Failed plush nails...

Going through a bit of a failing phase here... :-(

I needed a quick mani, so I went to my go-to red: Fire (Revlon). A couple of days later, I decided to play around with the flocking powder I'd bought at Michaels a couple of weeks earlier. I didn't have red, so I chose the orange for this try-out.

OK, I know now that matching the powder colour to the nail polish is done for a reason... The powder doesn't cover it perfectly. In fact, it barely covered it at all, but then it's my inexperience's fault. :-p

The fell of the flocking powder was different. Interesting, but definitely not something I could stand for long. Even if I could, it'd be removed quickly by stroking anyway... ;-)


xoxo

PRIS

Brasil-sil-sil!!

Yes, it's Brasil with 's', because that's how we write it in Portuguese! :-D

Remember Sarah? She organized an amazing Keystone event at work, appreciating staff and their cultures. I couldn't pass a Brazilian mani, could I? ;-)

For the 'costume', I wore a Brasil navy blue T-shirt, jeans skirt and Havaianas (Brazilian world-famous flip flops).

Havaianas required painted toes. One coat of Azulcrination (Risqué) over Midnight Affair (Revlon). Gorgeous combination! Revlon gives the opaque base, and Risqué makes it shine!

My goal was a green and yellow french mani, but I just couldn't get it right. I chose to alternate them instead. Both are New York Color: High Line Green and Lexington Yellow. Same colours were used for the free-handed piece of Brazilian flag, completed by Azul Biônico (Colorama).


Unfortunately I have no good pictures of the Havaianas, but Sarah took one during the event and even posted it on Facebook!


xoxo

PRIS

Choose Me!

Still in love with Essence, the one I picked next was Choose Me.

I didn't expect it to be a sheer glitter polish, so I got disappointed at first. I needed 2 or 3 coats (can't remember exactly) for opacity, and removal was a nightmare (as with any glitter polish). But the colour is gorgeous!!

It's probably better as a layering polish than as a stand alone. Haven't tried it yet, but I'll post it here when I do. :-)


xoxo

PRIS

Failed Frankening...

I know, I know... I haven't posted in a while and now I'm backdating to keep up with my anal self... :p

Now that the This Is Halloween Challenge is over, I can go back to posting my manis in the order they were done.

I started with one coat (yeah, it's a really quick drying one-coater!) of Gleam In Blue (Essence), before playing around with some 'frankened' top coats. I bought some glitter samplers at my local Michaels, but had a not so pleasant surprise once I started mixing it with some of my sheer polishes.

First I wanted to prepare a "chocolate chip" like top coat, so I used dark small glitters in the sheer base. After a while, I noticed the glitter bled quite a bit, making the whole thing darker...

The second attempt wasn't successful either. I used a few drops of blue (Jeans - Colorama) mixed with the sheer polish, and threw in small blue, red, and silver glitters, and a bigger silver glitter as well.  Lots of bleeding again, making it purplish. Not bad, but not what I was aiming for...



I still have tons of sample glitter bags, and probably all have this bleeding problem. I'll keep playing with them for now, and maybe buy better supplies next time around.



At least I loved the Essence polish! Application was easy, drying time was super fast, and did I mention it's a one-coater?? ;-)


xoxo

PRIS

"This Is Halloween" - Trick or Treat!

After a spooky and adventurous month of October, the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge comes to an end. I'm proud of taking on this challenge and fulfilling it to (almost) completion! Got lots of praises for the crazy designs! :-)

I would like to thank Bec from Lacquer Dreams for coming up with the prompts and for keeping us all connected throughout the challenge. Well done!!

But wait, 'Trick or Treat!' is not the last day of the challenge! Yeah, I know. As noted before, I'm anal and will only publish on Tuesdays and Fridays. I'm already late enough with this prompt, it makes no sense posting Halloween stuff the second week of November. Plus, there's no better way of ending this challenge than with lots of sweets! ;-)

OK, enough babbling and onto the treats!

What a better way to start than with a blank canvas? Two coats of Pétala Branca (Colorama) prepped all my nails to the sugary work ahead! When I first started thinking about this challenge, two things came to mind: Candy Corn and Jawbreaker. But I didn't wanna do just that. I wanted to represent different Halloween candies, or even candies in general.

What do we give out when trick or treaters knock on our door? M&M's!! A dotting tool placed Orange (028 - Milano), Red (Sample Sale - Sephora by O.P.I.), Brown (Café - Colorama), Green (High Line Green - New York Color), Yellow (Lexington Yellow - NYC), and Blue (Water Street Blue - NYC) chocolate coated candies on my nail, and Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) branded them with their famous m! :-)

Taking it a step further, my all-time favourite M&M's are the Premium Mint Thrills. But they are quite hard to find, so I make do with the regular Mint ones, which are a bit easier to get my hands on, although they seem to be a limited edition. High Line Green (NYC) was once again used for the darker green, then mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) for the lighter shade of green. Miss Minty (Gosh) mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) achieved the minty candy coating.

One of Patty's favourite candies are Skittles, which used the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes, plus a mix of Açaí and Eterno (both from Colorama) for the Purple candy. These were also branded with Snow Me White (Sinful Colors).






Another favourite candy of ours (both little sis', my mom's, and mine) is gum drops! For the white candy, I used Geada (Colorama) and mixed this polish with all other colours before dotting them to the nails. Purple candies were I Don't Bite (Sephora by O.P.I.) and the same Orange, Red, Yellow, and Green polishes were used. A coat of Morgan Le Fay (a england) was used over all gumdrops, giving that shimmery and sugary look.

Two coats of Jawbreaker (Pretty & Polished) conferred the perfect jawbreaker look on the thumb.

Sponging the Candy Corn was a nightmare!! I got the technique right on Patty, but after 4 failed attempts, I gave up and just free-handed a striped candy-corn-inspired nail. Polishes were the same Yellow and Orange as used before, and same White as the base colour.

As noted by the Mint M&M's, I LOVE anything minty! Therefore, my candy manicure couldn't miss starlight mints! I drew both red stripped and green stripped mints, using the same Red as before, and the same mixture of Green and Mint, with a higher percentage of mint this time around. Striped were made with a striping brush.

The Gummy Bear was inspired by those giant colourful ones, rather than the small one-coloured candies. I followed I Have a Cupcake's tutorial, using the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes as before. We didn't have Gummy Bears growing up, so both my sister and I are making up for the lost time as adults! ;-)





Hubby couldn't be left out of this, could he? Although he's not a candy fan, one of his favourite candy bars are (frozen) Twix. He did ask me to draw a bitten Twix, showing the layers of chocolate, cookie, and caramel, but I didn't have a cookie or a caramel colour (see? I need more polish!! :-p). I recently received my old version of Holy Grail (a england) and the candy bar wrapping was the perfect opportunity to wear it! The chocolate itself was a bottom layer of Café (Colorama) as used before for the M&M's, topped by a layer of Cop an Attitude (Finger Paints), a magnetic polish. The magnet gave the wavy effect of the top of the candy bar. I was happy with the results!

This was probably the challenge I had the most fun with. Not only when doing the nails, but when taking the pictures, and eating the props!!

Thanks for joining me in this adventure! There might be another one soon, you never know! ;-)


xoxo

PRIS




PS: I know this is incredibly late, but I'm backdating the post to follow the original date it should've been posted. Remember, I'm anal! :-p

"This Is Halloween" - Graveyard

We're geting close to the end of the "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge!

As I post twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays), my Monday entries have gone live on Tuesdays throughout this Challenge. This means that today's post should've been "Trick or Treat!" (which I'll publish on Friday), but I'm still on yesterday's prompt "Graveyard". (Yeah, I'm anal like that... :-p)

This theme has a bit of sentimental value (polish days?), even though some people may find it weird. Little sis likes cemeteries. Patty likes strolling along the tombstones, reading the inscriptions, admiring the crypts. During family vacations, we've joined her in this sightseeing more than once. It's definitely interesting!

OK, I know there's a difference between cemeteries and graveyards. But Patty likes them both the same, so I couldn't do tombstones on my nails without thinking of her! ;-)

Base colour is two coats of Date in the Moonlight (Essence). It could be a one coater, but I preferred dealing with thinner coats and doing it twice. This polish dries SO quickly!! There's a nice blue shimmer to it, but hubby couldn't see it at all and kept saying it was just a dark grey... 

We didn't do a good job in capturing that shimmer, but I found a great picture by Lola in the Nail Polish Forum, and an awesome post by Les Ongles de Chamallow.

The tombstones were Carbonite (Revlon), which is a great one-coater, and black details were with my go-to black, Black Expressionism (Finger Paints). The sparkly round silver moon was Bring on the Snowflakes (Sephora by O.P.I), and the grass growing over the tombstones was High Line Green (New York Colors). 

The grass-like look was achieved mixing two different shades of green flocking powder I bought in a 4-pack at Michaels. I'd already attempted plush nails before, and failed miserably, but I thought that trying it small could work better. And it did!! :-D

The sparkly glittery addition was Glitter Goblin (China Glaze). I loved the colours on this one, such a Halloweenie combination!!

Have you seen the spooky graveyards the other ladies in the challenge came up with?

xoxo

PRIS

"This Is Halloween" - Witches

Onto the 8th day of the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge!

I had this idea in mind, but it didn't turn out quite as I expected. Stickers made their appearance to reinforce the "Witches" theme...



Red polish is Sample Sale (Sephora by O.P.I.) the 'black widow' is Viúva Negra (Risqué). Striping tape helped with the straight lines. Lots of top coat to make it smooth, as Viúva Negra is kinda gritty...


Guess I wasn't that inspired for this one. Hopefully next post will be more interesting!


xoxo

PRIS