Orly "Va Va Voom"; Swatch

I like neon pinks, seeing as I have a few in my stash.

This is "Va Va Voom" by Orly. It's blindingly bright in person, and it was tough getting a decent photo of these. As you can see it dries to a rubbery matter finish. It wears well, no major chips or sudden chunks missing. It is a bit sheer though, so I used about 3 thickish coats. The formula was quite nice and it dried fairly quickly too. Overall a wonderful neon pink, for when you feel like having loud nails.

House Stark (Photo Heavy)

This week its House Stark in continuation of my Game of Thrones month.

Whole Hand

 Let me start by saying, I had a ton of trouble getting the Stark dire-wolf  right, they either looked to fluffy or like they were grinning as opposed to snarling.

Main Four.

 I chose to do some geometric patterns on the ring and index fingers because mimicking the wolf's fur would have made it too busy, and I like the geometric/asymmetrical french going on. The snow on the pinky is because of all the snow in Winterfell and obviously the wolf is the Stark sigil.

Thumb close up.

This one is the best looking wolf, most likely due to the large size of my thumbnail.

The colours I used are: China Glaze "First Mate", with "Wet Cement" by Sally Hansen. I used my trusted Speedball ink and dip nib pen for the black outlines.

If you would like a set of these, as either false nails or nail wraps, send me an email.

Have a Happy Monday!

House Baratheon

If you're one of my peeps on Facebook, you may have already heard that I'm dedicating this months manicures to Game of Thrones, in honour of Season 3 (airing March 31st, 2013).

The first house up is Baratheon!

Whole Hand.

The house sigil for Baratheon is the deer, so antlers were a definite must, as you can see the french on my index and ring fingers are outlined by black antlers, while I have the main deer in the center, even though it's just a close up of the head. 

Main Four.

The deer was done using, believe it or not, regular India ink by Speedball and a nib pen. You can see little crackle marks which appeared after I top-coated, but I love the way it did that. I found that it was a lot easier getting the fine details in using this method than using a brush and paint/polish.

Thumb detail.

I originally wanted to do another deer head on the thumb, but I came across an alternate symbol when I searched Baratheon on Google, it was an image of symmetrical antlers on a yellow-gold background; although my antlers are not symmetrical, I think I came as close as I'm going to.

So now on to the polishes, the base colour I used for my thumb and middle finger is "Fast Track" by China Glaze, from their Hunger Games collection. On the other nails is "Expresso 58" by Kleancolor, a nice rich metallic chocolate brown.

If you would like a set of these, be it false nails or nail decals, feel free to contact me at my email: ayeshaskhan27@yahoo.ca. Please put a subject in, so that I don't accidentally mistake it for spam.

Have an awesome week!

China Glaze "Sex on the Beach"; Swatch

I'm still wracking my brain for a design, so in the meantime here's a swatch:

2 coats of China Glaze's "Sex on the Beach" a nice neutral shade, it's base is a warm dusty rose colour with shimmer which changes the colours depending on the lighting. It's sheer as you can see my free edge on a couple of nails. Overall a nice shade, with reasonable wear and tear, although I noticed a chip on my right hand's index finger after the first day, oh well.

Have a Happy Monday!

Kleancolor "Pastel Blue"; Swatch

The colour I have for you today is "Pastel Blue" by Kleancolor.

Indoors.

 So, for those of you familiar with Kleancolor, you already know they are not Big 3 Free, so they do contain Fromaldehyde, Toluene and  DBP. Personally, as much as I like to avoid toxins, for a wide variety of shades at roughly $1-$2 per bottle, I do quite like them.

Natural Sunlight.

On to the actual colour now. "Pastel Blue" is just that, a nice pastel blue, very much like baby blue. It's a very clean looking shade, and is great for Easter manicures, if you do those. This was with 2 coats, and you can see it's quite opaque, I did not have any trouble with streaking with this colour which was really nice. The wear on these are nice too, I find that they don't chip very often, unless the base coat I use sucks. It also dries with a nice gloss to it, you can see it better in the first photo, so you don't need top coat with this unless you want to. A thing to keep in mind though, I notice these tend to dry slower than other polishes, so try to use thin coats and give them plenty of drying time. So to end off, this is a nice fairly inexpensive polish if you don't mind it containing the Big 3. 

Newspapers

    A bit late, but yesterday was Family Day (a public holiday) so I took the day off from posting.

Feb/17/2013

The colours used are "White French Creme" and "Black Creme" by Wet n' Wild. On top of that I did a newsprint transfer, which did not turn out very well, and added some silver striping tape to finish it off. Overall not a bad design, but next time I'll use fresher newspapers to get a better transfer.

China Glaze "Naked"; Swatch

Today's swatch is China Glaze's "Naked". A nice barbie pink with very subtle shimmer.

Naked by China Glaze

Firstly, pardon my index finger, I managed to dent it. Now then, this is a very nice sort of Barbie Pink shade with a subtle silver shimmer to it. This was with 3 coats as it's a bit sheer, but 2 thick coats and it would go on opaque. It dries quickly which is usual for China Glaze lacquers. It wears well, as you can see this photo was taken 2 days after regular work wear, and only a little tip wear is seen. This one dries to a satiny finish.  All in all, Naked is a very pretty pink. 

Also, Happy Valentine's Day!