Mani Refresh With Fauxnad

Hello ladies,

Today I have another mani refresh with my fauxnad Konad plates I talked about yesterday from the Born Pretty Store. As you can see these stamp great, I also used plate m78 for my easter mani look here. This was the first mani I did with them, I literally ripped them out of their packaging and started stamping once I got them!

So far I have only had one issue with 1 stamp transferring, the group of flowers from plate m77. I tried regular white polish that I use occasionally for stamping and nothing. I used chrome polish... nothing. I finally tried the Konad special polish and got a bit, but not all of the design. I think the image was not engraved enough to fully transfer which is a shame :( Maybe this was a defective plate? I will try again though and let you know what happens.

Most colour accurate photo

Anyways back to the mani, this was the franken I showed you last week, I used a Sally Hansen Chrome (Amber) to stamp. I know I'm showing the refresh super late but I really wanted to get in my easter mani before it became irrelevant. In fact, my next couple post will be of looks I sported last week lol it's going to be a little backwards this week, but I doubt you'll notice. I actually chopped my nails down in my Easter mani, got a break and cut them down.

overexposed to show detail

For some reason after the trim, most of my nails chipped and needed to be reshaped, I chose a bit of a squoval/oval shape now (You can see this in my mattified Easter nails from yesterdays post. Once I grow them out a bit I think I'll file them back square.

Name that Nars Franken!

Hello ladies,

Today I have an update on the franken I posted about here in early February. Looking back at the photos when it was still a work in progress, shows me how far away I was from getting anywhere close to Nars' Zulu!

Anyways, the franken I made was for a dupe of Nars Zulu, and although it is not identical, I think is was pretty close. I can't seem to come up with a name for it, any ideas or names you think that would work, I'd like to hear :) Please leave your comments below.

If I could get this formula a little bit more jelly and an easier consistency to work with, I would probably like it more. That being said, the formula was kind of goopy but provided great coverage in 2 coats.

I love the coverage and glossy finish!

Depending on your lighting source, this colour may appear darker, meaning right at the edge of black, or lighter, still deep forest green. I prefer the darker shade, and I definitely got some comments on it when I wore it.

I still think it need a little work, a little bit more black and clear... maybe even some more yellow, these photos make it look more blue based. What do you ladies think?

Also, I won't be posting again untill to Monday, so to all who celebrate, have a great Easter :)

Trying to Franken a Dupe for Nars Zulu - work in progress

Hello Ladies,

I have never owned a Nars polish, technically they are a newer brand for me and the ones I have seen at Sephora are a little out of my price rang for polish. That being said, I have heard great reviews on this brands polish and formula and that may justify the price for some.

One polish from Nars that I'm sure everyone's heard of is Zulu, this was re-released recently. I have seen swatches of Zulu for a while now and I have really come to love it. I made the decision to franken something close after seeing a recipe on another blog for a Zulu dupe. I didn't have the same polishes, but I made due with what I had.

Zulu, for those who don't know, is a deep forest green jelly and is super glossy when dry. For my version I used a Maybelline clear base/top coat, a no name deep blue jelly, a bright yellow no name jelly and Caboodles Black.

natural day light

I couldn't tell you exactly how much I used of each polish because I was constantly adding to the bottle to get the right colour. Pictured is what I have so far, I am pretty happy with the outcome. I only needed two coats to reach opacity. I still want to add some more yellow to the polish as I think it leans slightly too blue. The yellow polish was giving me the most issues of the bunch, it was so hard to get it out of the bottle!

Camera Flash

The pictures actually make the colour appeal lighter than it really is and the polish is still a work in progress. I am playing around with it a bit more and will post up the end result once it is completed.

Sally Hansen Nail Prism Diamond - Fun with Holos!

Hey Ladies,

Today I have for you one of my many Nails Prisms :) I love these little guys, some of them are holographic and some are crazy duo-chromes, similar to the new Sally Hansen HD's

Today I have a little experiment I did with Sally Hansen Nail Prism's Diamond and some of the newer Sally Hansen Ultra HDs. (the Ultra HD's are apart of the newer line of HD's, basically more shimmery and pretty!)

Below is one of my Nail Prism holos, Diamond.

Don't let the photo fool you, this polish is pure holo in the right light.
I took the picture at night so all I had was the flash form my camera.

I came up with the idea for this experiment because I long for a bunch of the China Glaze OMG polishes that are no longer in production.

Anyways, I wanted to see what would happen when I layered a holo polish with a sheer coloured duo-chrome polish. Would the holo shine though the coloured polish? Would the coloured polish show through the holo?

I used these Sally Hansen Ultra HD's, left to right, Laser and Spectrum. I currently have DVD on my nails, pure love!! Expect to see a swatch of that shade soon.

Before I show you my layering expariment, I just wanted to let you ladies know that these polishes are sooooo cool! They are thin, DVD took 4-5 coats, but I wanted to see how far I could build it up. Next time I will layer over another polish... which is another post on its own for how cool that is! lol, but the outcome is so worth it. I wish I got more when they were on sale ( I got them for $2.99 CAD,) I love my deals :)

On to the holo-y goodness:

This is Laser layered with Diamond

This is Spectrum layered with Diamond

The shimmery duo chrome in the HD's make the halo so sparkly :) I wish I had gotten some photos in direct sunlight, the holo would be BLINDING!

What do you ladies think of my little experiment?

Taming the Dragon PLUS a Halloween Inspired Franken

Hi Ladies,

Yesterday I mentioned that although I love the over all idea of China Glaze - Flying Dragon, it isn't as great as it could be. I think that the polish would be better as a jelly. Some of you encouraged be to try it, so I did.

Original and my attempt at franking

Now, my results are not that great, basically I just mixed some clear polish with Flying Dragon. What I ended up with was slightly better than the original for the following reasons:

- better consistency (only draw black, needs to be built up, more coats )

- doesn't dry as fast when applying (less likely to get bald spots)

- slight jelly

- dries to a semi-shine finish, not matte

- not as bumpy

Take a look at the images below and you will see what I mean. I plan on trying to add on to this, any suggestions for making a jelly?

Left is original Flying Dragon, Right is altered polish.

You Can see that the original dries to a bumpy matte finish, where as the altered one is slightly shiny and smooth. I added a swipe if top coat to both swatches at the tip to compare.

I got so excited yesterday that I wanted to try creating another mix! I decided to use a black polish, clear, and some craft sparkles. What I ended up with reminds me of the "missing shade" to complete the soon-to-come China Glaze Halloween (Awakening) Collection. This is perfect as I LOOOOOVE Halloween, I am excited for it now and it is still 2 months away lol. Anyways, I can't wait for the new China Glaze collection either :)

Final product and materials used (minus clear polish)

My polish came out to a jelly black/red/brown with red chunky glitter, I call it Coagulated Blood :)

look at the sparkly, chunky, jelly goodness :)

What do you think of my first publicly shown franken attempts?