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?

Fall into Autumn 12: Harvest

So here's another manicure I did for the Fall into Autumn Challenge. Only one more theme to go and it's the Winter Challenge already! But before that, I have got to show you my harvest mani.

I really wanted to do something inspired by my work&travel experience in Japan. But that turned out more difficult than I thought. At first, I wanted to do cabbage inspired nails. We would cover them in newspaper to store them. Sounds like a nice twist to a green mani... but then there was work and I was too tired to tackle the newspaper technique. Then I thought about the Kaki strings we would do. I have no idea if other countries do it too, but in the region I worked at, they would kind of sew Kaki fruits to strings and hang them in front of the windows to dry them. They are supposed to get moldy with a special kind of mold. I didn't get to see that, but I spent some days preparing those strings. But... no nice Kaki orange in my stash.

And then, there was the buckwheat harvest. That was actually quite fun because we did it in a big group. I'm not happy with the result of this idea, because you can't tell that it's buckwheat. But it looks like harvest, so mission accomplished.

My basecolor for this mani is Color Club Earthy Angel. The shade doesn't go with my skintone, but it seemed nice for my buckwheat field. I continued sponging the lower half of my nail with China Glaze Riveting, BeYu 084 and a tiny bit of OPI The IT-Color. I just got Riveting in the mail and I'm soooo in love with it! Gorgeous polish!

Next, I'd take my tiny brush and a piece of sturdy paper on which I put a couple of globs of Catrice Browno Mars, OPI Glitzerland and Color Club Rebel Spirit. I swirled them together to get a couple of shades and painted tiny stripes to form the buckwheat bundles and the rope around them. That's it.

I messed up the clean-up on my thumb. Didn't manage to do that in quite some time... In case you wonder why the pictures look slightly different than usual: My dear photoshop decided to act up a couple of days ago, so I had to use a web-based editor to work on my pictures. I hope I'll be able to solve the problem soon!

Until then... more swatch posts to come!
Take care and 'til next time!

Schleifchen und Pünktchen (again)

Lately, I have been going through a couple of my old blog posts, looking at the design I posted back then. I didn't change my polish/nail art as often back then and I still feel like I accomplished some great designs. But I realise that quite a bit has changed since then. My nails are way longer, I actually try to take care of my cuticles, but most of all, after one and a half year of nail art, I feel like I can do better with my paint brushes.

I had been eyeing one of my old designs for a while now: Schleifchen und Pünktchen. I really liked it and, actually surprisingly, it's currently in the top10 most viewed posts. I felt like wearing something cute again and had a couple of matching polishes on my desk: so here is a retry on this particular design. I didn't change much!

The only significant polish I changed is the white shimmery base. Instead of essence diamonds and pearls, I used W7 Polar Bear. I just had it on my desk and it's an untried, so this was decided. The other polishes are the same: p2 elegant for the tip, Manhattan 51K and Catrice Sweets of my Sweets for the ribbons. The black I used for the dots is essence black is back.

Since I wore W7 Polar Bear for the first time, I didn't know how it would behave. It's actually quite sheer. What you see here are three coats and it could have used a fourth on some nails. Luckily, it's not only sheer, but thin as well, so three coats didn't  make my nails look thick.

After painting my tips with p2 elegant, I dotted the edges with Manhattan 51K to start the lacey part. All of the lace was done with this dotting tool. One of the advantages of longer nails is certainly the increased space to paint on. I couldn't have done the lace part like this last year. It'd have covered up 1/3 of my nail.

Last time, I drew the light pink parts of the bow first and later outlined it with the darker pink. I did it the other way around this time, because it's easier to control the size of the bows that way. It worked fine - maybe due to increased brush control. The final step was adding my black dots to the tip. Well... I didn't get much better at this.

My final thoughts about this... I like the black dots in my first manicure way better. They're much more delicate. But I like the pink details better here. That's partly because of the space I had at hand this time. And even though I wasn't sure about it at first, I like Polar Bear better as the base color.

I still feel like I'm neglecting one of my favorite polishes. p2 elegant is a beautiful color and I really think I'm going to do a swatch post for this polish (even though it's discontinued). I haven't worn it since the first dots and bows mani! That's certainly the downside of being a nail polish collector...

Which one do you like better? First of second version?

Priti NYC - Oleaster (Swatch)

Today, I finally want to post my swatch pictures of Priti NYC Oleaster. I have already used this in two manicures. One of them was the Cloudy Days mani from the Fall into Autumn Challenge. I wasn't sure if I like this color at first. It's muddy, grey and not very pleasant looking. But well, it wasn't even true fall yet, when I bought it. Right now, this kind of color is everywhere when I look out of the window.

Priti NYC Oleaster is a grey with subtle green undertones that dries to a semi-matte finish. I played a bit with this polish while swatching. On two coats of Oleaster, I applied a matte topcoat on my index and normal glossy topcoat on my ringfinger. As you can see, the original finish of Oleaster is somewhere inbetween.

The matte topcoat makes it more greyish, the glossy topcoat a bit more green, in my opinion. I prefer Oleaster's own finish. It looks the most interesting to me. Mattified, I find it a bit too dull and with glossy topcoat, the shade is nothing special anymore. I'm not even sure I like it with my skintone. But I do when it's just left alone. Weird, hm?

Application and drying time are nice. I didn't know Oleaster was a semi-matte polish when I bought it, so drying time might have been a little faster than anticipated.:D

indoors

What do you think of this polish? Would you have bought it?