Magnetic Water Marble Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  Well, my WSU Shocker manicure from yesterday didn't do the team a lot of good for their Final Four game.  They ended up losing by a couple of points, but they put up a great fight and had a really good season.  Who knows what'll happen next year?

Anyway, I have a new mani today for you to see.  I seem to be stuck on magnetic polish lately, not sure what that's all about.  I got to thinking about other ways to use magnetic polish and, knowing that you can do a gradient with it and get a pretty nifty effect, I wondered what a water marble might look like. 

And now I know!  As you can see in the photo, the magnetic effect is really subtle (you can see it best on my thumbnail) which makes sense since it's a pretty thin layer of polish.
 

I started this manicure with 2 coats of Julep's Lena, a pretty teal with a gold shimmer.  Lena is pretty much a one-coater, but I can never seem to leave it at one coat...gotta have at least two or I feel weird!  For the marble, I used China Glaze Magnetix in both Pull Me Close and Instant Chemistry and a set of mini magnetic polishes from Ulta.  I picked this set up on clearance a couple of months back.  I used 3 of the 4 polishes in the set; Opposites Attract (purple metallic), Rules of Attraction (pink metallic) and Polar Opposites (teal metallic).  Even without a strong magnetic effect, this turned out to be a pretty marble.  The colors look nice together and there's a pretty shimmer from both the magnetic polishes and Lena.
 

This was definitely an experiment and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.  My marbling is starting to look better with practice and it's becoming less frustrating as well. What do you guys think? Have you tried a water marble with magnetic polish before?  How'd it turn out?

And don't forget to enter my Sinful Colors giveaway...last day to enter is this Wednesday!
Thanks so much for reading!

Heavenly Manicure Two Ways

Hi there!  I'd like to welcome my new readers as a few of you have joined over the last couple weeks.  A special hello to the lovely ladies from the ABC Challenge, you girls are making my day with all your nice comments on my first submission, so thanks!

Today I have a fun little manicure to show you.  A while ago, I hustled to my local Walgreen's to grab a couple of Revlon's new polishes including Heavenly, a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Stairway to Heaven.  Heavenly has square blue/purple/green iridescent glitters mixed with orange/copper/red iridescent glitters in a milky base.  The only thing to do with a polish this lovely is to layer it over a darker base color...which is what I did!  Whaddya think?

....more after the jump....

10 of 31: Gradient Nails

Howdy!  I'm a little late posting this, but oh well.  I figure the manicure was worn the whole day of Day 10, so it counts, even if I'm posting it 10 minutes after midnight ;)  Today is Gradient Nails and here's my version:

I started with 2 coats of Ulta's Magnetic polish in Put a Ring on It, a dusty rose polish with blue iridescent glitter.  Then, I taped off my nails in the middle and did a gradient from tip to cuticle using China Glaze Magnetix in Instant Chemistry, a dark maroon.  I reversed the gradient for the other half of the nail and then used a coat of non-fast drying top coat to reactivate the magnetic polish to create the diagonal lines.  This didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped it would, but I'll give it an "A" for effort.

Next up is polka dots so check out tomorrow's post!  Thanks for reading :)

Magnetic Gradient Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  The weekend is just about here (well it IS here for me, as I have today off).  Any big Labor Day plans?  I'll be headed out of the city with my girlfriends to go pick some apples on Monday.  I love apple-picking and I really can't tell you why.  It's probably more my love of road trips and hanging out with my friends more than anything, but it's definitely something fun to do.  

On to my latest manicure!

This is a gradient manicure done with magnetic polishes.  I had no idea such a thing could be done, but it's actually surprisingly simple and I thought the results were pretty good for my first effort.  I only had 2 nails that were problematic and fortunately neither was on my photographed hand :)

I started with one thick coat of Ulta's Polar Opposites*, a teal sparkle magnetic polish. Then I applied my gradient of Ulta's Opposites Attract* (a deep purple magnetic polish with a silver sparkle), sponging it on just as I would for a normal gradient.  Then, one nail at a time, I applied one coat of non-fast drying top coat.  This will reactivate the polish already on the nail, thus allowing you to use your magnet!  While the top coat was still wet, I used the striped magnet that came with Ulta's kit to do alternating diagonal lines on top of the gradient.  I did this one nail at a time so the top coat wouldn't dry before I used the magnet.  I let everything set for a bit and then applied a coat of my beloved Seche Vite.  To my surprise, having the non-fast drying top coat on underneath the Seche seems to have given this manicure a bit more shine than usual.  I'm going to have to try this technique on another mani and see if it holds true.  It's one more step, but, hey I'm already putting 5 coats of polish on, what's one more?

I love learning new techniques and I'm thrilled to learn that magnetic polishes are much more versatile than I thought at first.  I mean, once you've used a magnetic polish, it's cool at first but if it only does the one thing it gets a bit boring.  It's good to know that I can use them more like regular polishes...I have a few ideas churning in my brain for some new manis now!

I hope everyone has a great Friday and, as always, thanks for reading!

*These two polishes came in a set with 2 others, I got the whole set at Ulta for $4.99.

Let Your Garter Down

Howdy, everyone!  Just a quick swatch tonight.  This is another polish from the Ulta set I bought a few days ago.

Let Your Garter Down is a black-based polish with tons of sparkly blue glitter.  I'm fighting with the sun again, so if I manage to get some better photos of this tomorrow, I'll replace these indoor ones.  In any case, this polish is really pretty!  I'm digging these dark polishes lately, not sure why.  The formula on this one was much the same as Underneath It All.  I've used 2 coats here with a top coat of Seche Vite to counteract the slightly gritty finish.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ulta-mate Love

Howdy, everyone!  I know it's been awhile since my last post and I'm sorry!  Time keeps getting away from me and I haven't found a spare moment to put anything up.  Add to that the fact that I went almost a WHOLE WEEK(!!!!) without changing my manicure (no, I wasn't sick), and the lack of post-age is to be expected.  

Anyway, I am still here and I hope to keep a better schedule this week...especially since I took my very first trip to Ulta on Sunday!  *gasp* "Your very first trip?!", you say? "How could you not know the glory that is Ulta?!  How dare you call yourself a nail blogger?!", you say?  All I can do is hang my head in shame and remorse at missing this wonder of wonders for so long.  For some reason, in my head, Sephora and Ulta were the same thing.  Not to knock Sephora, cuz I know they have lovely beauty products, but they're a bit on the expensive side for me.  So, since I know Sephora's price point was a bit high, and since I thought Ulta was similarly priced, I figured it was no good for me.

Never have I been so happy to be wrong!  Ulta is lovely, their clearance section is even lovelier!  I picked up several new things, and managed somehow to come out of there with my budget (mostly) intact.  But there will be future trips...oh yes, there will be!

One of my new purchases was Ulta's Lust in Lace mini collection.  This collection has 4 mini polishes and a mini bottle of topcoat.  I know I'm a little late on this one, but I loved it the moment I saw it and since it was clearance priced at $4.99 down from $9.95, I felt I had to have it!  All the polishes have a black base with glass flecks.  Dark and mysterious, yeah?  Have a look at this one!

This is Underneath It All, a gorgeous almost black base with bronze-y bits of glass fleck.  After taking about a million photos of this one, I've determined that my camera is woefully inadequate.  I must start saving for a new one.  Underneath It All is much less green in person.  It really has a lovely coffee color with bronze to golden highlights.  There is a bit of green in it; in the first photo, you can see the green sparkle on my pinkie, but not nearly as much as it seems in the second.  I am so excited to try the rest of the polishes in this set!  The formula on this was great, I'm wearing two coats with a coat of Seche Vite as a topper.  Without a top coat, it is a bit gritty, which is kind of a neat finish but I couldn't resist seeing it all shiny :) 

I'll be posting later with some of my other finds and I definitely intend on spending a decent chunk of my hard-earned check this week at Ulta!  Thanks for reading!