seconds.

3) Same procedure again. Another coat of polish to the nails. This can be a tad thicker. If you see a clearish patch just go over it again. And seal all sides and tip again. And do cuticle clean up again. Cure for 30 seconds.

4) Same procedure with their top coat. I paint this one like normal top coat, not super thin or thick. Seal all tips and sides and do cuticle clean up. Cure for 30 seconds. When done, saturate a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and wipe your nails. This will remove the sticky gel topping, set the nails and give them shine. These four fingers are now done, dry and finished.

5) Repeat with the other hand, then your thumbs.

How does it all come off? For the nail nerds out there, this will be a common procedure: use the aluminum foil glitter off method. I use 100% acetone and cotton balls (I cut them in half). Put a cotton ball on your nail and wrap it in foil. Wait at least 10 minutes. You can't really hurt anything by leaving it on longer. When you remove the foil/cotton the gel polish would have loosened up like flakes. Just rub off with the soaked cotton. If it is not all off, remove what you can, rewrap and wait another couple of minutes. The polish is pretty gooey and soft, so you can scrap it off with your nail without damage.

Above are my nails after all of these gel sessions. The thinness at the tip of my middle finger has been there forever so is not from the gel, same with the unevenness on my pinkie (don't know what caused that). You can see that they are smooth and solid. The gel only comes off with 100% acetone (or acetone based remover). I use 100% acetone (cheaper) even though they do not suggest it. All it does is dry out your nail bed but danger is there only if you do that four times a day every day! Cuticle oil and all is good. If I want a change up during the gel period, I remove the "art" or normal polish with acetone-FREE remover and do another design.

Hope this wasn't too long. It seemed like I had a lot to say today!
Oh, here's more info about the mani process.

PANZ Challenge: Dressed Up Nudes

So exciting - a challenge. I like the idea of a challenge as it makes me think outside my usual pattern. I have been a bit lax on the ol' Crumpet challenges (bad llama) and want to get back into that. But, the super fun NZ polish group PANZ (polish addicts new zealand) are starting challenges off their cool new blog (new panz blog).

As you can see (and read) this challenge had to do with nudes and jazzing them up a bit. You could also bling them, but I'm not that into bling. You had to use your own designs, your own nails, have done it yourself, no archive manis allowed, one polish manis not allowed (love this one! no non-art manis!). I decided to do a tape mani with hand drawn flowers. I was on the fence a bit in doing a skittlette, so incorporated a bit of skittlette in the mani.

I started with a sheer nude base. Only one coat and you can see VNL shimmering through the stripes. That part is intentional! Then I taped and applied OPI Barefoot in Barcelona, a fab nude for me. Very close to my skin tone, or put it this way: warm like my skin tone. Just one coat as the polish is rather thick and the sheer base gave it something to latch on to. I let that dry, but no top coat. I did four fingers on my left hand and the thumb of my right. I manicured the rest of my nails in two coats of Barcelona.

Using a mix of brown and white acrylics I one stroked flowers on to the striped nails and to the tips of the "plain" nails. The first level of flowers was more white, the second level more brown. Then I added some light gold glitter in the middle of the flowers (OPI Spark de Triomphe). Top coat sealed the deal.

The whole mani looks very subtle, easy on the eye, but not boring. Thx PANZ for the idea, think it's great. I am looking forward to more challenge ideas in the future!

right hand

right thumb

Autumn leaves on a Zoya Godiva base

Another pixie dust!!! The Zoya Pixie Dust collections are so beautiful and I have just two (boo). I just received this in another destash (well, bought, not received!) and am so happy. This is Godiva, a beige nude, and I decided to draw some foliage for an autumnal look. This is a difficult mani to photograph. Not only are the leaves non-centered (so going in "wrong" directions), the glistening of the nails reflects.

I started with two costs of Godiva. This is probably a colour I would need to wear now or earlier towards summer. It is a great nude, and it looks darker towards my skin tone in real life. But it is still very light and beige-y. So am afraid I would look too washed out in winter. But as a base for art it is great! I top coated before continuing to 1) level out the pixie unevenness a bit and 2) no smudges! Oh, and 3) had to get dinner started.

I drew the leaves randomly on each finger. Then I used dotting tools to draw in the leaves, one colour at a time. So, all my nails with the burnt orange, then red, then gold.... Top coat followed and when that was dry I went back and added some black lines and accents to the leaves. Then more top coat to set that.

After the fact I notice that this looks a bit Xmasy. But that was not my intention! I was aiming for autumn and some of the leaves look really good. To give the whole manner more "fall shimmer" I top coated with Nfu Oh 49 flaky so that when the nails hit the light, they glisten in orange. That was followed by yet another coat of Out the Door. All in all there are four coats of top coat on my nails and they definitely do not feel uneven. Below a list of the colours used.

right hand

Colours used:

base: Zoya Pixie Dust Godiva
reds: Kyo burnt orange, Zoya Sooki
copper: China Glaze Harvest Moon
green: China Glaze Agro
gold: OPI Goldeneye
brown: China Glaze Midtown Magic
top: Nfu Oh 49