Harlequin

Happy Friday :) Today I have a quick and easy refresh with my last mani, Sally Hansen Lustre Shine, lava. I used Red Angel plate RA-113 for stamping, this design is a full nail pattern of alternating diamonds. I chose black to stamp with, so the diamonds alternate from black to mostly orange depending on the lighting souce. The duochromes in Lava adds great depth to the design.

The pattern reminded me of the circus at first, but the more I look at it the more it remindes me of harlequin or playing cards!

Luck of the Irish!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and St. Patrick's Day festivities. I don't usually do much other than wear green and have the occasional alcoholic beverage, if that even counts! This year was no different, not only was I sporting some fun new "wax" textured green skinnies I got from Joe Fresh, but my nails were also green for the occasion.

Of course I stuck with China Glazes Four Leaf Clover, to be honest I am glad it stuck with me! I have been wearing it for a full week and only noticed some slight tip wear and one minor chip on the sixth day of wear! Such a great polish, the only thing I didn't like was editing the photos since the colour comes up more teal when it is actually a bright, vivid green. I didn't find that there was any weird cracking or tension marks in the polish from natural nail bend either that I sometimes get from China Glaze cremes. I may not have experienced this due to the fact that my nails are shorter or that this is a deep vivid shade, but I am impressed with overall wear for sure!

 

On to the actual nail art inspired by St. Patrick's day. I kept it pretty simple but am very happy with the final outcome. I used Red Angel plate RA-116, which has a decent sized shamrock composed of four hearts, so cute! I debated whether using Re-fresh Mint or Keep Calm, Paint on, both by China Glaze, for stamping. I ultimately tested each out and Re-fresh Mint won, being slightly more opaque and stamping crisper. I stamped the shamrocks on my ring fingers only.

To add a splash of gold to the mix I pulled out a Milani Jewel FX polish I had yet to use and applied it to the thumbs for some bling! I used Milani Gold Jewel FX, and was impressed with the density of the glitter and how well it was suspended in the base. I applied it to the nail in a dabbing motion to get as much glitter on the nail as I could and used the brush to help smooth out and relocate some glitters where necessary. The glitter covered well leaving some green poking through, which was exactly what I was going for. It dried fast too! I applied a coat of Seche Vite on to make it shiny and smooth to the touch.

For the Shamrock nails I added a top coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri which I use over most nail art. As these nails dried the shamrocks actually turned more yellow/green! The image must have fused with the pigment in the darker green polish below, very cool and the perfect shade I was looking for!

Blue Valentine

Today I have a heart filled mani refresh! I loved wearing Water You Waiting For on it's own but wanted to change it up a bit ad fill my craving for heart nails. I used Red Angel plate RA-114 which is a full nail heart pattern. It stamped pretty well considering I have been having issues with my Red Angel plates. I decided to leave my ring fingers without any design, kind of a reverse accent nail thing going on here.

 

 

 

Very valentines inspired with blue in place of girly pinks and reds. I like the contrast. The polish I used for stamping is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White, my go to white stamping polish :)

Just a short and sweet post today, hope you enjoyed the many photos!

SNOW?!

So I entered a contest this week for NailPolishCanada.com, they are actually running it for the next three weeks. Each week they will reveal a new nail art challenge and will be giving away some prizes in the process! One of the best parts? All the nail art will be Christmas themed! Today I have my submission to the contest, this weeks theme is snow.

I decided to use China Glaze Tinsel Town as a base since it is so frosty and cold, like an icy winter night. I then used a beautiful snowflake design from Red Angel plate, RA-119 and stamped randomly on each nail. I love the contrast between the deep silver and stark white! To top it off I applied a single rhinestone to the middle of each snowflake.

It's not your typical snowflake mani, the ones I have seen in the past have used blue or white as a base, but I really love Tinsel Town and wanted to make the most of it. It really fits in with the whole theme of the contest too because it is a holiday polish!

If you'd like to show your support in voting for me I would really appreciate it! The odds for this contest are looking a lot better than the others I have entered in the past, so far there are 14 entries.

To vote for me fill out the form field at the bottom of this page (I am # 13), fill out your first name, email and choose my blog in the scroll down, Polish Obsessed. That's it!! If there is any additional information I receive in the next few days I will definitely post it!

Thank you in advanced to all of those who decide go out of your way to vote and show your support, it means a lot :)

Duochome Refresh

Today I have a refresh for OPI Planks a Lot. I was looking up inspiration and came across this awesome mani from the NailXchange. I pulled out my Red Angel plate and Sally Hansen chromes, but was missing a blue.... No blue chrome, I must substitute! Sitting on my desk was my brand new bottle of Deviantly Daring that you have already seen here a couple times now from China Glaze's Bohemian collection.

I figured why not? It's blue, it has a chrome like shine and it looked to be thick enough. I tested it out and although it worked with the other chromes, I decides it was so pretty it deserved to be stamped on its own!

Now... My continuing annoyance with my Red Angel plates... This particular image on plate RA-107 is ingraved too deeply, an issue I have been having with my set. The result? Not too perfect stamping and smudging :( I guess I will have to try this image out again with one of my regular stamping polishes and see if I get the same issues.

One thing I thought about after was leaving the polish in the engraving a little longer after scraping to adhere better to the stamp when you pick it up. Again, I'll have to try another time. Below you can better see how each nail has a different result.

My fave nail is the pinky :) I thin k the stamp was the cleanest on that nail and the pointer is my second fave, I find the best way to stamp is to have a soft touch. Am I the only one having issues with these plates :(

It's All An Illusion!... or a Decepticon?

So I chopped my nails down lol I got a pretty bad break on my right pointer finder and decided to trim my nails down a lot more than I have in a long time. It is a dramatic change but I kind if like it. I know they will be back in no time anyways so I'm cool :)

This may be the most colour accurate photo I got!

I decided after clipping my nails that I should try out a new Red Angel plate to stamp over Flirty Tankini, which decided to photograph more colour accurately this time around. I am actually starting to get annoyed with my set. The last post here where'd I used my new plates I realized that the images were too deeply engraved. I had originally gone for an image on plate RA-109 and had the same issue with the first stamp, it looked so messy I didn't even stamp it in my nails to test it our it loked so bad on the stamper. I decided to try again and attempted to clean the plate but it was almost impossible! The cotton pad I used literally got stuck to the design, it seemed to be sharp and pointy as well. I attempted using a q-tip and even a "no fluff" pad and they all got stuck :(

This one is pretty close too :)

I gave up on that design and tried a different one from RA-114. This one reminds me of some sort of optical illusion pattern :) My sister on the other hand was reminded of Transformers lol. I used my go to black for stamping, Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip in Blackberry.

lots of photos to show you how the colour changes again! I wish the lines had come out a bit crisper, not sure if it was the plates fault or how I stamped the nail. All and all I like this pattern but I feel like the quality is not as high as I had originally hoped for. Have you had issues with your Red Angel Plates?

Copycat + Red Angel Plates Comments

So I am finally removing my Incoco nail polish strips today, but a few days ago I decided I wanted to replicate that design on my other nails painted with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. I found a ver similar design in my Red Angel collection which can be found on plate RA 113. It is kind of stripy and reminds me of zebras, but when paired with Nail Junkie it reminds me more of seaweed!

So here is the finished look. Now I had some issues with this design inparticular, first of all the design is engraved to deeply. What happens when the image is to deep is when to go to stamp it on your nail or smudges :( I had to be really careful with not pushing too hard on the stamper when picking up the design and gently rolling it on the nail. After a couple of tries I got the hand of it, but below is an example of when I stamped too hard (left) and just right (right).

A little messy right? I guess that is something to be aware of when stamping with new plates. I didn't realize that deeply ingrained images could be just as bad as shallow engraved images. I guess I will need some practice to get it right.

Hope you have a great weekend :)

Fish Scales

Another sea related nail post... Surprised!? lol I think I have gotten it out of my system now. Since Revlon's Ocean Breeze had a slight duochrome I thought it would be the perfect base of a fish scale/mermaid tail inspired mani.

I had my eye set on plate RA-111 from Red Angel's latest collection from before I even purchased them! To stamp the pattern I used my new Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Jumpin' Jade. I love how the Insta-Dri polishes work with stamping, so perfect. Plus I picked this up for one dollar at the Dollar Tree! Not bad for a stamping polish ;)

This one almost even looks like dragon scales or something! I really love this pattern and will have to try it again soon :)

Happy Friday, have a good weekend!

Mani Refresh Fail Turned in to a Win!

So I decided I wanted to do some nail art with my current mani at the time, China Glaze's Gothic Lolita. I had this idea in my head of sponging a slightly darker colour on the tips to create a gradient and then stamp a lace design on the tips with Gothic Lolita so it looked like a stencil pattern of some sort.

For whatever reason I went in a different direction lol I still did the gradient, I used OPI's Pamploma Purple, but unhappy with it decided to stamp a tribal pattern in blue over the full nail to blend it together, for this I used Red Angel plate RA-105... Hardcore fail!

I hated it and wanted to start clean! But It was already late and I didn't want to have to take everything off and wait for everything to dry. What to do...

I had Color Club's The Great Divide sitting on my desk just waiting to be used, I usually put new polishes that I am excited abuot there so I don't forget about them. One coat of that and I was super happy :) Unfortunately my photos do not do it justice, it looks so much better in real life.

soft focus shimmer shot!

I applied one final coat of Seche Vite and I was done! I love this crackle polish, the base is a deep teal green with gold flecks and shimmer. I wish I had a regular polish in this same colour! It really pops on the purple base.

What do you do to change your nail fails in to something you love?