The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Neon - Omake

Hello!

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm going to do another Omake post. Obviously about the somewhat fails of my neon challenge. There are four more manicures I took pictures of that didn't make it for different reasons...

For this one, I tried my fanbrush for the first time. On a base of flormar matte M09, I first added some white acrylic paint and then some black. It wasn't uniform enough for my taste, but I kind of like it. The color combination is one I really like.

Für diese Mani habe ich den Fächerpinsel zum ersten Mal benutzt. Auf flormar M09 habe ich mit dem Pinsel erst weiße und dann schwarze Acrylfarbe aufgepinselt. Ich mag die Farben zusammen, aber meine Fächerkünster waren mir zu unregelmäßig.

Here, I tried to do a neon glitter sandwich. The Woo neons are all quite sheer, especially the green and yellow ones, which made me think of a sandwich. In the end, I chose a bright green no-name Color Club as my base, added essence edward (from the nail art twins) and topped it with one coat of the yellow Woo neon. It was okay, but turned out to be too green for my taste. ^^;

Hier habe ich mich an einem Neon-Glitter-Sandwich probiert. Die Woo-Neons sind ja recht sheer, besonders der gelbe und der grüne. Ich habe mich dann für deinen namenlosen grünen Color Club-Lack entschieden, darauf essence edward aufgetragen und darüber wiederum eine Schicht des gelben Woo Neons. War nicht übel, mir aber irgendwie zu grün.

For this one, I tried to do classic neon tips... while imitating the colors of a pair of shoes I was pondering to buy back then. (I didn't buy them...) I like the colors together, but the nude polish doesn't match with my skintone. Boo.

Hier habe ich klassische Neon-Tips machen wollen... und hatte dabei die Farben eines Paar Schuhe vor Augen, die ich letztlich nicht gekauft habe. Ich mag die Farben zusammen, aber leider passt der Nudelack nicht zu meiner Hautfarbe.

And here I tried the sugarspun technique for the first time. Same green polish as above on a coat of white. I don't think I'm patient enough for a manicure like this. It turned out to be too thick, uneven, weird. And too green. If it just were a grass green neon...

Hierfür habe ich mich zum ersten Mal an der Sugarspun-Technik probiert. Basis war wieder der selbe grüne Lack. Ich denke, ich bin nicht geduldig genug für diese Technik. Mir war's am Ende zu dick, zu ungleichmäßig und überhaupt. Und außerdem war's mir zu grün. Ein grasgrüner Neon wäre besser gewesen.

That's it... Neon manicures in the past. I'll continue to play with them, though.

Das war's auch schon. Neon-Manis rücken nun in die Vergangenheit. Aber ich werde weiter mit Neons spielen.... :P

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Neons - Week 4

Hi everyone!

With this post, I'll finally be done with the Nail Challenge Collaborative's Neon month! Yay! And since this post will go online on June 30st, I'll even be done in time! This theme really wasn't my cup of tea, but next month's theme "Flowers" will be! So without much further ado... my final neon mani... that's not looking very neon, but was done using neon colors!

Mit diesem Post beende ich - endlich - den Neon-Monat der Nail Challenge Collaborative! Juhuu! Und da dieser Post am 30. Juni online gehen wird, bin ich sogar rechtzeitig fertig damit! Das Thema Neon war nicht so meins, aber das Thema für Juli, Blumen, wird es sein! Ich freue mich schon. Nun denn, dann hier die letzte Neon-Mani... die nicht sehr neon aussieht, obwohl sie mit Neon-Lacken gemalt wurde!

The base for this mani are two coats of Barry M Indigo. I really love this polish. Application is flawless, drying time could be better, but it's really shiny even on its own. I was lazy to take picture though. On top of Indigo, I pre-painted the pattern using white acrylic paint, because most of the neons I wanted to use are rather sheer and I wanted them to show up properly. I traced the white lines using the yellow Woo neon, Zoya Robyn and three unnamed Color Club neons (green, orange, pink). Some were easy, some were not. The yellow was too runny, sadly. But overall, I liked this mani.

Angefangen habe ich mit zwei Schichten Barry M Indigo. Ich mag diese Farbe wirklich sehr. Der Auftrag ist unkompliziert, die Trockenzeit könnte zwar besser sein, aber der Lack ist auch solo wunderbar glänzend. Ich war aber zu faul, um davon Bilder zu machen. Dann habe ich die Muster mit weißer Acrylfarbe vorgemalt, da die Neons doch etwas sheer sind und man sie ja gut erkennen sollte. Diese weißen Linien habe ich dann mit dem gelben Woo-Neon, Zoya Robyn und drei namenlosen Color Club-Neons nachgemalt. Das klappte je nach Farbe unterschiedlich gut. Das Gelb war leider etwas zu dünnflüssig. Aber so alles in allem war ich recht zufrieden mit der Mani.

What do you think? Doesn't really look neon, does it? :D
Was meint ihr? So wirklich neon sieht's ja nicht aus, oder?

Thanks for reading & bis zum nächsten Mal!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Neons - Week 3

Hi again!

Okay, I decided to get it over with and post my third manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's June theme "neons". I'm not happy with it. I did so many neon manicures since my last neon post, but none of them wowed me exactly. So here's one that came out fine, but the base disappointed me. >.<

Also ich hab jetzt irgendwie grad keine Lust mehr und gebe die dritte Woche des Neon-Junis auf. Seit meiner letzten Neon- Mani habe ich unzählige andere gemacht, aber keine hat mich so wirklich vom Hocker gerissen. Hier jetzt die, mit der ich noch am zufriedensten bin. Wieder ziemlich simpel, aber was soll's. In dem Fall war es die Base, die zu wünschen übrig ließ.

Base for this polish was MNY #549, one of those weird murky taupe polishes. Application was okay for it, but it dried way darker than it looks in the bottle... and that's what destroyed this mani for me.

Anyway, on top of two coats of #549, I freehanded the triangles using Kiko 203, a white tip painter, that's surprisingly opaque. It got a fine brush that's really easy to handle. After my white triangles were dry, I picked a short striper brush and my yellow Woo neon and painted another triangle, slightly smaller than the white one. Topcoat and done. There isn't much more to say about this one.

What do you think?


Angefangen habe ich diese Mani mit zwei Schichten MNY #549, einem dieser merkwürdigen Taupetöne. Der Auftrag war kein Ding, aber leider trocknet der Lack deutlich dunkler als er im Fläschchen aussieht und das war es letztlich, was mir die Suppe verhagelt hat.

Egal, auf den zwei getrockneten Schichten #549 habe ich dann mit Kiko 203, einen Tippainter, Dreiecke gemalt. 203 ist erstaunlich deckend und hat einen schönen dünnen Pinsel, der sich recht gut kontrollieren lässt. Auf die weißen Dreiecke habe ich dann mit einem kurzen Striper und dem gelben Woo Neon etwas kleiner Dreiecke gemalt. Topcoat drüber und fertig. Mehr ist eigentlich auch nicht zu der Mani zu sagen.

Was meint ihr dazu?

Let it Snow! Challenge 15: Longing for Summer

Hello~

after showing you the beautiful and summery p2 green palm tree yesterday, I'm going to continue with the second to last Let it Snow! challenge manicure. And this one is probably the first manicure that's out of season, hehe.

Longing for Summer was the theme to work on and I had a couple of ideas. I wanted to do something colorful, but not too bright. I ended up using a couple of neons, but combined them with a French to make it more wearable at work.

I started with four coats of Catrice Cotton Candy At Eiffel Tower. Ridiculous, but that's the closest to the perfect soft white I'm still looking for. The polish behaved very well though! I applied it at night and continued the next day to make sure it's really dry.

I freehanded the tips with a couple of Woo neon polishes I got from my colleague who went to Turkey last year. They are a bit sheer, so the tips got a little thick, but I think that makes those polishes promising for neon jelly sandwiches.

On my middle finger, I used the same neons and a piece of saran wrap (Klarsichtfolie) to create the marbled nail. I placed a couple of dots and lines of each color on the nail and smudged them together by placing the saran wrap on top of the still wet polish. Since the polishes are so sheer, I had to do that three times to achieve what you see. Sadly, the green doesn't really show up. Too weak ;)

That mani was kind of fun to wear. It was so colorful and yet not too much for work. At least at my workplace. What do you think? Could you have worn this to work?

Thanks for reading today as well~

Fall into Autumn 13: Fall Flair

With this post, I'll finish yet another challenge. Time sure goes by... 13 weeks for the Fall challenge and they're over already! But I don't really feel sad, because the next challenge is just around the corner and I'm looking forward to this one as well!

So without much further do, here's theme numero #13: Fall Flair. Actually, I had no idea what fall flair is supposed to mean... I still don't. But on the challenge chart it said "your choice" in brackets and that saved me somewhat. I decided to experiment a little, and luckily, it turned out quite nicely!

Last year around this time, I got two bottles of flocking powder I intended to use on a craft project I never realised in the end. Even though flocking is nothing new, I still hadn't tried it despite having the materials at hand. With this challenge, I wanted to change this fact.

I started without any plan what I wanted to do, so I just pulled out the flocking powder, chose matching polishes from my stash: Misslyn Copper Twist (chocolate brown, imo...) and Woo 665. Don't ask me why I bought brown flocking powder. I think they only had those two colors left and they were on sale or something. But it matches fall... Anyway, I painted my nails with one coat of those two polishes and started sprinkling the flocking powder on top. It worked better than I thought! It's a messy process though. Clean-up is a bit tricky... sorry for the flocking around the cuticle area.

But in the end, I was left with flocked nails and no idea what to do next. After a while, I just started putting nail polish on top of the flocking and that actually looked nice! I used a dotting tool and tried to paint little leaf shapes. Afterwards, I added some details in matching colors, the two base colors, China Glaze Riveting and a mixture of OPI The IT-Color and Catrice Browno Mars. Yes, the same I used for yesterday's mani. I still had them on my table.

I carefully topcoated my leaves with essence BTGN Top Sealer and my dotting tool to make them a little bit more shiny and blend the colors together. I was quite satisfied with the result. It looks like the leaves are floating. The texture of the flocking underneath adds something very interesting to the overall look. Not sure if I'd liked it as much with simple polish as my base.

The flocking was weird on my nails. I'm used to matte polishes, but flocking is different... it's not in the way, but I kept touching to make sure those are my nails. Sadly, I had "tipwear" quite fast... The flocking disappeared and I was left with the base color underneath. At least, not very visible "tipwear".

What do you think about the results of my little flocking experiment? Have you tried flocking powder? What's your opinion?

The Lazy Days of Summer 9: Thirst Quencher

Hello everyone~

I'm so glad the week is over... It was a hard one and I made a few mistakes that could have been avoided. But as usual... they bother me forever, because of the scolding by my superiors... meh. At least, one day off until Monday. Let's hope the coming week is a tiny bit kinder to me, haha.

Anyway, while I was on vacation last week, I worked on the challenge and finished all the themes except the last one, which I'll probably tackle tomorrow. Today, I'd like to post about theme number 9. The time was "Thirt Quencher" and and first, I wasn't sure what to do, because my favorite would be mineral water. Yes, boring. And the other things I like kinda where close to what I had in mind for theme number 10, Favorite Fruit...

When I posted about my last watermarble attempt, I got a really nice comment from Sue, who recommended me a tutorial and I decided to try once more! A watermarble appeared to be a suiting means to represent a thirst quencher. I chose three of the Woo neon's a colleague brought me from her holiday in Turkey to create the marble.

I first applied white polish to my nails, an unnamed one by Color Club, protected my skin with some vaseline and tried to watermarble just as the tutorial suggested. It worked a lot better than the last time, even though I still need to practice the dipping angle as there are still a couple bubbles.

The colors weren't as bright as I imagined them to be, but I like the overall outcome. I found it to be lacking something to really represent a thirst quencher... remember, mineral water!? I like it sparkly. so, I applied one coat of each of the three wonderful Seventeen flakie polishes I got from Cel.

I love flakies. Subtle, but so effective to totally change the look of any polish...

What do you think?

That's it for now. Have I mentioned that I didn't buy any nail polish this week!? :D
Have a fun weekend!

The Lazy Days of Summer 5: Inspired by your favorite towel

Hi everyone~

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far!? I do! I'm really looking forward to the next week, since I'm finally on vacation~ yay! As I'm not going to travel this time, I'm planning on doing some nail art instead. For example... my current challenge.

Today, I have one more design to show you. It's the fifth out of fourteen themes, so I have quite a few to do this coming week, hehe. So I was supposed to be inspired by my favorite towel, but since mine are all plain single-colored towels, I used one of my sister's towels instead. She is not living with us anymore, so I did this from memory. It's nothing special, but I got to use two of my untried polishes.

First of all, I painted the dark blue, Model's Own Betty Blue on one third of my nails. When that was dry, I added the lighter blue, Catrice Blue Cara Ciao to the rest. I let that dry for quite some time and then added a white stripe and white dots that I would cover up with my neon green polish by the Turkish brand Woo.

That green was really bright. It looked almost glow-in-the-dark, but it's a simple neon. It's quite sheer though. The white was definitely necessary.

Later that day, I went for a walk with my dog quite some time after sunset, but it was not dark yet. I noticed that the green was still really really bright and I decided to take a few pictures when we were back home.

Those last two pictures were taken after that walk in the last daylight. I was surprised that my camera captured it so well. It appeared to be way darker in real life. I think I like neons better than I thought. They are quite fun. But I still can't  see myself wearing a full neon mani yet...

That's it for my towel inspired mani. My pool party is coming up next.. hopefully tomorrow!

And here's the list of participants:

Victoria @ Manicurator

Alyson @ BEADS. NAILS. FOOD.

Mandy @ Mandy's Polish

Hannah @ Polished Prisms

Sue @ Creative Nail Design by Sue

Katee @ A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte-Louise @ Charlotte's Nails

Karine @ Karinea0a

Jen @ The Polished Zombie

Jessica @ Jessica's Nail Tales

Ashley @ One Nail to Another 

Pryanka @ Nail Sparks*

Anna @ Polished Cousins

Maribeth @ Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!

Sharra @ The Blahg

Stephanie @ A Little Polish

Amanda @ Counting Down to Bliss

Jess @ NearlyNaturalNails 

Heidi @ DIY Polish 

Becky @ Glamfiend

Spring Challenge 12: May Flowers!

There's three more designs of the Spring Challenge for me to post... one of them I'll show you today.

Design 12 was supposed to be "May Flower"-themed. I don't remember if the flowers I tried to recreate actually bloom in May, but I remember seeing them around in our garden this spring. I really wanted to do a manicure that uses the colors at least, but I decided to recreate the flowers themselves for this challenge. I hope you can tell what flowers they are supposed to be... :P

Despite my love for acrylic paints, I actually did this manicure with polishes only. The ones I used are:

- Manhattan Frozen Jogurt
- Illamasqua Load
- Color Club Almost Famous
- essence A Hint of Mint
- Catrice Virgin Forest mixed with A Hint of Mint
- Color Club Incognito
- Woo 665

Color Club Incognito is a light nude shade that looks really violet here. I was a bit surprised and had to check the bottle to make sure it really is Incognito. I think it made a surprinsigly well suited background for my flowers though.

Sadly, I didn't manage to take a solo shot of my thumb nail that wasn't blurry. In my opinion the flowers looked best on my thumb. But can you tell what flowers they are supposed to be? My colleagues mostly guessed the wrong flower... But to be fair the flowers they guessed also exist in this color pattern.

Two more to go... but well, it's all about finally posting them... ehem.
Have a nice day~