Matte Leopard Print

This is my 200th post - woohoo!

Unfortunately, I'm not exactly celebrating it in style.  I had a total creativity block and couldn't think of ANYTHING to do on my nails.  I wanted to do something to try out my Barry M nail art pens but...nothing...

So I decided to just go for some good old leopard print.

I used OPI Skull and Glossbones with Barry M Grey for the spots.  I used the Barry M Nail Art Pen in Black to outline my spots.  I decided to mattify using Rimmel Pro Matte Top Coat.

If you'd like to have a go at nails like this, there's a step-by-step tutorial, which you can find in the Tutorials tab at the top of the page :)

I'm going to say something a little controversial here...  I didn't think the pen was great.  See where it looks like I tried to squeeze too many spots on to my middle finger?  That's because a huge blob of polish came out of the pen, so I rescued it by adding a grey spot in the middle!

That being said, I had a little go scribbling on my nails with the pink pen, and it was fab.  I think for leopard print I prefer thicker, messier lines, so actually having more control makes for worse leopard print...  That's just my opinion anyway.

Over the weekend I'm going to put together a comparison of the four different types of nail art pens that I have.  If there's any particular aspect of their use that you'd like me to compare, let me know in the comments :)

A couple of other things!  I remembered that I forgot that I was working through my list of new techniques!  Pop over to my Facebook page to vote for which technique you'd like to see my try out this week.  Jelly sandwich is winning at the moment, and I don't really want to do a jelly sandwich, so please vote and save me!  Or seal my fate.  Either one.

Also, for any Instagram users, I'm attempting to use that now.  I don't really get how it works, but my username is polishedart.  I'll add a button on the sidebar just as soon as I can work it out...  Does anyone know if I can set one of my pictures on there as my profile picture, because it doesn't seem to be an option? Also, if you have an Instagram account, let me know!  I'm not following anyone yet!

Flip Flop #12: Matte

Helloooooo!  It's Friiiiiidaaaaay!

I have wine, and I have chocolate, and I've just got some wonderful news, so I'm feeling rather great!

A brief aside...there's some program on the telly and they keep showing really close up of him holding things and he's got proper skanky dry skin around his nails and bruised nail beds.  Yuck.  Get yourself a nail blogger for the close ups!

Anyhoo, the choices for Day 12 were Drips or Matte.  I've attempted drips before as part of my boyfriend's birthday manicure (on my nails, not his!) here.  It is something I'd probably like to have a go at doing as a full manicure at some point, but I wasn't feeling it last night, so I went with matte instead.  Interestingly (or not, actually) literally everytime I type 'matte' (yes, even then) I always type 'matter' first and have to delete the 'r'.  Very odd.  I wonder if it's from typing up too many physics things about the interaction of radiation with matter...  Or perhaps from typing 'what's the matter?' every time my teenage sister begins a little rant (I don't know if you actually read my blog Amber, but if you do, I'm joking of course...).

So I've been enjoying chucking some matte top coat over everything recently.  Buuut since it was the theme for this manicure, I felt it should be a manicure that was based around matte-ness rather than just any old manicure mattified.  I'm not sure I'm making sense.

But here's what I did anyway.

I used a Special FX polish that sadly has no name, then topped it with the Rimmel matte top coat.  And THEN...well.  I tried to stamp with normal top coat, but that didn't work.  I thought maybe it was because it was cheap and the formula wasn't great, so I Seche Vite'd all my nails, and then tried to stamp with the matte top coat.  That didn't work either.

SO, I re-matted everything and decided to do dots.  Although by this point I couldn't be bothered dotting all my nails, so I just went for the index and middle finger nails.  The dots were bigger than I intended...I think my little topcoat pool was too deep!  Then on all my other nails I added a stripe of top coat down the middle.  I'm not sure this really shows up in the pictures, but you can see it if you know it's there lol.

All in all, a bit of a faff.  A nice way to have some subtle nail art though, if you're going somewhere bolder nails wouldn't be appropriate :)

I realise I'm not yet caught up with the challenge, but just a little advance notice that I might get further behind next week!  I'm being kicked out of my flat for the week for some building work to be done, so I'll only have a limited selection of my pretties with me.  But I'll do my best.

Pretty Pretty Glitter

Today, I want to show you another polish I bought from Sally Magpies :)  I've made another order, and I love all the polishes so much!  It's nice to be able to get some more unusual polishes.  This polish is from the first order I placed though, and it's Hits Specialita Moonbow Glitter.

Before I show you any pictures, I do need to say that I couldn't quite capture the beauty of this polish.  I'm looking at it now in the bottle and it's so much prettier than these photos!

Bottle shot first!  This is definitely going to be one of those polishes that I just get out every so often to admire in the bottle (other people do that, right??).

In these swatches, I used two coats of Moonbow over Barry M Black.

The main colour you get in this gorgeous multichrome glitter is a turquoise-y colour, leaning a little more green.

 That shifts into blue to purple, right through to a beautiful burnt orange and gold.

Yum yum yum.

The orange is visible on the edges of all the nails in real life, but I was really struggling to capture it on camera!  However, whilst I was watching TV later that evening, I snuck up on them...

Yay, I actually managed to get all the colours in one photo!

And then, because I had a brief fling with matte top coat last week, I mattified.

Pretty darn pretty...  I seriously struggled taking this off.  I'd planned to get through a few manicures last weekend, but after this went on...didn't really happen.

Have you tried any of the Hits polishes?  I hope you all have a lovely Saturday, whatever you're up to!

Matte Stripes

Here's a design from a few months ago - my first go using matte polish.

I used 17 Nightshade, and OPI RapiDry and Rimmel Pro Matte Topcoat for the stripes.

Hope you're all having a good week :)  I'm attempting a ship for the final day of the summer challenge on Friday, so watch this space...