A Horribly Botched Attempt at a Dot Gradient

In my head, I envisioned this as a subtle blue-to-green gradient on a dark navy background.  In reality, it turned out to be more like abstract, slightly mismatchy dots on a background that looked pretty much black.

I used Sally Hansen Petrol for the base, and China Glaze Want My Bawdy and Unpredictable, from the Bohemian collection, for the dots.  Because of the sheer finish of these polishes, I'd anticipated a significantly less bold appearance of the dots.  I guess that's what globbing on the polish with a dotting tool will do.  I think the dots were just too big.  Even though I used my smallest dotting tool, I kept getting too much polish on it, and it turned out too "chunky" for a nice gradient effect.

This was how I did my right hand, and I actually like this look much better.  As mentioned in my previous post, I tend not to like dark polishes, so I was trying to cover it up as much as possible, and just have the background for contrast against the duochromey dots, but I think it worked better to have just a few dots on the nail.  Oh well.  Both hands still look cool, from a distance, and I haven't thought of anything I'd rather do enough to take it off yet.  We'll see how long that lasts. hehe.

Manicures of the Past Month

Well, so much for the idea of going back to posting regularly...  O chem ended up being a lost cause, and rather than try to catch up and finish this year, I decided to take the next quarter off, teach it to myself as well as I can, and then retake it next year so I have more to go off of than just the professor's lectures.  Oh, use the textbook, you say?  He wrote that, too.  I'm sure he's a brilliant chemist, he just happens to be vehemently opposed to visual learning (mentioned in class that he's an auditory learner, and always hated when teachers wanted him to look at the board), so as a result, all his explanations are verbal, with no pictures or diagrams to accompany them.

But enough of that.  Here are manicures I've done since my last post.  I'll list the colors used, when I can remember what I used, but some of them I'm not sure.  I've been painting my nails all month, sometimes several times a day, but for some reason, most of this month I've gotten in the habit of finding some "interesting" color rather than doing nail art to make it interesting.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there are enough swatches out there that I don't think I really need to be posting every time my nails were a shimmery purple or something.  Also I didn't usually think that at the time, so even if I wanted to post pictures, there aren't any.

This was one of my Valentine's Day manis (I change my nails like some people change shirts...).  The base was NYX Girls Roots, gold was Revlon Gold Coin, and the tips were Finger Paints Bauhaus Burgundy.

ORLY Fowl Play has become my most-loved dark polish, which isn't saying a whole lot, because I didn't particularly like dark polishes at all before I tried this one.  Or maybe it's saying a lot, since I liked it enough to decide I loved a dark polish.  Either way, I don't think this mani ended up being all it could have been.  I should have done a more intricate pattern with the dots (which were Revlon Gold Coin), but I liked it anyway.

Yes, yes, what's so special here?  You just got it to look like the bottle....  Well, that was the accomplishment.  Most people like layering Knackered over a really dark polish, but I loved how it looked in the bottle and wanted to achieve that same look.  Chameleon's Blue Sky is a duochrome with what I think is probably the exact same pigment as Knackered has, just more concentrated so it's an opaque polish instead of a topper.  Topped with two coats of Knackered, voila!  Bottle appearance achieved!

This mani was in honor of the 20th anniversary of Babylon 5's premier.  While I haven't watched sci fi shows as extensively as I would like, I'm fairly certain B5 will always be my favorite.  For lack of time, I tried a simple design with the two types of jumpgates (which looked rather like portals before I did the detailing on them) on a "space" background of Sally Hansen In A Flurry! (okay, I lied earlier, I also really liked this dark polish before Fowl Play.)

Probably the mani I've gotten the most comments on recently, this was a design I fell in love with and didn't take off for several days.  The base was Ulta Material Girl, which I intend to purchase a backup (or maybe backups...) of sometime soon.  I don't think it's anywhere near an exact dupe, as Aurora seems to be much more purple while this is definitely magenta, but it has that same scattered holo effect, so for the price difference, it's good enough for me!  This was one of my first attempts at stamping, and it was a little rushed as I realized part way through that I had a biology colloquium to be going to.

I'm rather late to the party, but I finally found a pairing I like for Revlon Whimsical.  Because of the incredibly sheerness of the polish, I didn't want to use it alone, but I also didn't want to use it with another thick creme finish polish underneath (I don't like when my polish is built up to be so bulky that it looks like gel nails).  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri to the rescue!  Blue Away (not to be confused with their Xtreme Wear shade, Blue Me Away--let's not get too creative with the naming, there!) is I believe a new shade in the line, and as with many of the other Insta-Dri colors, one generous coat goes on fairly opaque, and dries down pretty thin.  While I loved the color, and definitely plan to use it again, this polish will always scream "baby shower" to me.

I planned this mani around coordinating with the microglitter in Pure Ice Private Show.  It's an amazing color, and my camera really didn't do it justice.  There are magenta, red, blue, and gold bits of glitter in the black jelly, so I used NYC Columbus Circle Crimson, Water Street Blue, and Cosmetic Arts unidentified purple to go along with it.  I kind of wished I'd made the dots follow more of a pattern, as the space available was rather small for the "random" effect, but I really liked it.

It seems that my shamrock artistry needs a bit of work, but hey, I'll take any excuse to wear China Glaze Running in Circles.  In addition to green being my favorite color, this green, in particular, is just a stunningly gorgeous polish.  I love the glass fleck finish, and it's just such a deep, rich jade green that I find myself staring at my nails more mesmerized than when I'm wearing a linear holo.

This is the half-finished version of the following mani, and in some ways I like this one better.  It looks a bit more elegant, whereas the other one looks like an artist's color wheel.

And the finished version.  Since I just did this, I still have all the colors sitting in front of me on my desk.  Most of my nails smeared when I put the topcoat on, but I figured it'll only stay on until after my 10 am final tomorrow, so I wasn't going to bother redoing it.

Center: Revlon Sangria

Red: Pure Ice En Vogue

Yellow: Sally Hansen Bandage

Green: Sally Hansen Pumice

Teal: Sally Hansen Gray by Gray

Blue: Sinful Colors Lavender

Purple: Sally Hansen Anemone of Mine

Well that's it for now.  I don't really want to try to commit to a schedule, because while I'm free from the o chem that has consumed my life up til now, developmental biology and biophysics don't exactly sound like a walk in the park.  Especially since I haven't heard of any of my bio major friends actually taking biophysics. *gulp* I guess I'll just have to see how that goes....  The prof is the same one I took general physics from, and I did well in his classes without really trying, so hopefully I do well with his teaching style in this class, too, and have free time available for posting my manis, as well as doing more actual nail art, and less just painting my nails.