Galaxy Nails!

I'm up to day 19 of The Challenge, and that means galaxies!

All of the polishes I used: Street Wear Mmoody, 17 Glitter Top Coat, Love & Beauty Charcoal, China Glaze Cheers to You, ManGlaze Mayo, Orly Galaxy Girl, China Glaze White Cap, Love & Beauty Light Green, and Essense Choose Me! Phew!

I started out with two coats of Charcoal by Love & Beauty. If I was wearing this alone, I would have done three because there are some bald spots. Charcoal is, as you can see, a black base with silver micro-glitter. Application was smooth, and it dried decently fast. It does dry to a gritty texture, so top coat is a must. My biggest issue with these Love & Beauty polishes are their names. Charcoal? Really? Charcoal is just plain black! Graphite would have been slightly more appropriate, as that actually has somewhat of a sheen to it. Come on Love & Beauty, put more than two seconds of thought into your nail polish names!

And there's the final product! They are not totally perfect, but I think they look pretty nice. The shooting star on my index finger is a bit too prominent, but I adore the one on my ring finger. Doing these galaxy nails was so fun, and far less time consuming than you'd think (especially considering the amount of polishes that go into creating this look). My coworkers liked 'em, and they could tell what I was going for. And if the general public can tell these are space-based, then I'd call it a success. And I do have to say, a camera can not really pick up the beauty of these bad boys. Do some for yourself and see what I mean!

I was too lazy to take process photos, but I'll break it down into steps:
1. Paint base color. Ideally something dark and shimmery.
2. Sponge on white in cloud-like manner.
3. Add an iridescent color on top of the white to tone it down. I used Mmoody, Choose Me!, and Light Green for this, alternating on each nail.
4. Add a darker iridescent color to parts of the "clouds" that are too bright. This is where Galaxy Girl came in handy.
5. Add shooting stars with a silver or a glitter or a silvery glitter.
6. Use more white to add stars. It's pretty cute if you add some twinkling stars to the mix.
7. Cover said stars with a glitter to tone them down. Cue White Cap.
8. Add as many glitter polishes as you can find. This is where I used two coats of 17's Glitter Top Coat. I wish I had Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure (or similar polish) because the flakies add some great dimension.
9. Add some top coat and tada! The universe has exploded on your nails.

If, like me, you are a visual person, here are the tutorials I followed when doing my galaxy nails: Here Comes The Sun's video tutorial, and Rebecca's photo tutorial.

With that, I am off to "space out" (heh!) to It's Always Sunny and fall asleep!

Rainbow Nails!

Now The Challenge is getting to the fun stuff! Post 9 is rainbow nails!

 

So, for my rainbow manicure, I decided get a lil' skittle on you guys. I think it turned out pretty darned cute, and the colors work really well together. Given that I'm doing this Challenge to use more of my untrieds/unphotographeds, they're all colors I haven't shown before. I somehow managed to get dust all over my nails between painting and photographing them, so do me a solid and ignore that!

Here's what I used:

ELF Mango Madness - A lovely coral color! I used three coats, as this seemed to have some jelly qualities. It's so pretty, and it's begging me to use it as a full manicure.

Nicole by OPI One Voice - A shimmery yellow. I was going with a creme theme, but I realized I'd chosen a shimmer too late! This was sort of streaky and thin, so I used three coats, but it wasn't impossible to work with. It's a very pretty color, and I love that it leans a little mustard.

OPI Who the Shrek Are You? - Lime, but not neon, colored creme. Surprisingly easy to work with. This was two easy coats.

Essence My Boyfriend's Jeans - What a stupid freaking name. But what a pretty color! The first coat seemed a little gloopy, but it all evened out with the second.

OPI Done Out in Deco - LOVE this polish! A really lovely lilac creme. Super duper easy to work with. Absolute perfection in two coats.

What do you guys think?

Today is the last day of my long "weekend," and I am so not looking forward to going back to work. This weekend has been a nice combination of productive and lazy.

I got myself a caffeinated lil treat today, and sat my butt down to work on more grad school stuff. I also found out I am a finalist for a Solo Exhibition Program at a local gallery here, so I have been working on stuff for that, too. Crossing my fingers I make the cut! 

Essence Choose Me!

Today I woke up with a cold. The end of June and I have a cold! What a bummer!

On an unrelated note, last night I had a dream that I went on a shopping spree in Ulta. I must be going through withdrawals! I have put myself on a No Buy, which I told myself I was going to do a couple times before, but never followed through. I haven't purchased anything new since my last Ulta and Trade Secret trip. Going through my stash, I realized way more than half of the polishes I own have either not been tried ever, or haven't been photographed for this blog. So, until I go through more of what I already own, there is no need to buy more. We'll see how this goes.

One polish I purchased at Ulta a while ago, but haven't tried until now, is Choose Me! by Essence. I know we've seen an infinite amount of posts about this little guy, but bear with me.

Obviously we all know this is a dupe for like, 75 other polishes - but it's much cheaper than the others. Choose Me! is a blue-green duochrome base, with silver glass flecks in it. I got a ton of compliments on it! One of my coworkers said it reminds him of a mermaid's tail, which is exactly what I thought when I put it on.

I used two coats, and it went on perfectly! It was so smooth and easy to work with, and the brush is great. My only complaint is that clean up was hard. Acetone didn't so much clean up the polish as smear the polish around (note my pinky). In the future, I'll just have to be much more careful when applying it. It lasted a couple days before starting to chip, which was actually better than I expected considering how glittery it is.

I'm not too happy with these photos though. The messy polish bugs me. On top of that, my cuticles are in horrid condition! I tried to clean things up in Photoshop, but I couldn't hide everything. I'll have to re-do these someday.

I'm off to sip some tea and embroider!

Haul

Yesterday, I went on a nail polish hunt for a swap I'm doing with the lovely Nicole over at Top to Toe. Naturally, I picked up some things for myself. Here are some pictures, because who doesn't love looking at pretty nail polish bottles?

Ulta Underground, China Glaze White Cap, Nicole by OPI Party in the Penthouse, L.A. Splash Golden Seahorse.

Orly Galaxy Girl, Bonita Turquoise, Bonita Barefoot, Essence Choose Me!

I quickly swatched the glitters over my chipping I'm With Brad manicure. The index is Orly Galaxy Girl, which went on smoothly. My middle finger is L.A. Spash Golden Seahorse, which dries rough, but not too bumpy. Ring finger has Essence Choose Me! And my pinky has China Glaze White Cap, which is freaking GORGEOUS! I love how the gold really shines through on top of a darker polish.

I'll post pictures of what I purchased for her as soon as she receives the package. Don't want to give away the surprise!

P.S.  Follow my blog with bloglovin