Tried with Untried Comparison

Only one more prompt for the Never Ending Pile Challenge and then we are taking a break.  Today's prompt was a fun one for me, dupes!  I finally have a huge enough stash that I have dupes!  The funny thing is, I find that I am always drawn to the same types of polish...same color, same shade.  For a long time it was corals.  I grabbed every coral I found.  Right now it is neon pinks, even though I rarely wear them.  I have a problem.

My untried is Loreal Sexy In Sequins, a dark purple texture with gold, green, silver, pink and purple glitter.  I am wearing two coats here.  This polish is da bomb!  Problem is that I have three others that are very similar.  Seriously, THREE!

With Flash

Here's the line up.  All are shown with two coats:

• Index - Finger Paints Sparkle In The Sky
• Middle - Loreal Sexy In Sequins
• Ring - OPI Alcatraz Rocks
• Pinkie - Julep Glam Roc

As you can see, Sparkle In The Sky and Alcatraz Rocks are more blue leaning.  The OPI gives better coverage and has more depth of sparkle.  Texture is better too, smoother.

Sexy In Sequins and Glam Roc are the real dupe contenders.  I personally like the Loreal better, both for price and for formula.  It has chunkier glitter, which I love, and applies better.  Do I need all four?  Nope, not since I am trying to whittle away at my collection.  Which ones are going into the blog sale/giveaway pile?  Sparkle In The Sky and Glam Rock.

These are your nails.  These are your nails on dupes.  Any questions? Thanks for looking and commenting!

Double the Untried with One Polish

Another quickie today!  With one polish I am wiping out two prompts for the Never Ending Pile challenge, unpronounceable and best granny color!

With Flash

Artificial Light

This is four coats of China Glaze Chiaroscuro.  According to Wikipedia, chiaroscuro means "light-Dark" in Italian and refers to the use of contrast between light and dark in art.  Don't quite know how that relates to this color.  It is very sheer, as indicated by the our coats.  This may make a good color shifter for stamping though.  May have to try it again.  

As the pig says, "That's all folks!"  See you tomorrow!

KBShimmer Laugh Myself Lily Nail Art

I have a long weekend!  Didn't work yesterday, not working until Tuesday!  I hope to catch up on my challenges...and the housework....and laundry....and celebrate Bria's 19th birthday...and maybe squeeze in a date with the hubster.  Just a few things on my plate!

Catching up means that this is or yesterdays prompt for The Never Ending Pile challenge, free polish.  This one was won in a giveaway.  A couple months back, I was the giveaway queen.  I entered every one I found and won four in one month.  Since then, I just haven't had time.  Entering giveaways can be very time consuming.

This is KBShimmer Laugh Myself Lily, a glitter filled light blue jellie that looks different on my nails than in the bottle.  Totally opaque at three coats, the pink of my nail beds still influenced the color of the base, giving it a cooler tint.  I think if I would have used a white base, it would have shown up as the beautiful robins egg blue you see in the bottle.  Lesson Learned.
 

 Next I stamped with PUEEN13 and Julep Laree, a hot pink with a gold shimmer.

At some angles you could see the gold shimmer, but most of the time you just saw pink.  You can see the gold on my middle finger below.  

The finished look looks like a jellie sandwich, in my opinion, but it is not.  What do you think?  Ocean or psychedelic sky?  Thanks for looking and commenting!  Hope your weekend is good and long too!

Tina

My Neon Wall Has A Crack In It!

There is neon all over everywhere this season!  OPI, China Glaze, Essie, Color Club.  The list seems endless.  It seems, therefore, very appropriate for The Never Ending Pile Challenge to have a neon prompt.

This mani is eye shocking IRL.  Camera shocking too!  Imagine this about 10 times brighter and you may have a slight idea how bright it really is.

 



















 Stamping decals....that is how I achieved this look.  I started by stamping LLC-B and Finger Paints Black Expressionism onto my trusty silicone baking sheet.  I the filled the squares/rectangles with the following colors:

• Coral - China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy
• Green - China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard
• Pink - China Glaze Life's a Beach
• Blue - China Glaze Splish Splash
• Purple - Pop Art Purple

 Yes, this was a bit tedious and did take me quite awhile longer than most of my manicures, but I think it was totally worth it!

 After trimming the decals, I added two layers of Cult Nails Tempest and one of top coat.  While the top coat was still wet, I pressed the decals to the nail.  You can see, on my ring and pinkie, that I put a little too much pressure on the decal and split it.  Looks like my wall is crumbling (tee hee).

Thank goodness that, after all that work, I ended up really enjoying this!  It would have been pitiful if I didn't!

Even in the mega micro pics, I am still happy with it!  Being the obsessive that I am, that doesn't happen very often.

As always, thanks for looking and commenting!

Jindie Nails Clyde....Brown or Black?

Back again!  Today's prompt for The Never Ending Pile Challenge is brown.  I had several to choose from since I love brown polish.....I think I say that about almost every color, right?  This is going to very pic heavy since I ended up loving the look almost as much as the polish I chose!

So purdy!  But is it a brown?  Let's look closer.

With Flash

Artifical Light

  
This is three coats of Jindie Nails Clyde, one of a two polish Bonnie and Clyde collection.  It was fully opaque at two coats, but you know me, it is all about the depth when it comes to flakies and glitter, so I threw another coat on for good measure.  Technically, this is not a brown, it is a black jellie filled with lots of gorgeous flakies and shimmer, which give it a brown tinge.

Look at those flakies!  I love me some flakies!  There are bronze gold and copper flakies, plus pink glitter.  The pink was shy for the camera, but you cans just barely see them on my index in the flash bottle pic above.  This polish takes my breath away!

Next I stamped with GALS GA44 and Revlon Star Attraction, an antique copper magnetic polish.

What it ended up doing was making it look like the design was etched, even with top coat.

I loved the etched effect, even though it wasn't what I had in mind.  I did some test stamping and had a polish that was copper colored....don't remember now what it was....but must have confused which polish was which and ended up with this instead.  Happy mistake!

I am posting a lot more flash pics than I usually do because it really shows off the flakies.  Get ready for the pic spam!

Yep, the stone tells the whole story.  Thanks for visiting and commenting!

Blue Textured Gradient with Born Pretty Store QA82

Hello.....*sheepish grin*.  What started as a short break has stretched into 23 days!  The short break was to give me some extra time for this.....

Yep, my lovely girl graduated!  Despite her learning disabilities, she graduated Cum Laude!  She was so proud, almost as proud as her mamma!  One more pic.

Despite it being out of focus, I love this pic.  *sob*  My precious girl!  Okay, I will pull it together....

Once I took a few days off of blogging, it has been hard to pick it up again, despite having manis done.  To be honest, I love having a nail blog, but actually writing the posts is my least favorite part of the whole process.  I will be getting back into the swing of things starting with a late post for The Glittah Pirates Never Ending Pile challenge.

Very apropos that these are Bria's nails, don't you think?  This was originally for the gradient prompt, but it never got posted.  Might as well use it for the blue prompt?

I started with a gradient of Zoya Godiva, Zoya NYX and Zoya Sunshine.  I have used Godiva and NYX to accent some nail art, but never as the main part of a mani, so I consider them "unused".  Look at that MESS!  I used masking fluid around her nails, but even after I peeled it off, there was sandy, gritty pieces left behind.  I love the outcome, but would highly recommend the tape method instead.

Next I stamped over the gradient with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Cobalt Blue and QA82, which I received from Born Pretty Store for review.  They have a good selection of stamping plates at very reasonable prices.  To be honest, I didn't have high expectations for the plates I received.  I have had some very low quality plates in the QA series from other suppliers, the these are top notch!  It is well etched and stamps beautifully.  I chose this plate for its outline stamps as they will be great for lead lighting or stamping decals.  LOVE this plate!  Right now, selected plates are 20% off and, if you use my discount code, you get an additional 10% off the sale price!

Now on to the pic spam.

Bria loved this mani, so I had to include a mood stone pic!  Plus, with the flash you can really see how well the small details on this image stamped!  This mani made me want to go to the beach....in Hawaii of course!

It feels good to be back to the blog!  See you soon!

Superficially Colorful Listless Thermal Nail Stamping

I am not wild about thermals.  Why?  A few of reasons.  1.  Usually the warm color is pretty sheer and I am not wild about sheer polish.  I mean, I am a nail blogger....can you say nail staining?  2.  I am usually not that wild about the colors.  I am not really a primary color girl, and that is what I have seen around in the thermal world.  3.  My nail beds are different lengths.  I mean significantly different, which means that the color differential is not even when my nails are the same length.  You know how I do with uneven.  I am a picture straightener in a disordered world.

Then I stumbled across Superficially Colored.  Jinjit is a nail blogger turned polish maker.  Not only is she a sweetheart, she also makes some brilliant thermals.  This is my favorite!

Look at the olive to steel blue transition!  Let's look at the polish on its own.

Warm

Cold

This is three coats of Superficially Colorful Listless.  It really only needs two coats.  I wore two coats for three days on it's own and had a bit of tip wear.  Instead of taking it off and starting again for the stamping, I just threw on a third coat.  Fully warm is a pale olive green.  Fully cold is a blue tinged grey.  Now the transition!

This is the natural gradient for me during chilly weather.  You heard right, this is not a water induced transition, but what my nails looked like most of the day.   I absolutely LOVE it...even though it shows the huge difference in my nail beds.  I suspect that the transition will not be as pronounced in the warm weather, but that is okay because I actually like the warm color on it's own!

I wanted a "camouflage" stamping.  Something that reveals itself with the transition.  I had trouble matching the warm color, so I went for the cool.  I found that Pahlish This Song Is Ending, was the perfect match, only visible in the DMPs (dreaded macro pics), but not IRL.

I used the leafy design from Messy Mansion MM16.  Oh how I love the Messy Mansion plates.  New ones are coming soon!  

Oh so apropos since Messy Mansion is based in Australia! 

I don't know why I didn't get a mood stone pic, because I loved this one HARD!  Plus it seems it would be appropriate to use my mood stone for, what some call, a mood polish.Don't forget to check out all the other thermals.  Thanks for looking and commenting!