Nail Fail - Glitter and Gradient Stamping

Today I bring to you a nail fail. It does not look overly terrible except for the fact that I did not clean up at all in the end because I knew it was not working out. The manicure does not work like it is supposed to do.

Early in the days of this blog I posted a haul post. This is one of my most successful posts even though it only consists of pictures of nail polish bottles I bought... Two of these polishes are Nicole by OPI polishes called Virtuous Violet and One Less Lonely Glitter. This is the first time I have ever used them.

Virtuous Violet is a nice colour. In the bottle the shimmer seems almost duochromatic. To get enough coverage on your nail you need four coats. I used three here because I knew the glitter would work fine with only three coats.

I seems it would take too many coats to make One Less Lonely Glitter opaque. On other blogs I saw that most people seem to still have some nail visible at three coats. It has pretty mauve small and microglitter in a clear base. The brush seemed rather clunky but I applied the polish without problems.

Onto the fail part of the manicure. Miss L decided she wanted both Kleancolor Metallic Pink and Metallic Aqua "side by side". I sponged a gradient on for her and she was mightily pleased. Her nails are very small and the ridges around the cuticle and the sides of her fingernails are deep. It makes it difficult to get the sponge into the area to dab the polish on.

I decided that these two colours would go well with the purples. Since I already did a sponged gradient, I thought I would stamp one onto my fingernails. The plate I used was an MJ plate but you can not see the full nail heart design. Part of the problem is that I used the double sided stamper from Lightinthebox.com. It was TERRIBLE as the silicone part of the stamper is much harder than the Konad one I adore. I switched over to the Konad double stamper after doing my thumb and index finger.

This one will come off soon. Thank goodness I used PVA glue as a base.

Movember and International Men's Day

Today is International Men's Day and about two thirds of the way through for those growing their (hopefully) spectacular moustaches for Movember. I am proud to admit that Movember was started in Australia and has grown from there. It seems we have a lot to do to catch up to those Canadians but at least we are giving our men some support for men's issues.

Visit the Australian Movember website has lots of information, merchandise and ways to connect to other Mo Bros. Most importantly you can donate to the foundation for the funds to be used for men's health initiatives such as prostate cancer and mental health.

The theme for International Men's Day for 2012 is health to tie this post in nicely with the aims of Movember. Helping men to be aware of their own bodies and minds will help them to live longer and happier lives. That is something to want for every special man and man-to-be in our lives.

Don't Feed the Hand Models from Sephora by OPI tends to be my go to nude base colour. I have used it here in two coats to represent skin. I would have done different skin colours but I did not have the polishes to represent that.

On the new MJ VIII image plate there is a full nail image of different moustache styles. These are perfect for Movember. Different shades of Kleancolor Metallics were used to represent different whisker colours for the moustaches. We have Metallic Black for black whiskers, Metallic Mango for the ginger whiskers, Metallic Yellow for the blond whiskers and Coffee Addict for the brown whiskers.

Happy Birthday November! Citrines and Chrysanthemums

Some of the symbols of November are citrine for the birthstone and chrysanthemums for the flower. I have used both of these elements for this birthday manicure for November.

I started with Kleancolor Metallic Yellow for the base colour. This was the best shade I had with that yellow colour to match citrines. Granted citrines come in a range of colour but I wanted a rich yellow that had that gem like quality and shine. That is a little hard since all I have are either golds or creme yellows that were not quite right. I was surprised by rainbow flashes of shimmer in Metallic Yellow when the light hit it. I never expected that as I thought it would be a simple gold.

In Australia, chrysanthemums are usually sold in May for Mother's Day. I have never liked chrysanthemums because the cut flower smells terrible. Pyrethrum keeps me away as well as the insects. Thankfully, Mr R and Miss L have never bought me any, yet.

Nevertheless, I find the stylised chrysanthemum image from Bundle Monster BM-313 pretty. This was stamped in Konad Black. I was going to use Kleancolor Metallic Black but I knew the Konad was the best for that dark, black and crisp image. If this had been an all over image with a lot of clean up required, I would have chosen something else as Konad Black is horrendous to clean up.

The placement may seem all over the place but I was trying to do the same design differently to add interest. My right hand that I did afterwards has a more even placement and it looks good all lined up together. Unfortunately my left hand refuses to assist in taking a photograph to show you.

Long Awaited Rainbow - Kleancolor Metallics

I was very excited when one of my work colleagues was going to the US. In my mind, America is the polish addicts idea of heaven with row after row of delights at a bargain price. I had already been spoilt by my Strumpet visiting the US and bringing me back so many goodies that would have cost hundreds of dollars to buy in Australia. That is, if all of those items had been available in Australia.

All I wanted was the Kleancolor Metallics. They are very cheap and I have read that they are good for stamping. 13 polishes for $15? There was a reputation for stinking but they would seriously bolster my stamping choices.

It took a while for me to get my hands on these beauties as my friend forgot to pack them before she headed back to Australia. Oh no! Thankfully they were posted here and I eventually got my hands on them.

After receiving them I had to take pictures. To line them up in the perfect rainbow is lovely.

We have in order: Metallic Black, Coffee Addict, Metallic Mango, Metallic Orange (Both Mango and Orange look very similar to me), Metallic Yellow, Metallic Green, Metallic Sapphire, Metallic Aqua, Metallic Fuschia, Metallic Purple, Bite Me and Metallic White.

I am very happy with them even though I have not tried them out much yet. There is a little bit of stamping that I need to take pictures of. The biggest bonus is that they do not smell as bad as I thought that they would. It may be due to the allergies I suffer from clogging up my nose but I did not notice anything different to most of the other polishes I use. It certainly was not overpowering.