Golden Oldie Thursday Polish: Chevrons

Tonight's Golden Oldie Thursday is all about Chevrons.  Since I am nail art challenged, I decided to use some guides that I received as a Galentine's Day gift from one of my polish besties, Sara, who got them from Nail Vinyls.  I actually also purchased a few other things myself from Nail Vinyls that I'm pretty excited to try!

As always, here is the schedule of events if you would like to follow along or participate.

Remember the rules:

• The polish you use must be at least a year old.
• If you haven't been a polishaholic for that long, you can use the oldest polishes you have.
• The polish should be previously used, but if you're stuck, you can use a polish from your untrieds stack.
• You can use more than one polish as long as it fits the rules.

All polishes were purchased by me.

Tonight, I decided that I'd give nail art using soak off gels a shot.  My nails were breaking a bit, and I wanted to use the gels to help get a little better support while they grow out.  It was a pretty time intensive process that I'll describe below.

The polishes I used were all from Gelish that I purchased at Sally's at the end of 2011 and early 2012.  I used Shake it Til You Samba, You're So Sweet You're Giving me a Toothache, and Izzy Wizzy Let's Get Busy.

First, I applied one thick coat of Samba and cured it.  Next, I applied the vinyls to the freshly cured gel.  If you do your own SOGs, then you know that the color layers stay slick and tacky untl you've applied the topcoat.  That being said, it was a giant pain in the butt to get the decals to stick.  

After the decals were in place, I topped the mani off with So Sweet.  Unfortunately, because the decals wouldn't stay put, the watery gel just seeped right underneath.  I flash cured each finger for 10 seconds to keep the gel from sliding around, which helped in the spots where the decals were sufficiently affixed to my nail.  

After one coat of So Sweet, I took off the decals to assess the outcome.  As I suspected, bits of So Sweet seeped underneath and cured a bit funky.  I used a bit of acetone and my cuticle nippers to fix the edges a bit and to cut down any parts that were sticking up.

After that first coat, I decided to just free hand the remaining two coats of So Sweet and cleanup a bit as I went along.  I still flash cured it after each finger to ensure that it wouldn't slide around while I finished up my hand.

After I finished the art, I topped it all off with Izzy Wizzy and topcoat, cleaned it up, and it was ready to go!  

I wasn't that pleased with the outcome after I first finished.  For some reason, it looked weird to me.  Maybe because it reminds me of an Easter egg.  Or maybe it was because my skin was so ridiculously dry after using all of that alcohol and acetone to dehydrate and cleanse my nails.  

Either way, I decided not to do the same thing with my left hand.  Instead, I attempted a simple diagonal tape mani.  However, I had the same issue with it as I did with the chevrons.  The tape wouldn't stay down, and I had a lot of seepage underneath the tape.  I did my cleanup and went to bed.

When I woke up this morning, I was much more pleased with the outcome.  In fact, I'm actually happy with it and hope it lasts for a week or so before bubbling and lifting.  I tried a few things differently this time by using acetone instead of trying to do a dry cleanup between layers.  We'll see how that effects the wear time.

After all of that, though, I want to make perfectly clear that the Nail Vinyls work AMAZINGLY WELL on regular polish or completed SOGs.  It's just the weirdness of gels in between curing and before finishing the full mani that caused my issues.  However, my nail art noobishness really shows here because I should've used alcohol to remove the tacky layer before trying to add the decals.  That was what was recommended to me today by the super SOG expert Chickettes for the future, so I'm going to try that next time for sure.  Anyway, I really like the vinyls and cannot wait to try out more!

So, what do you think of my mani?  Do you do your own SOGs? 

An InLinkz Link-up

Pretty Little Liars: Black and White

I'm sort of having a nail identity crisis of late.  I can't decide if I want to nub them, grow them out, round them, squoval them, or what.  Plus, they're starting to peel again, oh joy, and my glass files are simply not cutting it.  I have a bottle of Quimica Alemana Esmalte Endurecedor para Unas (HOLY MOUTHFUL BATMAN) that Amy from @atlcatsmeow recommended I try after the Rejuvacote debacle, but I'm a bit afraid to use strengtheners now.  I'm also afraid because it doesn't appear to be three free, and while I normally don't care about three free, I do wonder if those chemicals have attributed to the overall crappiness of my nails.  Either way, I know something's got to give, so I'll probably try to use that strengthener more than one mani every two weeks to see if it helps.  We'll see, and I'll definitely keep you posted!  I'm still picking at my polish, which has helped me to tear up some of my nails, too, so that isn't helping the peel factor at all...  Meh.  We'll see.  That all being said, you're going to see shorter squarer nails in tonight's post.

So, I'm still doing the Pretty Little Liars challenge despite the fact that I'm pretty much a season behind.  I'm all caught up with what's on Netflix, but I'm woefully behind on this season.  Today's #RedCoatTuesday challenge is to incorporate black and white into your Pretty Little Liars inspired mani.  Why are we adding black and white?  I have no clue, hah!  But, I'm just going along with the rest of the gang.  Eventually it will make sense to me!

For tonight's post, I'm going to let the photos do most of the talking.  I don't tend to do my more in depth reviews when I do nail art, so I hope that's cool.  Click on the photos see them in more detail.  All photos are under artificial daylight with two coats of Blaze over two coats of gradient and one coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top and an uber thin coat of Alter Ego She Shines to gloss it up after a day of wear.

I started tonight's mani with a black and white gradient using Cult Nails Nevermore and Tempest.  Apparently, I shouldn't have used my Lemony Flutter to grease up the skin around my nails for better mess removal...  Because it totally absorbed way too quickly, making it next to impossible to clean up!  What's worse?  Nevermore stained the ever living poop out of my skin, so now my fingers look all dirty.  Yuck.  I tried to get it all off with nail polish remover, but waiting to scrape it off under the shower was a better option for removal.

After applying a coat of topcoat to the gradient to ensure it would dry quickly, I taped off each finger using striping tape.  I then applied two thickish coats of Zoya Blaze and topped it with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

I honestly wanted to do this in the reverse with red on the bottom and gradient on the top, but I was afraid that the red would show up through the white too much.  I'm undecided on whether I like this.  In a way it's pretty and neat, but then it also gets on my nerves because it's not what I had envisioned.

You can buy Cult polishes at their store.  You can buy Zoya polishes at beauty supply stores like Ulta.

Muse!!!

Tonight I'm going to the Muse concert in Orlando!!!!  I'm sooooo beyond excited.  To celebrate, I decided to try a little nail art.  I settled on doing gradients as base colors, then taping them off to do a peekaboo styled mani with the gradients popping through the black.  I also decided to attempt to recreate the album art for Muse's last album, the Second Law, on my accent nail.  It may come as a surprise, but I've never done a legitimate gradient, so I used this tutorial from Lissa's Polish Addiction.  I think that came out well.  Here is my first step.

Here are macros of the gradients.

Next, I taped off my mani using some striping tape.

Yeah, I may've been over ambitious with the taping...

Then, I topped the gradients with Wet 'n Wild Black Out.

Next, I removed the tape.

Once the polish is tacky, you can push down the parts that are sticking up, and take a  manicure stick and clear off the bits that fell back into the gradient parts.

Here they are without any topcoat.

Next, I applied a topcoat and did the album art on my accent nail.  

Here's the album cover for your reference.

It's not 100% accurate, but I think it looks pretty good.

Here's another shot of the final product!

I used polishes from Color Club, OPI, Kiss Nail Art, and Sally Hansen to create this look.  I decided to split it up into two nights work, so that I wouldn't spend too much time at once, which worked out pretty well.  I'm so super excited about this concert!!!  I'll be adding photos all night with my Instagram, so if you aren't a follower, you can find me here.  I'm set as private, but I will add you if you request.

Have you ever done a striping tape mani?  What about an album art mani?