Sunday, July 22, 2012

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, and a water marble

Hi all! Today was a lazy day, and my last day off for the foreseeable future, so I figured I'd take the time to do my nails. Per request, I chose a light blue - China Glaze Kinetic Candy, from the Electropop collection (pretty widely available via etailers still, doubt you'll see it in stores anymore). It's pretty bright for a pastel, but soft, and it covered fairly well in two coats (it was a little streaky, but topcoat pretty much evened it out). A bubble here and there, but I am going to blame the air in here. Here it is with a coat of Out the Door, indoor light:



I decided that I'd give a water marble accent nail a shot tonight - it's only my third time doing it, and I'm not quite comfortable with a whole marble mani yet. I did that the first time I tried it, and not only did it take almost two hours - I drove my fiance nuts - but it didn't turn out all that great.

For this one, I decided to go with greens, blues, and purple. Left to right: China Glaze Kinetic Candy, OPI Mermaid's Tears, CG Aquadelic, Zoya Robyn, CG First Mate, and CG Tempest. Not exactly color-true - thanks, phone camera! I need to get a new camera, mine's been abused to death.

Also visible: hammer. Not involved in today's mani :)



When I marble, I coat the finger in petroleum jelly or lip balm to make cleanup slightly easier, though I've heard it will just peel off your finger anyway - I'd rather avoid having crazy polish stains on my fingers! Here's my left and right middle fingers, pre-cleanup - I'm not ready for topcoat quite yet, so I'm chilling here at the comp with crazy blue swirls on my fingers...



I'm ok with them - marbling always looks better with more nail to work with, I think, and Tempest and Mermaid's Tears aren't as vibrant as I'd like...oh, and the designs aren't as good as they could've been. But it could've been worse! Maybe I'll add some holo topcoat tomorrow...

Have you ever done a water marble? Got any ideas or tips? I'd love to hear them!

Friday, July 20, 2012

Jade Magia Negra, and a layering experiment.

Hello all! First, I'd like to apologize for my absence. Aside from a few occasions, I have not felt like painting my nails. I blame work mostly - I work around heavy equipment, and nail breakage happens often. But things have slowed down for the moment - I am running part of VT Orientation, which involves hitting buttons only, and they have finally (mostly) grown to the point that I felt like doing this again...though I wish I had pictures of my mani for my sister's wedding!

Today I am working a concert outside, so it felt like a perfect holo day! I decided to dive into my unused holos (a rare thing around here). I chose Magia Negra, a black holo, though bordering more on charcoal grey. I got it from Llarowe, where it is currently available for $10. She has always had excellent customer service and lightning-quick shipping for me! If you have not bought Brazilian polish yet, you will find it smells VERY strong (moreso than the common 3-frees), but dries quicker, in my opinion.

Magia Negra has a good formula; smooth, not streaky, with two-coat coverage. I had a bit of an issue with bubbling, but I blame the excessive humidity today! It rained yesterday and now this whole town feels like a sauna. The brush was also slightly wonky, but nothing I couldn't work with - I hope this is a one-off issue, but I have no other Jades to compare it to - yet!

Here's two coats, pre-cleanup, no topcoat. Look at that great holo - it looks even better in the sun, but it was behind a cloud :(




I had read about layering thin multichromes over holo polishes to cool effect. This immediately made me think of how neat the Ozotic Mish Mash polishes are, so I had to give it a try! It was tough to pick a multichrome, as I have a lot of old Nail Prisms and the like...but I settled for Ozotic 505, which has a watery, sheer (but buildable) formula and insane green-turquoise-purple multichrome. How could it not be awesome? I added one coat once the Magia Negra dried.




The effect was pretty subtle, pre-topcoat. It changed the holo flashes towards the green-blue part of the spectrum - before, it felt more like an even mix of oranges and blues. In the sun, the multichrome was more apparent. Inside, the 505 is much more apparent; it gives the mani a little something in lower light. Holos tend to lose a lot of their glitz indoors or at night.




A coat of Out the Door enhanced the green flash from 505 in indoor light, but in direct light, had no effect.



Overall, I love how this turned out. It's fun and flashy both inside and outside - and it was done and dry fast, which is always awesome when I'm rushing out for a long work day!

What do you think? Have you layered jellies or duochromes with a holo polish before?