Glow in the Dark Flakie Lasers

'Ello you!

Today I'm gonna show you another little late night experiment I did. This is my first attempt at using striping tape and I'm hooked! It's so easy and loads better than pretending I can cut regular tape in a straight line so you'll definitely see more of these in the future.

For this I started with two coats of OPI I Have a Herring Problem and topped it with two coats of Blackeart Bright Night, a cool blue glow in the dark polish in A SKULL BOTTLE! I'm still deciding if I like holding bottles in the pictures or not but I of course had to show you the pretty bottle though it was a bitch to hold :D

I kind of loved the color this turned into. Application of Bright Light was the tiniest bit streaky but otherwise no problems. This is the best picture I have where I could capture the glowing in the dark effect:

It's much brighter than this, trust me, my camera just wasn't cooperating. You can check Chalkboard Nails for better pictures of this polish and the effect. After this I taped off my nails with the striping tape and added one coat of Essie Bobbing for Baubles and one coat of Finger Paints Twisted for the flakies

I liked the final result but the flakies turned out to be too distracting and you couldn't see the tape work beneath it. It also had special meaning because I added a V on my middle finger and a K on my ring finger for my boyfriend's and my initials. Yes, I'm a sap sometimes. I was going to mattify this to see if it helped but I couldn't find my matte top coat :(

What do you think? Do you have striping tape yet or no? I'm definitely looking for different color combos to use for my next tape mani so suggestions are always welcome!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, though I couldn't get a good picture of it, the effect with the glow in the dark polish under the taping and flakies looked really cool when I went to bed. I really want to try this again and get a better picture!

Have a good day and remember: the weekend is only 2 days away!

Monday's a Day for a Spun Sugar Fail!

Hello all and welcome to another installment of my mini-Monday fails!

In this case the fail wasn't monumental, it was just too time consuming to do both hands by the time I started to try this mani and the results weren't as perfect as I wanted.

I did the Spun Sugar mani, though it has other names like thin lines or dripping polish I like 'spun sugar' best since I think it more accurately describes the effect. Either way, to do this you plop down some polish onto any random surface you don't mind getting ruined, your boyfriends favorite shirt that you hate for example, and wait for it to get stringy and annoying and sort of drape it over your nail for a cool effect.

I started with two coats of Essie Bikini So Teeny, a beautiful clean shade of blue (cornflower maybe?).

I really like Bikini So Teeny (aside from the fact that the shimmer in the bottle doesn't really translate to the nail). It had a good two coat formula and the color is just so...pretty!

This technique is MESSY. Or maybe it's me. Either way, you were warned.

Look at all those bubbles!

I have top coat on my pinky and ring finger and just left the natural texture on my middle and pointer finger so you'd see the difference. I used Sally Hansen Hard to Get for the white and it just did not want to get stringy! Every time I use this polish for nail art it strings and frustrates me and the one time I needed it to annoy me, it didn't want to! Touché polish, touché. I'll get you back though.

I'll definitely be trying this technique again with more patience and consider doing maybe less lines and a different polish for sure. What about you guys? Something you're wanting to try or have done?

Have a nice Monday! (As nice as a Monday could be)

Tutorial: A Different Clean-Up Option for your Manis!

Helloo readers! Happy friday! Thanks to the lovely ladies who wished boyfriend a happy birthday, he was mighty excited about having some more polished crazies sending him birthday lurve :D.

Today I have a little something different. I've never done a tutorial and I cannot even pretend I know what I'm doing, but I gave it a shot anyway. Usually people mention the holy grail of cleanup on manicures to be a brush and acetone and, while this is def going to give you the cleanest cuticle line, sometimes polish can seep into your cuticles or be extra stubborn and you need a little more force to remove it. That's where this comes in handy.

This could get kind of long so I'll place most of it under the jump and hope you follow me there :D

Some Grungy Neons

Well helloo you!

Before anything else, I want to wish my boyfriend a very happy birthday! We had only started dating this time last year so I didn't really do anything for his bday, heck I barely knew him! But now I do know him, and I do know how lucky I am to have him, so happy birthday hon :)

Now onto the nails! I finally got me some neons to play with. I've been craving neons for the first time in my life (probably all the bloggers' fault for posting pretty pretty swatches) so I got some of the new China Glaze neons and some random ones. When I sat down to polish, however, I could not decide how to wear them! I really think I short-circuited from all the pretty colors, it was just too much for my poor brain.

I tried using two that were close in color for the two-accent-nail look, but it was still too bright for my unaccustomed eyes. I tried layering it over white, not layering it over white, thought of a gradient, you name it, I did it.  Finally it was getting late and I was cranky knowing I had to work the next day, so I just sort of applied them all on a nail. My intention was to recreate this mani by Rebecca but my watercoloring skills are disappoint. Then I just started brushing everything on with my paintbrush, unintentionally using this tutorial from Nails Adored.

My pointer finger is a bit of a *spoiler alert*!

So...yeah, that's pretty much what I ended up with. I haven't decided if I love it or not, I'm actually still wearing it as I type. It's definitely fun and different. The pointer looks different because I stamped with Essie Blanc while experimenting, then switched to Whirlwind White when I decided to go for it. I just wish my stamping would have been straighter, still can't get the placing perfect. 

Next time I'm definitely wearing the neons on their own, eye searing be damned!

Oh, the polishes I used were:

• China Glaze Sun Kissed 
• China Glaze Surfin' for Boys
• Spoiled I'm so Jaded (or Permission to Proceed) 
• Pop Beauty Mandarin
• Bettina Jeans Over Dyed 
• BM 201 and Sally Hansen Whirlwind White for stamping

Is there anything specific you're craving this season? Is it a different style for you?
Have a good day!

Monday's a Day for a Semi-fail!

Hey all! I've been a bad blogger, I know. I honestly got out of whack with my posting days last week but now I'm starting fresh with a (semi) fail for this Monday.

This mani was a fail because of what you can't see in the pics. The streakyness, the bubbling and multiple coats, it was just blagh. I used Essie A Crewed Interest which is a really lovely color. It was exactly what I was looking for, something peachy that didn't lean too pink. I'm still not sure the color is great with my skin tone but I like it nonetheless.

Now, about the formula. It definitely needs three coats to even everything out but I started with a too thick first coat and everything went downhill from there. Also, my base coat seems to be bubbling so of course, the polish bubbled too. Then I tried some nail art with tape but I didn't really know where to take it and the polish had started chipping already because it was so thick so I just removed everything.

The color is really worth having, just make sure to do thin coats and you'll be just peachy...get it? Peachy?

Have a good day!