Busy Busy

With this being such a busy time of year I guess posts will be few and far between until the new year.  So this weeks posts will be packed into today.

On my Nfu Oh water layered mani I did a quick stamp of what I thought were snowflakes but people are telling me they are flowers...hmm, ah who gives a shit, close enough.  I used Billie French White and konad plate m20.

And here's a reminder of what my base Gelish mani looks like.  This was at Day 7 and after removal of the above:

Isn't it awesome how perfect and shiny it stays after scrubbing it with non-acetone remover?  I cannot get enough of the soak off gels, seriously.

Here is 2 coats of Cosmetic Arts All The Trimmings.  Sheer Green base with an irridescent/duochrome glitter.  Sometimes it flashes blue like above...

But most of the time it flashes pink.  You can occasionally see a gold flash in it as well.  It's one of the most unique polishes I own.

This shot is more colour accurate as far as the green base goes and you can see a bit of the gold in it here too.

For the nail art I just did a simple stamp in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Titanium Rose and konad plate m5.

So that's it for this week.  I will be taking a shopping trip to both Toronto and Buffalo within the next week so I should have some awesome polish hauls to post soon.  Even if I had time to actually paint my nails right now there just is not enough time to post them...ah holidays :)

Later
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OMFG!

This post just couldn't wait til Friday.

I've pretty much proven here how much I suck at water marbling but whenever I do one I always think that using water would be a good method to apply those troublesome layering polishes.  You know...the ones you think would look really awesome if only you could get it thin enough and even enough?

So last night after several failed water marbling attempts I decided to finally give water layering a try.  And what better polish to use than the most troublesome polish of all?  Nfu Oh 61!

So I started with my Gelish Ooba Ooba Blue mani as the base, put one drop of Nfu Oh 61 in the water, let it spread out evenly and dipped.  It did exactly what I was going for...turned my blue manicure into an awesome holographic one!  There's no way I could achieve this by simply painting a coat of Nfu Oh 61 over my polish like normal.

I didn't even bother to tape my nails in advance.  The layer was so thin and light I just swiped the excess off with a q-tip dipped in remover.

I messed up slightly on one finger on my right hand - the middle one - because I didn't let the polish spread properly in the water so you can see that it's thicker on that one finger.  Obviously you can see that a second dip would have made this even more holo, but I was pretty happy with the results anyways.

I took tons of photos because I was thrilled with how well this turned out.  It was actually pretty easy to dip more than one nail at a time too so I had less wasted polish.  All the photos above also have a top coat on them which I don't think diminished the holo at all.

So I think this is an amazing way to create holographic manicures in any shade I want and also extend the life of my precious expensive bottle of Nfu Oh 61.  I cannot wait to try this with other colours and also try out different layering polishes!

Later
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Enough of this girly crap...

The Shellac French only stayed on for about a week.  Because I broke my thumbnail, not because it chipped.  I've got the chipping totally under control now and it just doesn't happen anymore.  I really enjoyed the french manicure though so I didn't paint over it much while I wore it.  I just added the occasional konad to it:

This is Billie French White and Konad stamp m36 with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  As much as it's a nice clean look, I don't think I could tolerate these girly manicures for a full 2 weeks.

So for my next soak off UV gel mani I decided to go for something bolder:

This is 3 coats of Gelish Ooba Ooba Blue and I still have visible nail line!  But I like it since I don't have many polishes with that squishy jelly appearance.  There's so much I can do with this in terms of nail art and layering but I'm having a hard time settling on what I'm going to do with it...

Later
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OPI's and Christmas Stamps

My friends and family are all slowly finding out about my secret obsession with nail polish.  Okay maybe it's not such a secret since I openly invite them to come over for manicures but they don't all take me up on the offer.  This is Shelley's second manicure since she found out last week haha.  The first manicure was a basic sheer pink Shellac with a black skull stamped on each thumb.  I didn't take a photo because her nails were in terrible shape.  But after the Shellac was removed she actually had a bit of good growth so she came back for her Christmas Party manicure.

She opted for regular nail polish this time so we did 2 coats of OPI DS Signature to match her outfit, stamped it with Billie French White and plate BM14 with a top coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust for some extra sparkle.

I also did my own nails in between hers with a new OPI I picked up at Winners last week.  I have been looking for the OPI Suedes for quite awhile and finally managed to snag 2 of them - Lincoln Park After Dark and Ink.

This is one coat of Lincoln Park After Dark Suede.  I love how you can 'touch up' the suede polishes and not even see any lines or marks.

And this is one coat of OPI Ink Suede.  I like them both but prefer the purple shade so I removed Ink and went with Lincoln Park After Dark.  If you run a light swipe of remover over either of these polishes, you're left with silver on your nails :)

So anyways, since Shelley and I were busting out the Christmas stamps I decided to go for a silver ornament in Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and plate BM225 topped with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

I think Shelley will be back next week too lol.  She actually insisted I take a photo of her nails.

Later
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Progress

Today I'm feeling a little better about posting my naked nails.  Here they are 2 months ago before I started the Soak Off Gel obsession:

And here they are now, after several gel manis and some intense scrubbing in between:

I still have a little bit to go but it's a MASSIVE improvement, no?  The ugly pink sparkly Gelish I wore 2 weeks ago is the reason for the peel marks so that should be gone shortly.

Since I was having a good nail day, what's better than a nice clean french manicure?

1 coat of Shellac Romantique, cure
Freehand white tips with Shellac Cream Puff, cure
1 coat of Shellac Negligee, cure
Repeat
1 coat of Gelish Top It Off, cure

This took me about half an hour longer than a standard gel mani.  I'm kind of anal and was having issues getting my tips straight enough.

I stamped it with Wet and Wild Black Creme and BM04 with a small pink gem and a random top coat.  I love how professional the Shellac french looks.  Makes me think maybe I should quit my day job lol.

Later
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