Saturday Nail Art - Chevrons

So, against all odds, the nail art I made from this week's polishes turned out...kind of OK?

 Nina Ultra Pro Art Walk, if you recall, is a hot pink creme with bright blue microglitter that just doesn't look right. Revlon Artsy has quite noticeable large bright blue glitter, and it seems like the colors actually go together (in a tacky sort of way). The subdued pink of Astra separating the two saturated colors ties it all together. I actually kind of like this.

I didn't remember to do a step-by-step for this art, but basically, I started with a base of Astra and then I used Scotch tape. Pretty simple. Join me next week when I finish up the A's!

Cirque Astra

So I swear I'm not some indies-only nail snob. It was not intentional that both the mainstream polishes (one salon, one drug store) would be hideous and the indie would be one of my absolute favorite polishes. I didn't invent the alphabet! Today just happens to be Cirque Astra.

 I had some indoor photos too, but the colors were off and just didn't do justice to this polish. I love taking pictures of Cirque Astra (my very first Instagram posts were of this polish!), and when I get my indoor lighting setup figured out, I'll probably take some more pics of it.

Astra, like Acid Wash, is from Cirque's Spring 2016 Speckled and Sparkled collection. The silver and charcoal specks make it look so much like marble when it's shiny; mattified, it reminds me a lot of easter candy, specifically those little chocolate eggs with the chalky candy carapace. Astra has the best formula of the four speckles, in my opinion. I considered leaving Astra out of this week's art, because it's clearly in a different league than the other two polishes, but I decided to just go for it. Come back tomorrow to see the art!

Saturday Nail Art - Marbled Marble

Have I mentioned how much I love my Simply Neat mat? Well...I love my Simply Neat mat. For today's nail art, I used it to make some dry-marble decals.

I marbled Cirque Acid Wash, Nina Ultra Pro Ahoy Matey, and Essie All Access Pass together using a small brush, and sandwiched the marble between coats of Wet N Wild Clear Nail Protector. When I make decals, I always make a few extra because I know I'm going to screw up some of them. I only needed four usable ones, and here they are.

The one thing I don't love about making decals is cleaning up. I need to get some of those little curved scissors so I can trim the sides, because dissolving a large amount of decal with acetone is gross. I put down a peel-off barrier to mitigate the dryness, but I still always end up with a goopy mess on my fingers. 

I wasn't sure that All Access Pass would look good with the other two polishes, since they're blue, but I think it turned out surprisingly nice. I also did some stamping over this art, check out my Instagram if you want to see it.

Cirque Acid Wash

Today's polish is from spring of this year, part of Cirque's Speckled & Sparkled collection.

It's actually the only one I had left untried

I had heard good things about Cirque, but had held off buying any until this collection. I picked up all four of the speckles, which are all crellies with little pigmented and metallic flecks in them. Acid Wash has blue and silver speckles in a white base, and it resembles a fancy countertop. 

I love this finish so much, and Acid Wash has a beautiful color scheme. All the speckles are among my favorite spring polishes. 

One downer about these polishes is they all have kind of a chunky formula. The base is slightly thicker than it should be, meaning that doing more than two coats is useless, since the flecks stop showing through. At the same time, it's almost always necessary for me to do three coats to get the polish even. These have a quick-drying (as in, "dry while you're applying them" quick) formula, and they don't self-level as well as I'd like. I think it's worth wrestling with them because they look so awesome.