Showing posts with label China Glaze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China Glaze. Show all posts

Nail Art Tutorial - Rainbow Polka Dots

Hey!

So as I said in my review/swatches of Nfu-Oh #61 last night, I won't be doing any nail art for a while because I'm reviewing, swatching and doing wear tests for the entire Nfu-Oh Holographic Series of polishes. Thus, I'm trying to do some extra tutorials so that I still have some form of nail art for you.
I'll put up another poll today and I'll only let it run for 2 days this time so that I can have another tutorial up for you in a couple of days.

We had a very close poll once again this time and there was a tie between 2 designs: Abstract and Rainbow Polka Dots. In order to break the tie, I asked my polish friends on Facebook to choose which design they would rather see and the design that won out was my Rainbow Polka Dots design.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

White cream polish (OPI Alpine Snow).

Cream finish polishes in pink (Zoya Jolene), orange (China Glaze Papaya Punch), yellow (Orly Spark), green (Orly Green Apple), blue (Zoya Robyn), and purple (OPI Funky Dunky).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Small sized dotting tool (or you can use toothpicks but be sure to have a few of them handy).


Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your white polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
Dab some of your first colour onto some scrap paper (I'm starting with pink) and using your dotting tool, start to make a diagonal line of dots at the base of your nail.
Depending on the length of your nails, you might be able to do 2 lines of each coloured dots (which is what I'm going to be doing here) or maybe more if your nails are really long, but stick with just 1 line of each colour if your nails are on the shorter side because you want to be able to fit as many of the 6 colours on your nails as possible.
Also, remember to stagger your dots with each new line. I explained this technique in my Hello Kitty tutorial so be sure to check that out if you're not sure what I mean.


Step 4:
Once you've completed your dots with the first colour, move onto your next colour (I'll be doing orange next) and continue with the diagonal lines of dots.


Step 5:
Keep going with the rest of your colours until you have filled your entire nail with dots. If you were unable to fit all of the colours on your first nail, start with the colour(s) you weren't able to use on your next nail. This will ensure that you're able to use all of the colours of the rainbow. This is also why you should only work on one nail at a time when you first start the design so that you know exactly how many colours you're going to be able to fit on each nail.
If you look to my design on my own nails, I wasn't able to fit the pink dots on my index and ring fingers which is why I chose to start my middle and pinky fingers with the pink dots. Vice versa, I wasn't able to fit the purple dots on my middle and pinky so I started my index and ring fingers with the purple dots.


Step 6:
Because you've used so many colours, wait a decent amount of time before adding your top coat so that you don't experience any dragging of the colours. After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process, and will also give your nails a nice shine.


As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

Faux Water Marble Second Attempt

So this is my second attempt at the faux marble. I have heard this technique called faux water marble as well as tie-dye nails. The best way to explain it is to watch it so head on over to Dollface22772 YOU TUBE Channel and see for yourself. The polishes I used for mine was China Glaze Platinum Silver, OPI That's Berry Darling, Wet n Wild Dream Poppy and Blazed. My mistake has been that I am using a toothpick when I should be using a needle or straight pin. I will be trying this again for sure! It's so easy I hope to master it soon.


Do you guys water-marble? Does this look like a way faster process to you with similar results?

Nail Art Tutorial - Hello Kitty

Hey guys!

The most recent sidebar poll was the closest yet with 3 of the options being super close. However, in the end, my Hello Kitty design won out with 30% of the votes.

The other two options that were very close in the running were my Palm Tree Sunset design with 24% of the votes, and my Ice Cream Sundaes design with 22% of the votes. I'll put both of those designs in the next poll since it seems that you guys definitely want to see tutorials for them.

To refresh, here's the design I'll be doing a tutorial for today:



Keep reading for the tutorial!


What you'll need:
The exact brands/names of the polishes I've used are in brackets but you can use whatever brands/shades you have in your stash.

Cream finish polishes in light pink (OPI Mod About You), hot pink (Essie Bachelorette Bash), yellow (Orly Spark), black (OPI Black Onyx), and white (Orly White Tips).

Your favourite base (China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat) and top coat (Seche Vite Top Coat).

Fimo bows (mine are from eBay but if you don't have these yourself, you can draw the bow freehand). If you're looking to buy some of these from eBay (they're really inexpensive), simply typing in "nail art bow" in the search bar will yield a number of results.

A detail brush (mine is a paintbrush from Michael's and the brand name is Simply Simmons).

2 dotting tools: one small and one medium sized (you could also use toothpicks or the ends of bobby pins if you don't have dotting tools like these).

Step 1:
Apply your base coat. (I didn't think it was necessary to take a photo of this step.)

Step 2:
Apply two coats (or until it's opaque) of your hot pink polish to all of your nails. This will serve as your base colour.


Step 3:
This is the easy part - the polka dots.
For all of your nails besides your thumbs, you'll be using your medium sized dotting tool to create the polka dots with your light pink cream polish. The trick to making polka dots looks their best is to order them in a staggered arrangement. In other words, instead of placing them directly side-by-side, you'll want to do one row first and then for your next row, you'll place the dots in between the dots of your first row. It's a hard technique to explain in words but hopefully the pictures will help to make sense out of it.
As well, you'll want to do your first row of dots in the center of the nail and work outwards.






Step 4:
This is where the more difficult and precise freehand work comes in. I won't lie, the rest of the design, i.e. Hello Kitty, will take some patience and precision. If you're not comfortable working with your non-dominant hand, I'd suggest just doing the polka dots on the thumb of your dominant hand so that you don't have to go through the frustration of doing precision work with your non-dominant hand. However, practice makes perfect so if you're up for the challenge, I encourage you to go for it!
You'll start off by making a simple french tip with your white polish. You want to make sure that the edges of the french tip are curved instead of straight across - this will look more like the shape of Hello Kitty.


Step 5:
Using your small dotting tool (or toothpick) and your black polish, make the eyes. You'll want to make them pretty far apart leaving only enough room on either side for some short whiskers.


Step 6:
After cleaning the black polish off, use the same small dotting tool and your yellow polish to make the nose. You'll want to make it in between the eyes but a little closer to the tip of the nail.


Step 7:
Using your small detail brush and your black polish, you'll want to freehand 3 wispy black lines on each side of the face.


Step 8:
In order to get the fimo bow to stick, you'll want to add a small blob of top coat to the area where you're going to place the bow. You'll want to place the bow on a slight diagonal above Hello Kitty's right eye.


Step 9:
After allowing your design to dry completely, add a layer of your favorite top coat. This will make your new mani last longer, it will smooth out any bumps and ridges that have been created during the process and will also give your nails a nice shine.
Unfortunately I was a little impatient waiting for the design to dry so the top coat dragged the black of the whiskers. However this won't be a problem for you as long as you wait for your design to dry completely before adding top coat.



As always, I hope this tutorial was helpful and I hope some of you will try this design out for yourselves. And I'd really like to see pictures of this if you try it. :)

My Current Project - "Untrieds" Drawer

Hey!

I thought that tonight I would show you guys my current project as well as give you a sneak peak into my nail polish collection (and I promise you there is a full collection post coming asap).

This is my "Untrieds" drawer where I hold all of my recent nail polish purchases until I swatch them for you and on my own nail wheels. Usually I swatch polishes for you within the first couple of days of getting them but for my own wheels, I typically have a swatching marathon once every couple of weeks, but this varies depending on how many I've acquired, really.
However, I've neglected my own wheels lately and it's left me with quite a large drawer of untrieds, or unswatched if you prefer.



Keep reading for more photos and a full list of the polishes you see above.




So what do you see here?

At the back of the drawer are my newly acquired Nfu-Oh Holographic polishes (I mentioned these in this haul post and #61 and #65 arrived today).

In front of those we have the Orly Happy Go Lucky Collection as well as 4 colours from last year's Orly Sweet Collection which Sally's recently started carrying as open stock.

Continuing down the left side we have a slew of OPI polishes including the Katy Perry Collection, the Texas Collection, the Blue-Hued Shatters, the OPI Serena Williams Glam Slam! England duos, OPI Red and White Shatter from the Glam Slam France duos, and a few OPI DS Series polishes including Original, Classic and Reflection.

Moving over the right side of the drawer, we have a number of China Glaze polishes in the front including the Crackle Metals Collection, the original Crackle Collection and 5 shades from the Tronica Collection (as mentioned in this haul post).

Behind the China Glaze polishes we have 2 Revlon colours - Royal and Perplex.

And last but not least, at the back of the drawer on the right hand side, we have a number of Essie polishes including the Resort 2011 Collection, the Braziliant Collection as well as a few open stock colours that I've accumulated.


So that's it for my untrieds drawer! I think a swatching marathon is way overdue.
Did you guys keep an "untrieds" drawer? Has it gotten as out of hand as mine has?

Swatch Comparison - Grassy Greens (featuring Orly Fresh)

Hey!

Continuing with my comparison swatches for the Orly Happy Go Lucky Collection, today I'll be comparing the grassy green cream - Orly Fresh - with some other similar shades from my stash.

You can find my original review and swatches of all 4 shades from this collection here.



Keep reading for the comparison!



Nicole by OPI One Time Lime, OPI Green-wich Village, Orly Fresh, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, China Glaze Entourage


Nicole by OPI One Time Lime (from the Justin Bieber Collection)


OPI Green-wich Village (permanent)


Orly Fresh (from the Happy Go Lucky Collection)


Sally Hansen Green with Envy (permanent)


China Glaze Entourage (from the Kicks Collection)


Nicole by OPI One Time Lime, OPI Green-wich Village, Orly Fresh, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, China Glaze Entourage


Nicole by OPI One Time Lime, OPI Green-wich Village, Orly Fresh


Orly Fresh, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, China Glaze Entourage


China Glaze Entourage, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, Orly Fresh, OPI Green-wich Village, Nicole by OPI One Time Lime


China Glaze Entourage, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, Orly Fresh


Orly Fresh, OPI Green-wich Village, Nicole by OPI One Time Lime


Well it looks like we're 0 for 3 with dupes for colours in this collection. However, we're doing a little better with the grassy greens because a few of these come close to being dupes for Orly Fresh.

OPI Green-wich Village is definitely the most similar to Fresh with the only real difference being that it's a smidge darker. The same goes for Nicole by OPI One Time Lime which is darker than both Fresh and Green-wich Village, but still a similar shade.

Sally Hansen Green with Envy is the most different from the rest in that it has a strong yellow-chartreuse base while the others are straight up greens.

I know that China Glaze Entourage is a shimmer so it didn't have a chance of being a dupe but I thought that the base colour might be similar to that of Fresh but that didn't turn out to be the case. It's gorgeous though, right?

Overall, I think that if you have either OPI Green-wich Village or Nicole by OPI One Time Lime, you don't really need Orly Fresh. They're not true dupes but they're similar enough that having both or all 3 isn't really necessary. Plus, as I said in my original review, the formula of Fresh was a bit disappointing, so both Green-wich Village and One Time Lime are better in that respect.

However, Orly Fresh is brighter than both Green-wich Village and One Time Lime so if you've been looking for a bright grassy green, you still might want to give this a shot, even if you have the other two.

What do you guys think? Are any of these shades close enough to Fresh to deter you from picking up yourself?

Haul - Holographic Polishes

Hey!

Since the Canada Post strike ended, I have anxiously been awaiting the arrival of a number of packages and even though I'm still waiting on 8 more packages (!!!), I thought I would show you guys a few of the things that have already arrived.


Nfu-Oh Holographics: #62, #63, #64, #66

I'm still waiting on #61 and #65 which I ordered separate from these so hopefully that order will be arriving soon and then I'll be able to do swatches of all of these lovelies for you.


China Glaze Tronica Polishes: Laser Lime, Gamer Glam, Cyberspace, 3D Fantasy, Hologram
I didn't swatch/review the Tronica Collection when it first released because through a series of unfortunate incidents, of which I won't go into detail about, I wasn't able to get my hands on all 12 of the shades. But recently, through a series of transactions and blog sales, I was finally able to complete my collection. So you'll be seeing a review/swatch post of this collection very soon.


Look out for more detailed posts about these polishes in the near future!
And cross your fingers for me that the rest of my packages come this week! As an added incentive, one of the packages that's on it's way might be something for you guys. ;)

Nails of the Day - Gradient Cheetah

Hey guys!

I've spoken before about the Monday nail art challenge that occurs weekly in the Facebook group Polish-aholics Anonymous. Well, this week's theme was sponging and I had a whole design planned but it ending up changing dramatically during the actual process.

I had planned to do a sunset using deep purple, pink and orange but once I sponged the pink on top of the purple, I loved the result so much that I couldn't bear to add any other colours. So, this gradient with a cheetah print on top was born.

I could seriously wear animal print nail art every single day so I am of course in love with this. Hope you all like it as well!



Products:
CND Stickey Base Coat
China Glaze - Grape Pop (base)
Essie - Super Bossa Nova (sponged over base)
OPI - Black Onyx (cheetah spots)
Seche Vite Top Coat

Swatch Comparison - A Few Purples (featuring Orly Frolic)

Hey guys!

Tonight I have another comparison for the Orly Happy Go Lucky Collection for you, this time featuring the purple shade - Orly Frolic.

I already did a comparison featuring the light teal of this collection (Frisky) and determined that there was no dupe for it, at least in my stash. Check that comparison out here.

Nail polish comparisons is currently in the top 3 answers of my poll of what you would like to see more of on my blog so I hope you guys are liking all the comparisons I have been working on lately. :)



Keep reading for the comparison!



China Glaze Spontaneous, Milani Rad Purple, Orly Frolic, FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas, Orly Purple Pleather


China Glaze Spontaneous (permanent)


Milani Rad Purple (from the Neon Collection)


Orly Frolic (from the Happy Go Lucky Collection)


FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas (from the Palette of Petals Collection)


Orly Purple Pleather (from the Plastix Collection)


China Glaze Spontaneous, Milani Rad Purple, Orly Frolic, FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas, Orly Purple Pleather


China Glaze Spontaneous, Milani Rad Purple, Orly Frolic


Orly Frolic, FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas, Orly Purple Pleather


Orly Purple Pleather, FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas, Orly Frolic, Milani Rad Purple, China Glaze Spontaneous


Orly Purple Pleather, FingerPaints Heavenly Hydrangeas, Orly Frolic


Orly Frolic, Milani Rad Purple, China Glaze Spontaneous


As you can see, there is definitely no dupe for Orly Frolic here. In fact, none of these even come close and believe it or not, these are the closest shades to Frolic that I had in my stash.

In my original review of the Happy Go Lucky Collection, I mentioned that I thought Frolic was a lighter version of Purple Pleather from the Plastix Collection of last year and while that may be a little true, it's only because the finishes are a little similar; after seeing them side-by-side, there are far too many differences between them to call them close.

I think the closest shade to Frolic would be Milani Rad Purple but that's a pretty big stretch since they're really not that close at all and it's just the more pinkish base of both that makes them more alike than the others.

I honestly thought that this shade would be much more dupe-able than it turned out to be so if you like this shade at all, I'd recommend picking it up since it does seem to be more unique than I originally thought.

What do you guys think of Orly Frolic? Are there any other shades that you think might be closer to this than the ones I've tried?

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