Maise Shine Villain is a black jelly with medium size purple square and fine silver hex glitters.
This is two coats of Villain over a random black polish. The formula was good and dries pretty fast. It did dry a bit dull so I used HK Girl Topcoat to give it a shiny finish.
I used OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte as my base color for the MSMD “Frakie” manicure. This is a rare find as most of the OPI mattes and suede are being discontinued. OPI Gargantuan Green Grape matte is a nice crisp pastel green.
It is quite a true matte finish because it comes out chalky and absolutely shineless. This would be my first matte-matte manicure. I’ve had suede and satin/suede finishes before and I like them. However, I cannot quite decide if I like the “flat” matte finish yet. It is definitely different.
I don’t like the fact it is streaky when applying but the dry time is very, very fast. So I did multiple of very thin coats and it eventually even/smooth out nicely. However, couple of my nails came out almost “crackle-ly” because I did two thick coats and the streaky became cracks.
Here is the GGGM with NYC Demon Glow over it. Demon Glow is pretty much a clear topcoat. If it did affect the color at all, I would assume, it gives the color a blue-ish/cooler tint. I did like the color better once it has a shiner finish, maybe, I do like gloss polishes over matte.
Here is the cool photo of the color under black light. NYC Demon Glow is super cool!
Keep coming back as I am trying out another OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte. The strange thing is, it has shimmer from the look of it, doesn’t it make it suede?
I saw Manicured Monkey’s “Frankie Goes Bump in the Night” and I had to do a MSMD! Only thing is that I need to get a better brush because my “stitches” don’t look as nice.
However, I tried one more polish before Halloween is over, NYC Demon Glow. It is a florescent top coat that works just like a regular clear topcoat, so apply to any polish and make it glow with a black light. I had to dig out a black light which I purchased for party a few years ago. You definitely needed two coats of Demon Glow to get the full effect, other wise, it is a bit faint and streaky. I did use a regular topcoat over the entire nail art and it did not take away from the effect of Demon Glow. I purchased Demon Glow at my local Rite-aid and the cost was $1.99. It was the last when I saw it and so glad I had enough sense to grab it before it is all gone.
This is going to be the last Halloween free hand nail art until next year. I had so much fun!
I am so in love with the colors from OPI So So Skullicious that I wanted to purchase full size bottles. Then to find out, they are not available… darn it! I send a request for a list of possible matches to Manicured Monkey and Kristin gave me a few possibilities.
So I went around swatching her suggestions along with other similar colors that I found, here are my pick for dupe/repeats of the four colors for OPI So So Skullicious, so if you are interested in getting a full size bottle of the colors in the mini-collection, these come quite close.
Morning Glory ~ Black Onyx
Candlelight ~ Need Sunglasses?
Hi, Pumpkin! ~ Flit a Bit
Rose from the Dead ~ Strawberry Margarita
From the bottle, everything lookss dead on except for Flit a Bit seems a lot “orangier” and “brighter” than Hi, Pumpkin!
This set of swatches shows the colors side by side. I can hardly tell the difference after I painted them but I remember the bald spot on Morning Glory swatch.
This set of swatches shows the “dupes” I found over the Skullicious colors. In the sun and in the photograph, they are hardly distinguishable.
However, in person, Strawberry Margarita is a hair lighter than A-Rose from the Dead. Hi, Pumpkin! is noticeably “greyer” (or less vibrant) than Flit a Bit. I have to say, I do prefer the Hi, Pumpkin! a bit more.
Here are my notes on the formula, given that minis has much smaller brushes.
Black Onyx (2 coats) is thinner than Morning Glory (one coat)
Candlelight and Need Sunglasses? are nearly identically thin (3 coats each)
Hi, Pumpkin! (2 coats) and Flit a Bit (2 coat) are average consistency.
A-Rose from the Dead and Strawberry Margarita (2 coast each) are also average in consistency.
Do you think I came close on the matches?
I went to Rite-Aid couple weeks ago to stock up on some clearance school supplies for my kids. Of course, I had to check out the seasonal nail selection in the beauty isle and I found these, Halloween nail apps!
There were about six different designs but my son chose this one because it was the most similar to Spider man.
Here are my nails all dressed and ready to go Trick-or-Treating.
There are 28 stickers in the package and also a small nail file. I found enough variation of sizes to fit my nails and there just might be enough for another application for my toes. The stickers came pretty easily away from the clear backing and I was able to reposition the stickers on the nails, if I needed to without any tearing. The apps surviving a shower and hair washing. The cool part of these nail dresses is that I can just peel them off when I am done with them. No nail polish remover is required which is always a plus.
As pretty as it looks (specially the perfect edge) I had a few issues. First of all, the nail file provided with the apps were too rough for my nails so I used my own finer files to filed away the excess stickers from the free edge.
Two, you really need to buff your nails if you want perfectly smooth looking manicure. I don’t buff my nails unless there is major staining so I could see a few ridges, once the stickers were on. I don’t mind them so much but you might.
Three, the stickers don’t seal very well around the free edge and the sticker edge would start lifting up when you use your hands. I got some flee bites when I went to my kids school walk-a-thon over the weekend, and I just cannot leave them alone. (I hate itching!) So if I scratch the bites, the sticker edges would lift up and became rougher. That was super annoying, the itch and the rough edges. After 24 hours, some of the edges have tear, or chips in the already. I had to remove them because I was done with them.
In conclusion, I probably will keep couple of these at hand for a quick mani when I need it for last minute outing that require a fancy manicure during my “rest period.” Because it doesn’t need drying time and I won’t dry my nails out by using remover. It provides very fancy nail art effect without any tools or skills,not to mention, every nail comes out exactly the same. But it wouldn’t be my first choice, since, they don’t last very long (compare to a regular polish job) and they are costly! The Kiss Nail Dress was $6.99 at my local Rite-Aid store and that is just too much to pay for my frugal sensibilities.
I want to actually wear one of my Orly Spellbound FX as a full manicure before Halloween season is over and thanks to my easy-peel-sy Elmer’s peel off base coat a.k.a school glue, now, I am able to wear glitter polish with no fear of tedious removal. I choose R.I.P because this to me is a Halloween specific polish that I wouldn’t wear any other season.
Here is two funky coats (more later) of R.I.P. and one coat of Gelous.
First of all, the black in this jelly stains cuticle so be careful when you apply. However, it is almost impossible not to get it on to your cuticle, as this isn’t an easy formula to work with. R.I.P. is watery and thick at the same time. How? When I tried to do a thin first coat, the black jelly was so thin, I thought it was water and there were almost no glitter on the brush. So I decided to load up the brush and go for it. The formula dripped all over my table and over my nail bed and it ran/pool along the cuticle, yuck! When I tried to clean the excess off, it was grossly thick (fast drying?) It also dried very uneven and very thick towards the free edge and cuticle if you did not level your hands right after you apply it.
Rest in Peace my Orly R.I.P. as you will be placed in my swap/blog sale stash, if I ever actually get to having one.
I don’t know about you but when you look the nail blogs and see all the pictures with perfect manicure, do you ever wonder, how can it be so perfect every time?
Well, my Halloween stamping did not turn out so well. At first, I was like, darn it! I have to redo it, then I thought about it. Hey, this is a good chance to show everyone that not everything turns out perfect every time.
I used my brand new Bundle Monster Plates for this stamping project and I don’t know if it is the plates or my technique that I cannot seem to get a good solid image. I tried several different polishes: Color Club Worth the Risque, Borghese Chroma, and finally seattle on the sure thing OPI Morning Glory from the So So Skullicious 2012 collection.
So let me say, yes, it doesn’t look that bad in the photo. It is because of two reasons. One, thick glossy topcoat works wonder in making the stamped images look sharp and blend in with the base color. Two, the 2 dimensional image hides a lot of the unevenness of the manicure.
The haunted house was the hardest image to stamp, maybe it is the plate? My first try was on my left ring finger and I wanted to do silver over purple. It took me four try to get a semi-decent image on the stamp then when I stamped it on the nail it was a silvery BLUR. So I took all the polish off and repainted the Purple Pleather.
So I gave it a second try with the black which I had better luck with the other images. Still, the haunted house turned out to be barely recognizable. (Actually, one of my boys thought it was a “flying pirate ship.” Hey, he is pretty imaginative.) To make things worse, before everything was total dry, I had to make lunch for my son and I rubbed off a chunk of the black french tip on the thumb. (Which I tried artfully hide with the pose but you can still see it.)
Needless to say, I spared my left ring finger and my entire right hand from this stamping nightmare. Let’s see how long before it drives me nuts and I had to take them off.
Update: well, it stayed on for three days total. One, I was too busy with getting two sets of homework done without tears. (Yay for me!) Two, my boys really enjoyed looking at the stamped images because Halloween is all the rage right now.
Yesterday, I put on Immortal from China Glaze Wicked Collection and to update, the polish did not wear well. I got a lot of shrinkage and tip wear in one day. So to make it look better and to try out Make a Spectacle that I also purchased from CG Wicked Collection, I did a little day two layering to hide the blemishes.
From what I was told, that Make a Spectacle is very similar to Snow Globe from couple years back. Since, I never own Snow Globe, Make a Spectacle is very unique to me.
These glitters really sparkle and glisten on the nails. I can hardly see the original Immortal grey coming through. The entire manicure take on a greenish hue which is one of the neat qualities of this polish. The glitters take on different coloration depending on the base color. Being on a grey, a relatively neutral color, the glitters are pretty true to what you see in the bottle. I did some testing on the nail wheel and the glitters take on a more pink/purple hue over purple polish and blue/green hue over blue polish.
As pretty as the glitters are, the polish formula is gloppy and SMELLY! (You know what it smells like if you own any Kleancolor polishes.) I can still smell the chemicals after two hours and even my husband was complaining about how he could still smell it. But it comes down to it, I really enjoy the beauty of this color so I will have to make sure when I want to wear this polish, I must have sufficient time for it to dry and to air out.
As promised, here is a quick tutorial on making your own nail art decal. It is really easy and simple, however, there is quite a bit of wait time involved depending on the complexity of your design. It also takes at least 24 hours before your decals are dry completely so they will come off the plastic.
I place a cardboard inside a clean ziplock bag so the bag doesn’t wrinkle or move too much when I am painting my design.
I also draw a guide for my designs so I don’t make them so big that they don’t fit on the nail bed.
I use the brushes that comes with the polish for general design and a dotting tool for the fine details. The first layer of the polish should cover the entire design area so it can act as the base to keep the decal together. Once, you draw or outline the design, fill in the shape with a heavy coat of polish because it will be sturdier when dried. You will have to wait until the surface of the design is dry enough before you can add the second layer.
Since, I am making glow in the dark decals, I used the Disco Light transparent glitter polish as a second layer for my skulls and eyeballs.
Then, I use the larger dotting tip to make the eyes. Then, I used the finer dotting tip to draw the “mouths” of the skulls.
Here is the finished decals and I also made a little ghost for the pinky. Place the designs in a well ventilated but dry area (the garage is a great place) for at least 24 hours.
To peel the designs off the plastic, you need to removed the cardboard piece and bend the plastic slightly where the designs are located. A design that is dried properly will “pop-off” easily when the plastic bent. If you know the designs are dry but they are not coming off easily, use a pair of tweezers or tooth pick and carefully loosen the edge of the design. Then, peel the plastic away from the design, instead of peeling the design off the plastic.
To adhere the design to your nails, first paint the nails with the desired base color and let it dry for 15 minutes.
Then, apply a coat of clear topcoat and place the decal over the nail bed.
You will need to “form” the decal to your nail bed, as they can be quite thick. Lastly, apply at least one more layer of topcoat over everything.
A few more tips before I go, one, make multiple of everything because you will mess up or tear a few. Two, if the decal doesn’t come off easily the first time, let it dry for another 24 hours. Three, get a very thick top coat like Poshe or Vite Seche because it will really make your finished nail look glossy and smooth.
I hope you give this DIY nail decal a try!
I have been searching and researching on glow-in-the-dark polishes. I was so excited when Halloween seasonal displays were going up and all the different glow-in-the-dark polishes were available. I bought every bottle that was available at Rite-Aid and I wished I took a photo of all the ones I bought before I returned them.
The first test is light exposure and lights out. I am looking for polishes that have lasting glowing effect after the lights are out. Also I want the glow color to be similar to the original polish color, ie. pink polish and pink glow. Here are my four winners out of over 15 bottles that I purchased.
Disco Lights in white (clear) glitter
Pumpkin Glow in the Dark in Yellow
Ma.nish.ma. Glow in the Dark in Milky Way
Ma.nish.ma Glow in the Dark in Meteor
Here they are in the dark.
Now, the coolest thing about the white glitter polishes is that it comes with a LED light in the cap/brush, and the light changes colors! So you can have a little Disco dance as you “charge” the polish in the dark or you can use it as a flash light. If you ever need to do a manicure when there is a power outage, you can! Doesn’t it sound like an infomercial?
To make these glow-in-the-polishes to work well, you should use a undie that is a similar color. For the Skullman, ghost, and the eyes I used Disco Lights over China Glaze White on White. The glow in the dark base color, I used three coats Pumpkin yellow over two coats of Sunhine Pop by China Glaze. The black base color is OPI Morning Glory from the 2012 So So Skullicious Minis.
Tomorrow, I am going to have a step by step tutorial on how to make your own glow-in-the-dark decals.
