Saturday Nail Art - Golden Ghosts on a Gradient

This week went wrong in more ways than one. I schedule my posts ahead of time, and it looks like I accidentally scheduled Black Holo Witch for today, when it should have gone up Friday (it was also the last of my backlog; I'm writing this on the day it goes up, and it's going up late). I also messed up when I picked the colors for this nail art...I used CbL Black Gold, Texas Tea (which was featured this week) and ILNP Black Orchid (which has black in the name, and is a holo, but wasn't part of black holo week).

I did a simple gradient with a makeup sponge. These pics look to me like I used three polishes, but the purple in the middle is just the two mixed together.

I stamped it with Powder Perfect's Golden Stamping Polish and Halloween plate, then put a border of Revlon Black Magic around the edge.

Even though I used NYC Grand Central Station, my ghosts smeared a little bit. I really do love this stamping polish; I bought all five of them, and the stamper, and the three plates, and I've been stamping my heart out lately. I'm definitely not the most skilled stamper, but I've certainly been getting a lot of practice!

Because Halloween is on Monday, and I just took a trip to Walgreen's and picked up a few new seasonal lovelies, I'm going to be posting Halloween polishes and nail art all next week! I'm calling it "Halloweek" because I am a genius. Join me Monday for my first spooky polish!

Saturday Nail Art - In 3D

This week's nail art is either my greatest triumph, or my most abject failure. You be the judge, hypothetical reader.

OK, so I forgot to take step by step pictures of this nail art. I'll just describe what I did. For my base coat, I'm wearing 2 or 3 coats of Sinful Colors Bali Mist. For the...uh, let's call them "sculptural elements," I took my peelies of Revlon Balinese Bay and Zoya Bay and cut them up with a pair of scissors. I then used an old, gooey bottle of NYC Grand Central Station to stick them onto my nails in a random arrangement. So there you go.

The peel-off base coat I used was NYC Strip Me Off (two coats), and the pieces were fairly stiff. Still, it was possible to shape them to the contour of my nail, and they stayed on fine. I've never seen this style of nail art before, and I surely don't expect it to catch on because it's sort of gross, but if you want to try it out and put it on Instagram please let me know if you're able to come up with a clever hashtag, because it's just not happening for me tonight.

Revlon - Balinese Bay

Boy, Revlon. This was one of my go-to brands just earlier this year, as I was getting really into collecting polish. Their Spring 2016 collection actually had a lot of good stuff in it, then nothing for summer and two polishes for fall - just like last year, actually, except last year we got Untamed, while this year there's like a hot pink with blue shimmer and some purple-blue glittery fake duochrome thing. I won't touch those, sorry Revlon. I do have a lot from this brand that I love, but I guess they must come later in the alphabet, because...

Today's polish is Balinese Bay. In all fairness, I do like this polish for what it is, which is an insane pink and black texture with scattered holo glitter. I mean, my god. I'm simultaneously delighted and appalled by this polish. I bought it at the Dollar Tree, along with a lot of Moon Candies and some Colorstays, and its collection mate Mayan Riviera. If you've heard that rumor that Seche Restore melts glitters, this is my evidence to the contrary. The same consistency as left over Nesquick at the bottom of a glass of chocolate milk, Balinese Bay has required a lot of thinning since I've had it. 

While I appreciate it as a matte texture, Balinese Bay can also be top coated with a couple thick coats of Seche Vite. You can see the little holo glitters popping.

For $1, I've actually gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this polish, and I've worn it a couple of times. I'm really not a fan of pink, but for some reason, this combo just makes me happy. While scraping Balinese Bay out of the neck of the bottle and trying to spread it on my nails is an ordeal, and the result is an extremely busy polish, I do really like the results. I used NYC Strip Me Off peel off base coat underneath, because this polish is currently 92% glitter, 7% Seche Restore, and the rest is actual suspension base. Join me Friday for another texture!

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!

Revlon Artsy

First off, I'm just going to apologize for the poor quality of this post: I'm sorry. I'm sorry about my bad retouching...

 The lighting isn't so great either...

There's some really inconsistency in the photo editing...

And what a lack of variety in the hand poses!

Overall, a really inferior post, even for this blog. But you know what? I can't bring myself to reswatch this polish. Monday I mentioned the mental garbage pile? Yeah, this one is in there, too. I'll be generous and say this polish was "challenging" to apply. Lots of pushing glitter around in a thick base. This isn't a polish you brush on; you dab it, or better yet, you don't buy it in the first place. It does look pretty cool matte, I'll give it that. Join me Friday for this week's good polish, which happens to be my favorite pink.