Copper Patina Water Spot

Hello Lovlies!

Today's nails are my first attempt at a technique I've been starting to see around the blogosphere. It's called a water spot manicure, and is a variation on water marbling. The trick to this one is you spray an alcohol based solution like hand sanitizer or perfume on the polish after putting it in water. There is a great tutorial here.  I chose to double dip my nails to get this really marbled, patina look, and I love the outcome... See here:

I started with one coat of Wet N Wild French White Cream. I then spotted on Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Green Tea, a fantastic dusty mint creme, followed by Essie Penny Talk, a super shiny rose gold/copper.

I did my manicure using pure rubbing alcohol instead of hand sanitizer, and noticed that with Penny Talk it broke it up more into chunks than into spots, which worked great for this manicure, but it is something to keep in mind. I love this technique though... it's going to be perfect for making nails that look like natural stones like turquoise or jasper.

What do you think about water spotting?

Until next time,
HeatherS

March of the Penguins

Hello Lovelies!

Today I have a cute little design for winter. If I'm being honest, I really don't like Christmas that much. I have some strange aversion to red and green together, I never know what to get people, and I hate Christmas music. That being said, this year I have been trying to be more festive, so I came up with this cute design for winter.

This mani consisted of Essie One Day Without Blues (aka Coat Azure), Wet 'N' Wild White French Creme for the snowflake stamping (using a Shany plate if I recall correctly), with Color Club Lumin-Icent dotted in the center of each snowflake. For my little penguin accent nails I used Wet 'N' Wild French White Creme and Wet 'N' Wild Black Creme for the body, Essie's Vermillionaire for the beak and feet, and Essie One Day Without Shoes for the scarf.

Overall I was really pleased with this design. Free-handing the penguins was not as difficult as I expected it to be when I thought up these.  I am also finding I really like the wear time of Essie polishes (the above was after 4 days with only a little tip wear).

Until next time,

HeatherS

Why I'm Blue About One Day Without Blues

Hello all!

So a couple of weeks ago there was news around the nail blogs about Toms Shoes and Essie teaming up to give away 5000 bottles of a "special" color called One Day Without Blues, a tribute to Toms Shoes annual One Day Without Shoes in support of impoverished children. The deal was go on Toms facebook page, like them, potentially win a bottle of this super special polish. Well I did win one, but when it arrived today I instantly thought it looked familiar, and upon comparison, my suspicion was confirmed that One Day Without Blues is indeed Coat Azure. Don't believe me? Here are the pics.

Thumb, middle, and pinkie: One Day Without Blues
Index and ring: Coat Azure

Index and ring: Coat Azure
Middle and pinkie: One Day Without Blues

Now, that being said, I still love and adore this color... it's a beautiful shimmery blue that applies wonderfully, I was just disappointed that it's a re-release under a new name. Granted, that means if you didn't win the promotion  it's not like you can't get your hands on this color if you don't have it already, which is good.

As always, until next time!

Essie Has A Dirty Mind

Hello all!


Anybody ever notice the craziness of some of these polish names? OPI and China glaze tend to try and be punny and/or sexual (Mmm... Vould You Like A Lick-tenstein/Limbo Bimbo), some brands intentionally go for slutty and crazy names (Cheeky Monkey, which I'm dying to get my hands on some day), but I find that Essie has some of the most overt names to their polish (Meet Balls, After Sex, one of my favorite reds BTW). Today's swatch is one of those crazy named semi-sexual polishes, Over The Knee.


Over The Knee is a super-cozy chocolate milk color with gorgeous red shimmer in it, like a lighter redder version of China Glaze's Ingrid. Colorwise it's most like the first and last pictures, but it changes a lot depending on the lighting I've noticed.

Well there it is, hope everyone is doing well. Until next time.