Challenge Day 10: Grassy Green Gradient!

Today's challenge was a gradient mani and I didn't want to do the typical sponged gradient, so I did something a little different!

I think it looks like grass, which is I thought was a fun way to tip my hat to the end of summer.

This is what I would call a brushstroke gradient, and it reminds me of something you'd see in a painting! I really like the way it turned out.

The three colors I used were OPI Jade Is The New Black, OPI Green-wich Village & OPI Who The Shrek Are You?. I started with Jade Is The New Black as my base and added 2 layers of brushstrokes with Green-wich Village and then another 2 with Who The Shrek Are You?.

These polishes were great for this technique because they are not too opaque that it looks too much like stripes and opaque enough that they were easy to build up!

I love how much this looks like grass! Too bad it's a rainy, miserable day here, or else this mani would make me want to run around outside!

Tomorrow's theme is polka dots, which is funny because I've already rocked out polka dots 3 times this challenge, but I have a fun idea!

Challenge Day 4: Green feat. KBShimmer Radioactive!

I was feeling a little uninspired today, I have a terrible cold and am missing work. I was sick-free all summer, so I knew I was going to get it eventually.

Anyway, being uninspired is a great time to try out a fancy glitter indie polish! I have been lusting after KBShimmers for a while and finally got my hands on some! So of course I had to try one out.

Here's a fancy bottle shot for you all! This is KBShimmer Radioactive! It is part of the second most recent collection which was full of neons & glitter! Radioactive immediately caught my eye so I snatched it up as soon as I could.

This is 3 coats of Radioactive. It is a neon highlighter-green jelly with black square, hex, bar & shard glitter suspended in the base. It is surprisingly even brighter in person. I wish I had this earlier in the summer! It also would be a neat Halloween polish if you wanted to be Frankenstein!

Of course I didn't want to leave it at that, so I added some diagonal stripes with Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet and a striper brush. I didn't realize that the one stripe on my ring finger was a little shaky until I applied topcoat, oh well!

You can purchase KBShimmer online on the website and for all my fellow Canadian ladies you can purchase it on Harlow & Co!
Radioactive is currently in stock on KBShimmer's website but not on Harlow & Co. For restock information follow KBShimmer and Harlow & Co on Facebook!

Nail Art Challenge: Day 4. Green Nails!

So I'm finally back on track now with the challenge. I hope you guys enjoyed the yellow mani I enjoyed so much. It was hard to take off (both emotionally and physically, darn glitter!) but I am excited to show you the next mani!

This is China Glaze Entourage from the Kicks collection. It's a lime or a grass green shimmer that has a relatively fuss free application.

It is a little streaky when applying. If i didn't get it on fast enough, I would get bald spots. It could be because of the heat or something (It's 37°C here! 98°F for all you Americans. Pretty hot!), but i'm not too sure how that works. This is two thick coats of Entourage. It probably would've been better with 3 thinner coats, but because I had planned to do stamping over it, I didn't mind.

Here is the fun stamping I did! I just got the new black polish I purchased for stamping in the mail today and had to try it out. It's Kleancolor Black stamped with BM-211. I love this image. The combination is sorta reptilian, don't you think?

Now this polish was pretty good to stamp with. I've been having some issues finding a good black that's not Konad, because I like to budget my polish purchases.
It wasn't perfect, I had to fix a few fuzzy spots. I think the trick with this one is to push a little harder when stamping, but I'll have to play around with it!

I may be a day late, but this kinda goes along with Stamping Sundays! It doesn't look like they did a theme over there this week, but it's fun anyways. Head over to Adventures In Stamping to join!

Swatch Spam: My Favorite Polishes!

Polishes definitely come and go and I always come across a new favorite every once in a while. Especially at this time of year when neons are popping up everywhere you look. Well I was wondering what my actual favorite polishes were and I wanted to share them with you guys!
Prepare for some picture heavy swatch spam.

 

This is OPI Gargantuan Green Grape. However, when I look at this color I don't see grape. I see honey dew melons. You know, the blue-ish green color on the inside, this is the exact color. This is a light green creme that applies horribly streaky. You need 3 coats for full opacity. At the same time the color pay off is more than worth it for me.

 

 This is China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise. It's a neon so it dries matte as you can see here. Topcoat makes it shiny but doesn't change the color, it's as bright matte as it is shiny. This is one of my favorite colors so it's always been a clear favorite. The application is also a dream. The first coat is sometimes streaky but you only need two coats and it dries in a flash.

China Glaze Make Some Noise. This is from the new Poptastic collection and is an awesome bright color. It's a reddish-pink that covers beautifully in two coats. I bought a few others from the Poptastic collection but this one definitely stole my heart.

This is the best red in my collection, a must have for everyone. OPI Comet Loves Cupid is an oldie from the 2009 Holiday Wishes Collection. I actually got it for free when I started my job at the salon that I do hair at 2 years ago and it was one of my first OPIs. This is 1 coat, that's it that's all. You can see a bit of my nail line in the photos but not in person. Perfect. Red. I can say no more.

Last but not least is China Glaze Ruby Pumps. This is a favorite across the world as far as I can tell. It's a red jelly base with red glitter and an awesome color payoff in 2 coats. It's a pain to photograph, hence why I only have one picture (I took about 300, this was the only good one). This is a must have for all red lovers. Go get it.

What are your favorite polishes? Do we have any in common?

I'm off to celebrate Father's Day with my family, happy Sunday!