31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #7 - Black and White

For the black and white theme, I wanted to try out the "sugar spun" technique that seems to be popular lately. I figured it would be ideal for my white nail polish since the technique relies on the polish being kind of gooey and stringy, and as I mentioned in my Day #2 post, my white polish has been acting like that lately. Here are my polishes:

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #6 - Violet

 

The last day of the single color inspirations! I have made it through 6 days of nail color, even though I am one day behind on blogging it. I interpreted "violet" as being any shade of purple, which I think is pretty fair to the rainbow. Here are all of my purple nail polishes:

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #5 - Blue

For Day #5 - Blue, I got pretty lazy and just did a blue ombre across my nails. Because it's so simple, I figured I could also give a short review about each polish, especially because they are each a different brand!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #4 - Green

For the "Green" theme of Day #4, I chose a very simple and classic design - the ruffian. I have actually never done this before, but I have always admired how classy it looks. To start off, I gathered all of my green nail polishes - significantly more than any color thus far! They didn't even fit on one shelf

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #3 - Yellow

In honor of the Yellow theme of Day #3, I gathered all of my yellow nail polish together. My yellow nail polish collection had been pretty severely lacking until more recently when I grabbed the Orly, Butter London, and O.P.I. Still, my choices for yellow were pretty slim.

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #2 - Orange

Here is day #2 of the Nail Art Challenge. Most of my posts will probably be one day behind so I can get some good pictures in natural lighting. Again, I got together all of my orange nail polishes to survey my options:

I have:
E.L.F. - Mango Madness
GAP - Love Story
O.P.I. - Toucan Do It If You Try
Sinful Colors - Big Daddy
L'Oreal - Mango Mamma
Orly - Old School Orange
Revlon - Tangerine
Klean Color - Mango

I chose to use the Orly polish since I just got it recently and wanted to try it out. Without a top coat, the polish has a nice satin finish that is part of their Plastix collection. Next time, I might use it without a top coat to take advantage of the unique finish. Here are the polishes and tools I used to complete this mani:

Base coat: Seche Clear
Polishes: Orly - Old School Orange
              Sinful Colors - Jolt
              Wet 'n' Wild - French White Creme
Tools: regular Scotch tape
            craft scissors in a wavy pattern
Top coat: Seche Vite

I used the craft scissors to cut wavy strips of the Scotch tape as thick as I wanted two wavy stripes to be. In order for the tape not to peel away the polish, I had to put a coat of Seche Vite down before placing the tape. I painted my base coat of the Orly orange color, layered with top coat, and placed the tape once it was dry with a small gap between pieces. There, I painted the Sinful Colors blue color and quickly peeled away the tape. After another application of top coat, I placed two more pieces of tape shifted down slightly and painted the Wet 'n' Wild white color. Maybe I can post some tutorial pictures later to make this more clear.

I topped it all off with a final coat of Seche Vite, and did some minor clean-up. And this is the final result!

I think the colors go really well together. For my first attempt making my own fancy striping tape, I think it went really well and precision will come with time. =]

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Day #1 - Red

UPDATE: Nails in natural lighting - looks much better!

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, but I have been gearing up for the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge! I got the idea from one of the nail blogs I follow: More Details Here! Many nail bloggers do this challenge in September, which doesn't make much sense because September only has 30 days, but that's how they do it! Here is the schedule for the challenge:

As you can see, Day #1 has the theme "Red Nails". As a start, I decided to get together all of my red nail polishes and take a look at what I have:

Here are the polishes listed out from left to right:
Ruffian Nail Laquer - Rosary
Pixi Nail Polish - No. 18 Red Shimmer
Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant Glossy Nail Color - Lingering Spice
Nicole by O.P.I. - Challenge Red-y
Klean Color - Red
Sephora Lacquer Nail Polish - Cherry Popsicle
Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant Glossy Nail Color - Sangria
Sinful Colors - Decadent
E.L.F. - Blushing Bombshell

I decided to choose two reds with different tones with some negative space (my natural nail) between. I chose the Nicole by O.P.I, which is more of a blue-based true red, and the Covergirl Outlast in Sangria, which is more orange-leaning. I decided to use Seche Clear as a base since I didn't want anything altering my natural nail color. For a nice shiny finish, I picked Seche Vite for my top coat. My additional tool was striping tape.

I decided to do a triangle starting at the base of the nail and peaking near the center of my nail. After one coat of Seche Clear, I cut a bunch of the white striping tape and placed them in the triangle shape two strips of tape wide.

I used the Covergirl Outlast on the lower part of my nail and the Nicole by O.P.I. on the upper part. Both of them were opaque with one coat, which is important with this technique. I worked on one nail at a time, applying each color and removing the tape almost immediately. The Nicole by O.P.I. dries very quickly, so it was important to work fast. It was very difficult to be neat and paint in such tiny areas, so the nails looked very messy pre-cleanup.

I used a small nail art brush dipped in acetone to clean up around the edges of the nail as best as I could. Here is the final product!

I think the colors look less similar in person, so I will try to snap a picture in natural light and update tomorrow. Either way, tune in to see tomorrow's look: Orange!