Manicure Monday: Glitter Half-Moon Over Amethyst

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Today’s nail experiment surprises me with its elegance.

It took me forever to figure out what to do this week. I had two randomly chosen polishes; one is a very powerful, commanding purple with a blue flash, and the other is a dainty glitter topper with a slight blue tint. In tests, I couldn’t get them to work together. Putting the glitter on top of the purple always cancelled out the shifting colors, and my nails are so short that making thick necktie stripes would not have worked. I was totally out of ideas, and it didn’t occur to me until just before I started that I should use the glitter as the undies for a half moon mani. Best idea ever.

Sinful Colors’s Hottie, Sally Hansen’s Purple Potion

To me, this is like the nail equivalent of an evening gown. The purple conjures images of both royalty and jewels. The glitter is the sexy underwear beneath. It lays a foundation that is inconspicuous, but adds a nice touch of sparkle that supports the purple without overpowering it. I’m really surprised I could get such an elegant mani that’s also so simple and quick to do.

This is blurred to show you the glitter and the blue shimmer.

It was rainy when I took the first couple of photos, and as soon as I sat down to write, the sun came out, so I took a one more.

Manicure Monday: Blue Glitter on Pink

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

These post-birthday nails are so shiny, I couldn’t get a decent picture of them. It’s rainy and overcast today, and what little light I could get from outside reflected off of the glitter and made things complicated. Even in person, they look like this. It’s impossible to see the glitter, only the shine. After ten tries with similar results, I gave up. This was the best I could do.

Seriously, this was the only almost-good one.

I tried a few new things this week. I bought a new base coat like three weeks ago, and the indie seller I bought it from took an eternity to ship it, so I broke down and grabbed this OPI one. I actually really like it. It dries very quickly and cuts my mani time down significantly. I’m really impressed with it. The pink from this week, Love Rocks, is perfectly opaque after two coats. I’m always excited to use Essie polishes because I have so few of them, so I really love the blue metallic glitter from Stroke of Brilliance. It made my photography a nightmare, but it gives me an effect I couldn’t get from anything else.

Sally Hansen’s Love Rocks, Essie’s Stroke of Brilliance

I didn’t think I would like this mani so much. I had the pink, I needed a blue, and Stroke of Brilliance was the first one I grabbed from the blue section, so I used it. (Someday maybe I’ll write about my haphazard polish sorting and zero-effort mani planning). I’m actually really pleased with it.

Manicure Monday On the Road: Birthday Cupcakes

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

It’s my birthday week, so I’m visiting my boyfriend in Atlanta for the week. Unfortunately, this means I have one photo of my manicure, taken with an iPad. Unfortunately, it means I had to type this blog entry on an iPad as well.

They look kinda melted.

I used a lot of colors in this manicure, as you can see. Here’s a list:

Green: Sally Hansen’s Mint Sprint
Blue: OPI’s Eurso Euro
Pink: P2’s French Kiss
White: Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get
Accent nails: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!

Several days before I left, I packed everything I would need for this manicure. I put all five polishes into a bag with my dotting tool, pointed cotton swabs and acetone, striping tape, tweezers, and whatever else I would need to successfully complete this mani. When I started, I ended up peeling off my old mani, which took off a bit of my natural nail, but it also meant I didn’t disturb my boyfriend’s six housemates with bad acetone smell. Also, since it was a mani with rhinestones, it also meant I didn’t have to go through the kitchen hunting for foil or anything like that. So I’d already started on a bad foot. Then when it was time to start the dotting, the dotting tool wasn’t in my bag. I went through it twice, I looked in other bags several times, and it was nowhere to be found. I ended up making all my dots with the end of an unwound paper clip. It definitely shows. While this isn’t some of my best handpainting, it’s not my worst, either. Actually, it may be my best. I’m awful at handpainting.

So, the polishes. Eurso Euro had a really weird smell, somewhat different from the usual OPI smell. Now that I think about it, I have a dark blue P2 crackle with the same weird smell. Do these dark blue pigments just smell differently, or what? It had really nice coverage, and was easy to work with, but that smell. I can’t get past it. The mint green Sally Hansen is an Insta-Dri, so of course it was opaque in one coat and ready to go right away. I didn’t use the P2 for much, other than the cherry on the top of the cupcake, but it’s probably just as nice to work with.

I think the glitter crelly, Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!, kind of stole the show here. Yes, that’s butterfly glitter you see there, as well as stars in a couple different colors, squares, and hexes. It’s a limited edition polish from Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer, and you only get it by ordering the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer-inspired collection. Holos aren’t really my style, so they felt bad for me and gave it to me anyway. It’s an excellent polish, and I kind of dislike how exclusive it is, because it’s the best one in the collection, in my opinion. If you want in on this or any of their other polishes (you do), here’s the link to the BEGL store.

I really hate typing on an iPad, so I guess I’ll end it here. See you guys when I get back from vacation!

Manicure Monday: Half Moons and Pearls on Nubbins

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I broke a nail Sunday night. I was reaching for something, hit my pinky nail on it, and it just popped off. I couldn’t even save it. It broke completely off at the nail bed. I had to cut them all short. My nails haven’t been this short since I moved out of my apartment and broke every nail taking posters down. My fingertips touch the keyboard keys when I type and it’s weird.

This is the nubbin version of the manicure I had planned for my long, beautiful nails. I almost didn’t do it, since I thought it would look strange on small nails. And it does, kind of. I think the design probably exaggerates how short the nails are, and I almost did give up on the pattern to do a solid black, but where would the fun have been in that? Even nubbin nails deserve to be pretty.

China Glaze’s For Audrey, LA Colors’ Black Pearl

Nubbin nails are no fun, but they’ll grow back.

Manicure Monday: Black and Blue Glitter Mess

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

So I’m really excited about this week’s manicure. There are some things I would do differently, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Also, I’ll be wearing my first indie polish this week, and mostly I’m excited about that.

I really love my polishes this week. Outrageous is a soft taupe with a lot of metallic shimmer that goes on opaque in one coat. I’m pretty impressed with it, considering I paid a dollar for the bottle. I really loved it before I put the glitter on over it, and I might regret it a little. The real star here is the glitter anyway.

LA Colors’s Outrageous, Pretty & Polished’s Boy Bleu

Boy Bleu from Pretty & Polished is one of the first indie polishes I ever bought. It’s meant to be a full coverage glitter, giving a granite-like appearance. Here’s where I messed up. I thought that dabbing the glitter on instead of brushing it on would give me the most coverage, and I was a little heavy-handed in my application. My accent nails already had two coats of white polish before I added the glitter, just to make up for any bare spots that might have occurred. Thankfully, I didn’t need it, but because the coarse glitter made cleanup difficult, you can now see it around the cuticles. I’m not even sure why you can see it at the tips. Shrinkage, maybe? I don’t know, but there it is. So with the two coats of underwear, the two very thick coats of glitter, and three coats of Seche Vite, the accent nails are much thicker-looking than the others. It kind of bothers me, but it’s not that bad. I actually put so much on that I could shape and mold it with my fingers. Good thing I did, I would have had some strangely shaped nails.

Next time I’ll apply the glitter in thin coats and hope to build coverage that way, rather than trying to load it all on at once. I’ll still probably end up with fat nails again, but it won’t be so problematic.

Manicure Monday: Undersea Epic Glitter Gradient

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

The first day of fall is this week, and so the viciously bright neons and the whimsical glitter mixes are being put into storage for next year, and the dark muted colors are coming back. Well, for some people that’s happening. It’s not happening here. I’ll wear my neon orange whenever I want. I am, though, going to be using a lot of blue colors throughout the season. A lot of my recently acquired colors are blues, and I’ll be trying lots of colors I’ve never used before, ones I’ve had for a few days and ones I’ve had for a few years. I have some great things planned for this season.

I did a similar manicure in July, and decided to try it again with different colors. I like it much better this time. The dark blue side of the Moon Candy is almost black, but over the white, it’s very blue. After putting the shredded glitter over the blue tips, I got this wonderful oceanic effect. It really makes me want to book it to the beach. I know this was meant to be a fall manicure, but as it invokes thoughts of swimming, of sunshine and water, it’s anything but appropriate for fall.

This was intentionally blurred to show the colors. Maybe.

Of course, I encountered a few problems with this week. Something I’ve consistently had trouble with is Revlon’s double-ended polishes. I’ve had the brushes start losing bristles, I’ve had the cap break completely off, and I’ve had the polishes completely dry out. The Moon Dust I used this week was one of those. I had to thin out the glitter side once before, when I noticed the agitator ball was suspended in the middle of the polish. When I opened it to use it this week, I had the same issue. The blue was thick, stringy, goopy. The glitter was impossible to remove from the bottle. I put some thinner in it and let it sit overnight, but maybe I used too much, because it was kind of watery. I also had a hard time getting the colors to blend, and once the watery glitter was added, it kind of smeared the gradient around. I’d be mad if I didn’t like it so much.

Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get, Revlon’s Moon Candy in Moon Dust.

I went back to Seche Vite this week because my Digital Nails topcoat is now this strange reddish orange color, and I was afraid it would affect the white polish. I was also afraid it wouldn’t smooth out the coarse glitter as well. Hard to Get is back, too. This bottle is like a workhorse. I use it for everything, and as a result, it’s almost time for a new bottle.

So yeah, fall manicures. Bring it on.

Manicure Monday: Blue Marbling Over Gold

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Today I have two colors: one I absolutely love, one that’s kind of meh. I also have a new technique that gave me a result completely unlike what I expected, and not in a good way.

Quite some time ago, cutepolish posted a tutorial for water spotting. It’s done much the same way water marbling is; you drop polish onto water, but this time, you spray it with alcohol, which makes holes in the color. You dip your nail in, and like magic, you have this cool effect. Well, I got something completely different. It’s not bad, but it’s not what I was going for. I think the alcohol product I used may have been the culprit; I used a body spray that had been in the fridge for a while, so it’s probably my fault.

My two colors this week are Teal the Cows Come Home by OPI, and Amelia by Julep. Amelia looks beautiful in the bottle, but is rather sheer; I have on two coats, and you can still see my nail line. Teal the Cows Come Home is gorgeous after two coats, but after the marbling technique, the light color beneath, and whatever effect the alcohol may have had on the polish, the color is thin, barely visible in some places.

Julep’s Amelia, OPI’s Teal the Cows Come Home

Having said all that, I like these colors together. The summer is ending, the last days are fleeting, and I feel that urge to preserve it, to capture it in any way possible. I dislike autumn; I dislike the cooling temperatures, the leaves, having to wear a jacket, the muted colors, all of that. Well, autumn itself isn’t so bad, but it’s really just a stepping stone to winter, and winter and I aren’t friends.

Manicure Monday: Orange and Feathers

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I wasn’t sure about this feathered/fuzzy coat texture trend. I mean, it’s just non-reflective glitter, right? What’s even the point of that? I want my glitter to be so shiny it’s blinding. Go big or go home, right? I placed a Sephora order a few weeks ago and needed one thing to push me into enough points for the 500 point reward (don’t ask, my logic module doesn’t work when I’m shopping). I saw the Nails Inc. Feathers and grabbed a couple bottles, just to try it out. Meanwhile, I had this orange I didn’t really know what to do with. It confuses me. It’s too opaque to be a jelly but too sheer to be a creme. Glitter disappears in it, but I can still see my nail line. When I finally got the Feathers in the mail, I put them together.

This one looked better in my head, I think. I envisioned something like a glitter gradient, but the small fibers didn’t play well with that idea, and just formed colonies on the tips. I like it enough to keep it on, but I’ve gotten some interesting comments. One person described them as “strangely horrifying”, while another said they looked like bone shards stuck to bloody claws. Now I can’t unsee it.

Sinful Colors’s Big Daddy, Nails Inc. Feathers in York

For funsies, here’s a test manicure I did with different colors.

Essie’s Boxer Shorts and Nails Inc. Feathers in Cornwall

Manicure Monday: Blue and Gold Gradient

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Yep, another gradient.

I love the way this turned out, but I do wonder if it’s time to graduate to three colors, since my nails are so long now. With only two colors, it just looks a little lacking. Shiny as hell, though.

Sinful Colors’ Love Nails, Julep’s Zelda

I ran out of Out the Door last week, and went back to Seche Vite. Now that I’ve gone back to it, I might have liked Out the Door better. I spend way too much time thinking about and writing about topcoats.

This was unintentional, but it’s E3 Week, and the gold shade is called Zelda. I swear I didn’t plan that.

Manicure Monday: Blue and Silver Half-Moon Dream Nails

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I have really mundane dreams. They’re always about washing dishes, picking up dry cleaning, standing in line at the bank. Even in my dreams, I can’t escape the banalities of everyday life. Some night a few weeks ago, I had a dream about painting my nails, and I gave myself the best manicure ever. Upon waking, I decided that I was going to do it for real. Here’s how it turned out.

It’s not really my style, but I’m very happy with it. The silver is much shinier than I anticipated, but I like it anyway. There are tons of imperfections, but I’m not going to bore you with those details. I’m so pleased with it that I don’t even care.

Bonder, Haze, Hard to Get, Celeb City, Out the Door

One thing about this manicure: it took me ages to find the right blue. Eventually, I settled on a color called Haze by Sula. I’ve ever seen this polish anywhere but Ulta, and its formula is much like the stuff we used as children, the stuff that came in garish colors and peeled right off. I used it as a base color in another manicure and had good results, so I tried it again. This time, though, I used the French manicure guide strips to get my half-moon shapes, and it hadn’t occurred to me taping and peel-off polish wouldn’t work well together until after I’d nearly pulled a few of them off. Luckily, everything went according to plan.

Did I mention that I’m pleased with these? I’m very pleased with these.

Wacie.com

Home of Wacie Nail Company

Tag Archives: blue