Dark Red French Tips with Red Glitter (Gradient Effect) with a small tutorial

I want to clarify something first: the integrity of this manicure and condition of my hands greatly diminished as I was taking these photos. I underestimated the drying time of the top coat before smashing my hands into my boxing gloves for my Boxing class. Since I have sensitive skin on my hands, all that punching reeked havoc on them. Please bear with me. :(

After seeing several of 'Chelle's French tip gradient manicures: here and here. I was feeling quite inspired to create my own without having to purchase any new polish! I decided to sorta make a small tutorial just in case there would be any questions as to how I did the gradient effect.

I decided to take pictures with flash and without flash because as you know, flash makes a huge difference on the actual color of the polish and the manicure as a whole.

• Dark Red French Tips (looks black): OPI's Midnight in Moscow (Swiss Collection). This is an extremely dark red color when it is in the bottle. I noticed that when I painted it on my nails, it was more of a black with red glitter in it.
• Red Glitter : Ozotic's 203 (which I got from 'Chelle from our Swap. Thanks again!). This is sheer red glitter with silver strips? or flakes? Not sure what they are called. Very pretty color though.
• Nude Glitter: Essie's Cool-Lots. I totally forgot to include this polish during the photo shoot! It is an extremely sheer nude glitter polish which I mainly use as a polish topper.

As you can see with the flash, you get a better picture of how dark the OPI Midnight in Moscow is. But with the flash, the red of the Ozotic Pro 203 is just a little too bright.

However, without the flash Midnight in Moscow looks reddish-brown and 203 is more on par with what the color really looks like.

This is just a close up of Ozotic Pro 203, you can see the little silver strips/flakes which I must say is what I love about this polish (besides the fact that it is a glitter polish). As you can see, the flash makes the red super bright!

Now here comes the small tutorial: How to create the "Gradient Effect".

So what I did here was create guidelines to show where you are suppose to apply the glitter polish. They are pretty self explanatory: first layer goes on first (black area), second layer goes on second (red area) and third layer goes on last (white area). Make sure to let each layer fully dry before applying!

I hope that small tutorial made sense! You can easily re-create this look any sheer glitter polish for your French Tip manicures. Let me know if this works out for those of you who tried this small tutorial!

Thanks to 'Chelle for the Ozotic Pro 203 and the inspiration to create this manicure!

Christmas and New Years Manicure!

lHappy New Years Eve!

Since I wasn't able to do a post on my Christmas manicure, I decide to do a Christmas and New Years combo.

Btw, please excuse my nasty cuticles. They have been really dry due to the weather. I guess I didn't realize how dry they were! :(

Christmas Manicure:

• Red: OPI's You Rock Acapulco Red
• Gold: Rimmel. I can't remember what its called at the moment and I'm too lazy to dig for it through my nail polish stash
• White: Non-toxic (yes, I had to put that) acrylic craft paint from any craft supplies store

I originally wanted to do the candy cane design on all my nails, but I figured it would be excessive. So I decided to improvise and this is what I ended up with. I tried to keep it simple, but it just came out very gawdy and christmas-y. But hey, it never hurts to be in the Christmas spirit right? It only comes once a year so I thought, "why not?"

New Years Manicure:

• Bright blue: OPI's Suzi Says Feng Shui (Spring/Summer Collection)
• Blue glitter: OPI's Simmer & Shimmer (Burlesque Collection)
  

For some reason I thought blue would be a good and festive color for the new years. But again, it came up quite excessive but hey, its all for fun. I used the same white craft paint from my Christmas manicure and a dotting tool to make the white dots. I used tape to make the straight edges. Believe it or not, tape has been my best friend in nail designing. It works wonders.

Tell me what you think! Thanks. :)

Hello Kitty Manicure

I've been away from the computer for awhile. Since I have email access on my mobile device, I seldom use the computer now. :(

Here is a Hello Kitty manicure I did, although she is not my favorite Sanrio character. She is nonetheless a beloved icon.



I know it looks a bit excessive, but this was done at the spur of the moment. Since I use to work for Sanrio, I figured such a gawdy look would be appropriate for a Hello Kitty manicure (pink, purple and glitter/sparkles-I kinda thought about shiny stickers). I didn't use red because it is a traditional Hello Kitty color and I wanted to do something different.

The purple I used was from Color Club's Wild at Heart . The glitter polish was used from OPI's Burlesque Collection; I used Show it & Glow it! and Sparkle-icious. The pink was nail art paint I bought from Sally's Beauty Supply, used for the stripes and bows. The black and white paint I used for the Hello Kitty face was acrylic craft paint.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a photo of the other hand before I took the nail design off. It was less excessive, more plain and much nicer. I had to go to a wedding so I figured it wouldn't be appropriate to wear to a wedding.

Tell me what you think! :)

Totoro Nail Design

Okay, I delayed my update as I promised...this is the laziness I am talking about!

Here is a Totoro manicure I did. Since I love Totoro and nail art, why not combine them? I was thinking of you Asami when I was doing this because I know how much you love Totoro and Nail Art. :)

The mediums I used were Orly's Bon Bon which is a pale gray-ish light purple. It is such a pretty pretty color. I figured this would be a nice color since light gray on nails is too dull for my taste (no offense to any of you who like light gray on nails). I decided to use this shimmery/glittery purple from OPI that I mentioned in my Space Nails post. (I still don't know the name of it. If anyone knows, please tell me! I'd like to know. :) ) The So Easy Stripe Rite paint I got from Sally's Beauty Supply which I used to make the little designs. I also used dotting tools which are not pictured to make of the designs.



I used the shimmery/glittery OPI polish on my fingers that didn't have designs on it so the whole design wouldn't look dull from the Orly's Bon Bon.



Tell me what you think! :)

Space Nails/ Madness!/ Angry Paint Splattered Painting

Just as a side note, I also added a form spring on my side bar so feel free to ask me any questions!

After reading Asami's Space Nails manicure, I made an attempt to re-create her masterpiece.



Since I don't have any black nail polish, I used Chanel's Blue Satin (which is the darkest nail polish I own). It is an extremely sexy color with shine and glitter.



I also took a close-up picture just to show what the color really looks like. I know this isn't really a great photo, but this will do.



So I didn't realize how much polish had gotten on my cuticles! Sorry for the dirtiness! I used an OPI glittery/shimmery purple color for the first layer. I'm not sure what the color is called because it was from one of those sample packs that I got as a gift. But it is a really pretty color. Then I used Nina Ultra Pro in Electric Rainbow and Molten Opal. I used all 3 of these colors to help create the spaciness. I didn't use any nail embellishments because I don't have any that resemble stars so I just left it as it is. But I might purchase some later on in the week just to reach the maximum effect.



Here is the final product! Although it does not look as good as Asami's, I had fun trying to attempt it! I'm calling it Space Nails/ Madness!/Angry Paint Splattered Painting because (1) it looks like madness (2)sorta looks like space and (3) reminds me of an angry paint splattered painting.

What do you think?

Fierce Tiger Manicure

I AM OFFICIALLY ON SPRING BREAK AND BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOOOOOOODDD! :D. Sorry, but I had to let that out. :)

Anyways, moving on...



So, I decided to be fierce today and do a tiger print nail design, inspired by my nail design guru, Asami. She did a tutorial on this awhile back, but I never had the time do it because of school work and such. So now that I have the time, I was very impressed with how it came out. I've done a zebra print design before but i really like the tiger print because there is so much more color to it than just the bland "black and white".

In order to achieve this look I used two coats of a semi-sheer nude color from Essie's Vanity Fairest and then another two coats of a sheer glitter orange OPI's Goldilocks Rocks! I decided to use two coats of the sheer glitter because it was so thin and figured that another coat wouldn't hurt. For the stripes, I used acrylic paint from Micheal's (So much cheaper compared to the nail design paint from Sally's, I got on sale 2 for $1, but they usually are 59 cents. Plus you get a 2oz bottle, more bang for your buck. I originally got this idea from Asami who uses it to do her nail art. Very creative to use acrylic paint, I would have never thought of it.

I thought that using the glitter orange color would make the design look tacky, but it was the only orange color I had and I didn't want to go out and buy an orange color that I'm gong to rarely use. However, I was really surprised how well it came out. Wasn't as flashy as I thought it would because, because the black stripes helps deviate attention from the glittery base color. Overall, I am very pleased with how it came out. :)

Valentines' Day Inspired Manicure

This is manicure I did for Valentines' day. I know the integrity of the manicure is bit worn out as I had been wearing them for a week before I took this photo. It is something simple and not too complicated.

I used a swatch from OPI's Hong Kong collection, Meet Me on the Star Ferry. It is a purple shimmer, absolutely stunning. Not to mention my favorite as well! I applied two layers on to the tips for optimum color. Then I applied another two coats from Essie's Cool Lots. It is an extremely sheer peach nude color.

I usually free hand the designs on my nails but I was feeling quite lazy that day. Since my sister is into scrap booking, I took one of her heart shaped paper stampers and punched out a small heart. The paper I used was somewhat thick and sturdy so I applied some water to soften it. While my nails were still wet from the Cool Lots coat, I applied the heart punch out. As it dried, I applied top coat and especially on the thumb to reinforce the heart.

Thanks to my muse, Asami for inspiring this design! :)