Turquoise Gemstones

I am so unbelievably in love with this mani, you guys. I love turquoise - the color, yes, but also the gemstone. I saw this mani on the Tumblr Fuck Yeah Nail Art, and I fell in love. It looks just like turquoise! I had already been wearing two coats of L'Oreal Gorgeous Gold, an AMAZING (seriously amazing, guys, I should've taken a picture of it just by itself) gold metallic with medium gold hex glitters, for a day or two, and I thought it would be the perfect base to try this turquoise mani with.

I did a little variation on the technique used by Topcoat It. Here's what I did: I painted one coat of China Glaze For Audrey over Gorgeous Gold. Working one nail at a time, before For Audrey dried, I pressed a crumpled piece of plastic wrap over my nails to create some texture, like I thought a turquoise gemstone should have. Then I let all my nails dry. I then took some q-tips and filled my nail polish remover cap with some acetone-based remover. I dipped it very quickly so it didn't soak up too much remover, then I rubbed it gently over my nails. I rubbed harder on certain spots to get the gold to peek through just where I wanted it. After doing this on all my nails I finished with a glossy topcoat!

I absolutely love how this looks, although I think it would look even more like a real turquoise gemstone if I used a grayer base. Something like OPI Number One Nemesis (the Chanel Graphite dupe) would look awesome. I also think that using a glitter or metallic base makes it easier to rub away your top color without accidentally removing your base color because they are harder to remove. I think with any other color combination this might end up looking like crackle polish, so if you like that look but don't want to spend the money on a crackle polish or are frustrated that you can't get it to crack the way you want, you might try this. What do you think?

I'm back! With another gradient!

Hi folks! Sorry for the unexpectedly long hiatus - we moved at the beginning of the month, and when the cable guys came to install the internet, they discovered that the wires they needed were nowhere to be found in our building! So they have to come and physically install these wires in order provide their service to our building. That is going to take another few weeks!!! I've been going to Starbucks almost every day to do my homework, but the outlets there are a precious commodity and I'd feel bad hogging them to post pictures of my fingernails on the internet. Luckily, our upstairs neighbors were nice enough to give us their WiFi password over the weekend, so I'm back online!

I've amassed a bit of a collection of pictures to post while I was gone, but I'll start with the last ones I took at our old place. This is my favorite gradient I've done so far!

I started with two coats of China Glaze Electric Beat, a bright periwinkle blue. Then using a makeup sponge, I dabbed China Glaze Flying Dragon on the tips to create a gradient. (Check out this gradient tutorial for a good explanation of the process.) Flying Dragon is one of the most amazing polishes I've ever seen and I can't believe I never noticed it on the display before, as I think it's permanent. It's a bright, almost neon, reddish purple with chunky purple and blue shimmer in it! I can't wait to wear it on its own because I think the neon-ness will come out more.

I love the way Electric Beat brings out the blue shimmer of Flying Dragon. Unfortunately I took these photos after a couple days so the tips are a little worn, but I still think this mani is absolutely gorgeous. I've got to do another gradient mani soon!

China Glaze Optical Illusion

I was so excited when I first heard about the China Glaze Prismatic Chroma Glitters collection, but then I saw them at Ulta and they didn't look nearly as cool as I thought they would. I mean, they still looked awesome, cuz they're pure glitterbombs, but I wasn't seeing the duochrome effect that was promised. Today, though, I decided I had to see for myself and decided to pick up Optical Illusion because it seemed to have the strongest duochrome effect out of all of them. 

Man am I glad I gave this one a chance! It is pure glittery awesomeness. There are so many colors of glitter in here I can't even tell you, but the overall color is a light aqua blue. There is a slight purple shift when you move your fingers. I can't wait to see this outside in the sun tomorrow!!

NOTD - Vintage Flowers For Audrey

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been MIA the past few days...I've been super sick. *cough* cough* I've almost kicked it though, and with that I have a wonderful treasure to show you (!), and some nail art (?).

I was browsing at Ulta a few weeks ago, and this lone light turquoise blue popped out at me from the China Glaze section. Internal monologue: "No, it can't be...I think it might be...no way, that's impossible...HOLY CRAP IT IS!!" *snatches up polish, shifty eyes, runs to checkout*

China Glaze For Audrey is a highly sought-after polish that is the perfect Tiffany blue. I've been looking for it for ages but could never find it. But now I have it, yay! It's such a gorgeous turquoise, so springy. It covered beautifully in two coats. It dried very shiny but I think there may be some hairspray residue on my nails (lol) because it looks kind of dull in my photo.

I decided to try to play around with some nail art, and I knew I wanted to combine For Audrey with a pop of bright orange because I think turquoise and orange is such a beautiful color combination. I was experimenting with a zig zag pattern on the side of my thumb, and thought it kind of looked like bric-a-brac - remember that stuff we would use in arts and crafts as kids? So anyway, it looked very vintage-y to me, so I decided to do some old school flowers alongside the bric-a-brac. I topped it off with some light grey dots to fill in the empty spaces. It almost ended up looking like a vintage Hawaiian shirt to me!

Colors used for the design:
Essie Braziliant - a BRIGHT orange with hot pink shimmer
Sally Hansen Clearly Buff White (from a french mani 2 pack)
China Glaze Pelican Gray - a light grey with subtle shimmer

Do you have any nail polish victories - that moment when you finally spotted a HTF polish you'd been looking for? What do you think of my vintage Hawaiian shirt nail design?

China Glaze Prismatic Chroma Glitters promo pics

Just saw on Facebook that China Glaze is putting out a new collection of glitters this year. They put up some promo pics so I'll share them with you here.

I already can't wait for Polarized!!!
Follow China Glaze on Facebook for more information.

NOTD - China Glaze Skyscraper

Happy Friday! TGIF! This week has been miserable - both the kids I nanny are extremely sick with colds, and haven't gone to school this week so I've been home with them during the day. Poor guys. Not only that, but this dog of theirs is driving me absolutely up a wall. I can't wait to get out of the house this weekend!

Sunlight

Anyway, I asked my Facebook friends yesterday what color I should do my nails, and my friend requested China Glaze's Skyscraper specifically. (My boyfriend wanted purple, and my brother suggested "blurple". I'm amused that he knew that was a thing, considering he's a Marine. I'll do it this weekend, guys, promise!) This is a shade from their Fall 2011 Metro collection, and I absolutely adore it. It's a navy blue jelly base with silver and blue sparkles. It becomes opaque at three coats, which is what my photo shows. I love the color, and how the glitter comes alive in the sunlight!




What has your week been like? Do you have plans to get out of the house this weekend, or are you staying in?

Shade