31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 9, Rainbow Nails

For today, I was sorta stumped on how to do today's challenge, because I don't really like just painting each one of my nails a completely different color unless it is in like a gradient or has a visible pattern (like red, white, and blue). But then I cam up with an easy idea that I really enjoyed wearing! Today's manicure creates a very cute look but is super easy to do! It doesn't even take a lot of time, just a steady hand and quite a few polishes. For my base color I used two coats of Foreverr 21's Taupe polish. I then added dots with a dotting tool . The colors from bottom to top were Wet n Wild's I Red a Good Book, NYC's Times Square, Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Maybelline's Color Show Go Go Green, Wet n Wild's I Need a Refresh-mint, and finally Wet n Wild's On a Trip. I love how it almost has a mosiac look to it when my hand is farther away. I was actually surprised at how well it turned out in such a short amount of time. I think I will end up trying it with just using warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) or cool colors (greens, blues, purples) to see the effect it has. How do you feel about rainbow nails? Do you like having a lot of different colors on your hand?

31 Days Nail Art Challenge, Day Four, Green Nails

For today's nails I decided to do striping with thick strips I had laying around my nail polish bin. I started off with two coats of Maybelline's Go Go Green and used Wet n Wild's Sage in the City over it. Like I have said before, I love Go Go Green (I used it in my water marbling post here) and Sage in the City, like the others in the collection, has a great shimmer and bold color. I think the two colors compliment each other really well and I liked how it turned out. 

After I had let that dry, I decided to use Sephora by O.P.I's Matte Top Coat. Personally, I think it is a great investment because it makes any nail polish more unique, and as an added plus, it dries quickly! I think the matte coat made it more interesting for me and I enjoyed wearing it throughout the day! How do you feel about matte nail colors? Do you like them enough to invest in a top coat yourself?

Water Marbling

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a long time! Today I have my first full attempt at water marbling. I used instructions and tips that I remembered from various blogs and Pinterest. I started off trying NYC Long Wearing colors Fuchsia Shock and Times Square Tangerine but it didn't spread exactly the way I wanted to. So instead I used two coats of Maybelline's Color Show Go Go Green as a base and used both the green and Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear White On to do the marbling. Overall I think this was a really good first attempt, but it did take a long time.

By far the one I think turned out the best was my middle finger on my right hand. The white was completely opaque and the design was interesting. 

As for my left hand, the designs weren't as intricate, and the white was a lot more transparent than I would have liked, but I think it still made for a pretty nail design.

Sorry for the polish staining along the cuticles!

Tips I learned while researching and doing water marbling are:

1. WORK FAST! The polishes I used at least seemed to dry quickly and then it becomes much harder to marble the colors together.

2. Use filtered water. I read this somewhere on another blog (I can't think of it at the moment) and it seemed to help the colors spread easier.

3. Don't get too complicated, at least at first. When I tried using the NYC colors I had originally planned to use the green, orange, and pink, and do multiple patterns. Between the lack of spreading and time it took for me to add the colors, I just created a disaster. I think if you master two colors first with simpler designs, then you can build up to those crazy, beautiful designs we all see on the internet. Practice IS perfect.

Tomorrow I think I am going to start a 31 day Nail Art Challenge I found over at http://www.galacticlacquer.com/ and show you a great deal on 8 nail polishes I got from Walgreens!