HPB Presents Glitter Topper: Girly Bits Black Eyed Susan

Today is a fun one! I haven't participated in a Hobby Polish Bloggers monthly nail art challenge in awhile, but when I saw that glitter toppers had been picked as the theme I knew exactly which polish I wanted to use. This is a bit surprising, because if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know I am not a glitter topper person. Rarely do I blog about them. I tend not to buy them and I rarely wear the few that I do own. However, the polish I'm sharing with you today, Girly Bits Black Eyed Susan, is one of THE very first indie polishes I ever bought-- and I've never worn it! So I felt like it was high time to use it. I actually had to search for this, because I had pulled it out to wear last fall (and never did) so it wasn't where it should have been and I had a few moments of panic! Luckily I was able to find it, so let's go!

Black Eyed Susan is clear base packed with different sizes of yellow glitter, as well as green and brown/rust colored glitter, to mimic the look of the flower it's named after. Even years later, this polish still flows pretty well and was maybe a touch thick but not terrible. The glitter came out of the bottle easily, though I did use the dabbing technique to spread it out over my nail. Here I layered it over one of the monthly mystery shimmers from Enchanted Polish, August 2016, which is a beige neutral with pink shimmer. I wanted to make sure all the glitters would stand out.

While I'm not totally in love with the finished product because I mistakenly grabbed an old bottle of top coat and got bubbles(!!) Black Eyed Susan stands the test of time and I think the polish itself looks great! I'm glad I used a neutral base because it helps the glitter stand out and gives it an autumnal feel. I got a lot of compliments on this! I'm really happy I finally pulled it out and wore it! I'm glad this theme came around when it did!

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HPB Present Neons and Neutrals: Polka Dots and Gradient

Hey all, taking a quick break from my Star Wars polishes to do the monthly HPB link-up! This month's theme is Neons and Neutrals-- a perennial favorite (for me at least)! I'm not sure what it is, but I love neons popping against a neutral background. It's just one of my favorite nail art themes and I wanted to try and squeeze a manicure in before it was over, even if it's not related to Star Wars!

I used a new to me brand for my neons: Pipedream Polish! The A Night In Vegas collection was a huge hit in the nail world (the words 'break the internet' come to mind) and was highly sought after.... And then it was disconntinued! I did manage to get my hands on a set, which have been sitting around for some months now. I figured now would be the perfect time to break them out! For my neutral I used Essie Cocktails and Coconuts, which is from the 2014 Resort Collection. Then I picked out Light of Day (a neon yellow), High Roller (neon green), and Happy Hour (neon turquoise) for my neons!

First I did a gradient on my ring finger-- this was a little bit difficult because both High Roller and Happy Hour acted fairly sheer when I was trying to sponge them on, but I got it eventually! Maybe not my greatest result, but I still think it looks pretty good! At that point, I was going to try and sponge a gradient over some vinyls on my other nails, but that ended up being a huge fail, so I moved to Plan B: polka dots! While it wasn't my go to, I think it works well and I wanted to have a couple different things going on!

And of course I needed to matte my manicure, because I'm obsessed right now:

My clean up skills are still not the best, even with liquid latex; sorry! Hope you enjoyed this manicure! And take a minute to peruse some of the other bloggers' work!

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Present Dusty Pastel Gradient

Hey hey hey! It's a Saturday and while I normally don't post on Saturdays, I need to squeak one more post in-- for the monthly Hobby Polish Bloggers monthly nail art round up! The theme for this month is Dusty Colors and for awhile I was stumped, mainly because no polishes sprang to mind and I was dreading having to search through my stash for something to use. And then I stumbled across a display of the new Sinful Colors Porcelain Mattes and grabbed them all (of course!) and I thought these fit the bill. I would call them dusty pastels-- they certainly aren't bright and have a certain muted quality to them that I associate with the term "dusty."

First I applied two coats of Glazy Sunday, which is a "delicate dusty rose." (Look, even has dusty in the description!). Then I applied a liquid latex barrier-- this is seriously a game changer when it comes to doing gradients. Then I sponged on Glazy Sunday, Cheshire China (a light lavender) and 
She's Gone Matte (a mint green). Because they were mattes, they were thicker which meant they were easy to sponge and not too sheer. I was worried the polish might dry too quickly but that wasn't a problem! Here's the finished product:

I am so proud of this gradient! I know I have done gradients before, but I feel like this is my best one yet. Practice makes perfect!I wore this for probably four days, which is really unusual for me (usually every mani is 2 days) and it was hard to remove it. Couldn't have turned out better if I had wanted it too! This is the first time I've used the latex barrier and will definitely do so every time I do a gradient in the future. Hope you enjoyed this manicure!

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents: Spring Watercolor Manicure

Look at me! Actually participating in a nail art challenge this month! This month, the Hobby Polish Bloggers decided on a spring themed mani for their monthly link up, so I decided to create a watercolor-type manicure using spring colors!

I used Enchanted Polish Winter (a light grey) as my base, and then used saran wrap to sponge on Reign Beau (teal), Disco H2O (cornflower blue), and Dope Jam (pink). This was a pretty easy manicure to do, but I had a couple of issues-- I think I got too heavy with Disco H2O, and that covered up too much of the teal Reign Beau. But I love the way the pink of Dope Jam looks over the others. I also should have used a latex barrier for my cuticles, because I was too afraid of getting polish all over my fingers and so I think some of the grey edges look a little funny to me.

In the end, this looks a bit muddy to me, but I still like it! I do think it has a watercolor feel to it, even though I wish the colors were a bit more separate. Ah well! I just need more practice! What do you think?

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents Green Monochromatic Polka Dots!

So I ended up missing last month's Hobby Polish Blogger's Link-up, which was Halloween themed. Between my kids' birthday and getting sick I just didn't have the energy to come up with any manicures! But this month I wanted to get back at it and participate! The November theme is monochromatic, which means using one color in various hues. At first I thought I would do purple, but I already do Purple Fridays, so I scoured my "to be used" polish pile and was inspired by some new Fairytale Finish polishes that had just arrived and decided to go green, which is highly unusual for me! Green is not my favorite color and one I don't tend to wear often, but for some reason this week I had the hankering for green!

My base color is Colors by Llarowe Onesies, which is a soft mint green holographic. I then chose three darker green shades and grabbed my dotting tools and decided to randomly layer on polka dots. The darkest green is Fairytale Finish Turning Over A New Leaf, a dark forest teal green holographic, then CbL Believe in Miracles, a bright teal holographic, and then FF Autumn Reflections, which is a deeper wintergreen mint holographic.

Artificial light (flash):

 I am generally pretty happy with the way this looks. Sometimes trying to make something look random is very difficult, hah! I definitely want to tweak a few things, such as varying the layers if I'd known just how opaque looking Autumn Reflections was going to look over the others, but like I said, I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out! Guess I'm going to have work on my doting skills.

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents Autumn Dry Brush Manicure!

Yesterday was actually my wedding anniversary so this was the manicure I was sporting (probably should have posted this yesterday instead of my downer post). But it is the first day of fall today, so that's appropriate, right? I had stumbled across a whole mess of untouched polishes that looked to be a perfect fit for a fall themed manicure. Initially I thought I would use the saran wrap technique to dry and create a manicure with layered fall colors-- similar to a pile of leaves-- but then I decided I wanted to branch out and do something new! So I decided to use a similar but new-to-me technique, the dry brush technique! Thankfully, it's pretty simple-- you wipe most of the polish off the brush and then lightly swipe across your nails, leaving little slashes of color. Sounded good to me!

I started with two coats of Julep Marsala, a rich red brown creme. Then I swiped on Lyn B Designs Whirled Peas, a yellow gold/orange duochrome holographic. Then I took Julep Ryan, a deep teal satin. This was probably a bit of mistake, because the teal is darker color than the gold, but it ended up being a sheer so luckily it worked out in my favor! Then I tried to use Loaded Lacquer Booze & BBQ, a shimmery orange on top, but it ended up being too sheer in just one coat, so it left sparkle behind, but no orange color. I didn't want to try and add another color at that point because I felt it would be overkill and make the finished product too messy.

Artificial light (flash):

There are things I like and don't like about this manicure. Even though the colors looked really beautiful spread out on my table, they turned out a little muted on my nails. I wish they had been just a bit brighter. I was also annoyed that the orange I used turned out to be more sheer than I anticipated-- it added sparkle, but not the color I wanted. Oh well! I do think the dry brush is a really fun technique and I love the rich, brocade look this manicure ended up having even if it wasn't what I envisioned initially! 

Hope you enjoyed my fall themed manicure! I'm really enjoying these monthly manicures as a way to explore my nail art skills and doing something different aside from just swatching! 

An InLinkz Link-up

HBP Presents Neon Stripes!

Hey all! Something new and different with this post! One of the nail polish related Facebook groups I'm a part of, Hobby Polish Bloggers, has a monthly themed link-up and August's theme is neon! As I was pondering my next manicure during the work day (yeah, it was so, and I think about what I'm going to paint my nails) I decided I wanted to try and participate this go 'round!

I decided to go for something simple and decided to use my two Savina neon polishes, Sunset  and Beach Ball. I had picked up some striping tape awhile ago and thought "hey, why not use that?". I was already wearing Beach Ball as a base, so I put down three pieces of striping tape on each nail and then layered Sunset on top of it. The idea was to kind of create a beach towel look. The only teeny tiny problem is that these colors are pretty similar to each other and are so bright that the stripes are a little difficult to distinguish. 

Artificial light (flash):

Hope you enjoyed this manicure and that your retinas aren't too scorched from all the neon! This was my first time using actual striping tape for a mani. It was definitely a little more intense than I expected, but soooooo much easier than trying to free hand or use scotch/painter's tape. This isn't perfect but it's a start!

An InLinkz Link-up