RAWR!! A Smaug-inspired Manicure - Kleancolor Metallic Purple, Red, Yellow; China Glaze Orange Marmalade

The end (of the year) is nigh! As is my tradition, I go out to the movies with friends on new years eve, so it looks like that's what I'll be doing this year too!

[Testing out the concept...]

This is relevant because today's is a rather old manicure that I put together before watching The Hobbit LAST YEAR (even though Smaug was barely in it...). I was in such a rush but here's the excerpt I used for inspiration:

"There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep...  ...and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed."

[Draconic underbellies r' us]

So here's my Smaug-inspired manicure! I first created a sponge gradient using the same method used here. The shades used here are Kleancolor Metallic Purple, KC Metallic Red, China Glaze Orange Marmalade and KC Metallic Yellow.

[Glitz and sparkle!]

Using clear polish, I then stuck on various colours and sizes of rhinestones on the tips of my nails before filling in the tips with China Glaze Medallion and Milani Jewel FX Gems! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Smaug in the second movie... I doubt he'll be quite as tackily glitzy as this mani though..... =p

I guess I'll catch y'all in the new year!! =)

Gift Time - Orly Au Champagne, striping tape

It's a day late, but here's my Christmassy mani! I decided to go for a wrapped present look. :D

[Orly Au Champagne with striping tape]

The base is Orly's Au Champagne, my favourite white nail polish. It's this soft, pearly white that dries semi-matte and looks like snow. I have used striping tape before but more to tape off the base as I put a topcoat over, like this gradient, striping tape mani I did awhile back. This time, I thought I would use the striping tape and seal the tape in. I quite like the result!

[Orly Au Champagne with striping tape]

The tape is actually quite shiny, which I wanted to show with this last pic.

I love the straight lines. The mani looks so neat and clean while Christmassy! The only downside is the mani doesn't last long, because the striping tape starts curling up a little bit at the edges after a day or two and well, it's far too fun to pick at. But otherwise, it's a cute mani. :)

Happy Happy Joy Joy - Mode Vicious Venom, Color Club Wish List Red, Glam Polish Big Bang Theory

HAPPY HOLIDAY-OF-YOUR-CHOICE!! =) Here's a Christmas tree inspired manicure that I slapped together for the silly season.

[Bottle to nail: Glam Polish Big Bang Theory over Mode Vicious Venom, Color Club Wish List Red]

I won't say too much about it, but basically it's a base of 2 coats of Mode Vicious Venom (previously used here) and then Color Club Wish List Red (reviewed here) striped over the top using the tape method.
 

[Base: Mode Vicious Venom (2 coats); Stripes: Color Club Wish List Red (1 coat);
Ring finger: Glam Polish Big Bang Theory (1 coat)]

I then edged the red with LA (previously used here) before topping off the ring finger with a coat of Glam Polish Big Bang Theory! I thought the assortment of round glitters in BBT would look awesome as baubles on the "tree"!

[Base: Mode Vicious Venom (2 coats); Stripes: Color Club Wish List Red (1 coat);
Ring finger: Glam Polish Big Bang Theory (1 coat)]

Hope y'all are having a great time and filling up on yummy food and catch-up time with family and friends! Mwaahhh~!

Fire Rose - China Glaze TTYL

I appear to be going through my collection of holographic polish recently... Here's another one for y'all this hot Sydney summer!

[Bottle to nail: China Glaze TTYL (2 coats)]

This gorgeous polish is China Glaze TTYL from the much-coveted OMG collection. It's a dusty warm pink linear holographic polish.

[2 coats: China Glaze TTYL]

Formula is thin and applies like a dream. These photos are two coats, but you may need three for longer nails.

[2 coats: China Glaze TTYL]

These are quite fine particle holos so you get a gorgeous linear holographic flame in the sunlight. You can see the holo effect slightly indoors as well! A nice "work-safe" shade with added zing!

Gleaming Green Apples - LA Girl Watermelon Splash, Elianto S02

As Christmas draws nearer, I've started picking Christmassy colours! Today, I picked bright green!

[LA Girl Watermelon Splash over Elianto S02]

I swatched Elianto S02 here if you're interested, but I mainly wanted to try LA Girl's Watermelon Splash from their Fruity Scented line. Watermelon Splash has green and gold tiny flakes in green jelly polish. It smells sweet on the nails even days after application. It's a pretty polish, but sadly, so sheer that even four coats of it wouldn't get it close to opaque, which is why I used a base.

[Under indoor fluorescent lights]

Slightly blurry photos to show you the shiny flakes! It's not super glittery but the tiny flakes make for a nice gleam. All in all, I like how bright and shiny and nice-smelling this combo is! :D

Gold Bar - Orly Lavish Bash

A twinkly glitter polish for the party season - this is ORLY Lavish Bash from the Secret Society collection.

[Bottle to nail: Orly Lavish Bash (2 coats over matching base)]

Excuse the strange colour of these images. The polish on my nails is quite close to how it looks in real life but I had to correct it so the background is tinged rather blue.

[2 coats: Orly Lavish Bash (over China Glaze GR8)]

Lavish Bash is a clear base jammed with heaps of tiny gold glitter and small silver holographic bars. You can wear it alone but it would have to be built up to 3-4 coats for opacity, I think. I put two coats over China Glaze GR8 which matches really well!

[2 coats: Orly Lavish Bash (over China Glaze GR8)]

The holographic sparkle is quite subtle so while it is sparkly, the small particles and overall champagne look tones it down from all-out glitter. An interesting polish, for sure! I might try it over black sometime!!

Glint and Glimmer - LA Colors NP392 Amethyst

I was looking through my old photos and I found these photos, but I couldn't figure out what nail polish this was. I was convinced it was a Revlon and looked through my stash, but I couldn't find a match until after a lot of digging.

[LA Colors NP392 Amethyst]

As the title obviously gave away already, it's LA Colors nail polish, NP392 Amethyst. I had to swatch it again to match it for sure. :)  It's a rather lovely plum-ish jelly polish with tiny blue and purple flakes, and I'm quite happy to rediscover it!

Ribbity Romp - Glam Polish Leapfrog

I'm loving neon glitter in creme bases and this here is one of my favourite polishes at the moment!

[Bottle to nail: Glam Polish Leapfrog (2 coats)]

This is Glam Polish Leapfrog, an aqua creme base filled with neon pink, yellow and green hexes of varying sizes. Application was great and these pics show Leapfrog at two coats (no base shade).

[2 coats: Glam Polish Leapfrog]

I love how pigmented the creme base is without dulling the pops of colour from the neon glitter. It is a bit muted in its participation in the neon trend, but great if you're dipping your toes and trying out some neon on your nails!

Field of Stars - LA Girl Teal Dimension

I don't have many photos of this nail polish, but it's absolutely gorgeous!

[LA Girl Teal Dimension]

This is LA Girl's Teal Dimension. I swatched another nail polish from the same collection here, and they're both lovely. Teal Dimension is a deep teal-green packed with small, irregular shaped chunky holo glitter.

There isn't much more to add to this except that I really like Teal Dimension and how glittery it is against such a rich green colour. Rather than just a straight-out normal glitter, these almost-flakes add an additional edge to the polish. :D  I'm really loving the nail polishes from this collection.

Perfect Chaos - Emily de Molly Turbulence

This is the absolutely gorgeous Turbulence by Emily de Molly that was among a truckload of polishes that Jme gave me for my birthday this year! A whole bunch of glitter in different shapes and sizes, yet everything goes together so well!

[Bottle to nail: Emily de Molly Turbulence (2 coats)]

The base colour is a deep blue jelly, just the right consistency for the glitter to layer nicely and give excellent depth. These are just two coats, so great coverage too!

[2 coats: Emily de Molly Turbulence]

My favourite bits are the hints of red and green, although there's actually quite a bit of holo glitter in the mix as well. A very complex combination - I'm super impressed!!

Start the countdown - Glam Polish Funhouse

It's sweet party time!

[Three coats of Glam Polish Funhouse]

That big curl on my ring finger was the leftover results of henna on my hand as part of my office Diwali celebration. :)

The nail polish has a pastel pink jelly base with purple and neon pink hex glitter of different sizes, and pale pink medium round glitter. Everything is topped off with a quick dry topcoat. I love that the base is jelly enough to see the glitter clearly through a couple coats, but it builds to opacity with two to three coats.

[Three coats of Glam Polish Funhouse]

Ah, round glitters are so fun and this nail polish has a sweet colour combo. I quite like it!  <3   And the title is from P!nk's Funhouse song.

Heavensent - Color Club Harp On It

I love holographic polishes! Especially now that the crazy rain has cleared up and the sun is out again - what better time than to break out the rainbows!

[Bottle to nail: Color Club Harp On It (2 coats)]

I'm sure I've blathered on extensively about the Color Club Halo Hues collection in all my previous holo-centric posts... so without further ado, this one here's Color Club Harp On It, a gorgeous silver holo with a very strong linear flame.

[2 coats: Color Club Harp On It]

I don't even have much to say! The photos speak for themselves. Even on my short nails, the holographic rainbow comes through very strongly. I'm sure it'll look even better on longer nails. Definitely check out our Color Club tag to look at all the other gorgeous shades in this collection!

Jungle Jaunt - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: In The Jungle

Time for an adventure In The Jungle!

[Foil transfer without topcoat: In The Jungle]

In The Jungle was a dream to apply. I left the glue to dry for ten minutes, and transfer was easy and fast.

[Foil transfer without topcoat: In The Jungle]

The above is how the foil looks without a topcoat over it. It's super shiny and holographic, less plasticky in real life versus the foil in the photo under artificial lighting. If you look at the first photo, it looks less strange under natural lighting.

[Foil transfer with topcoat: In The Jungle]

I applied Blush-amour over it and then Jordana Quick Shine Topcoat over the lot, the same as what I did for All Laced Up. Alas, In The Jungle is a shiny foil that crinkles under Blush-amour. Only the shiny foil parts crinkled, while the maroon and black spots remained smooth. The crinkles actually make the foil look a little more natural to me. I think this turned out beautifully for a rather quick foil transfer job.

If you like what you see, visit Epic Nail for other nail related funtimes! From now until 31st December, you can use our coupon code BLOGPLISHERIFFIC to get free shipping on all orders with a product total of $30 or over.

At Sea - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: Nautical

Look at the rainbow from the stripes! :D  Unfortunately, I think this will be the prettiest photo in this post, oh dear...

[Roll of foil: Nautical]

Anyway, I'm stealing Ev's photo (below) to show the foil in its bottle. The foil looks like it is completely opaque, but that's actually just a white paper rolled up behind the stripes. As you can see in the photo above, the foil is actually white, blue, red and silver stripes with no foil in between the stripes.

[Left to right: I Heart You, Pipe Dream and Nautical]

So you have to choose your base polish wisely as it will show up between the stripes. The only problem is that I don't know if there are any other choices except white. You can see it somewhat in the first picture; the stripes aren't completely opaque. I tried them over a dark base, and nothing was visible except for the white and silver stripes, which both came out looking gray.

Now onwards to the foil on nails!

[Foil transfer: Nautical]

The base polish I'm using here is Orly Au Champagne. I have applied the stripes twice on each nail, except for the accent nail which I have left with just its base polish. I applied Nautical once horizontally, and then on top of that, diagonally for the middle and pinky fingers, vertically for the index finger. Because the stripes tended to tear and crack, I had to reapply glue and carefully try to reapply the stripes in some places, with varying success.

Okay, to be honest, this was a really hard foil to use. Trying to do a foil transfer of thin stripes was absurdly hard, because the stripes are too fragile and thin, crinkling and breaking too easily. It took me two to three hours to do this because I had to keep redoing the foils from scratch, and you can still see the breaks and crinkles in the stripes. I pretty much gave up after this.

The result looked okay, but honestly, it was too much work for me to produce.

Diamond Frills - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: All Laced Up

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

If you have been following this blog, you would know it's foil time! Ev has passed the baton and I'm doing the rest of the swatches for the foils from the Essentials Kit at Epic Nail. The first one I'm doing is called All Laced Up.

[Dramatic lighting of a foil roll: All Laced up]

Now, what I like about the foils from Epic Nail is the way they're stored. I have received foils that are really tightly rolled and foils that are folded up. Those that are too tightly rolled are hard to flatten out to be used and difficult to roll back into place because they lack a cylindrical base. And those that are folded up have crease lines which is a bit of a waste. With these foils rolled in big and loose rolls around a hard cylinder, they pretty much unroll into a nice flat strip, so they're easy to use.

[Roll of foil: All Laced Up]

Okay, look at how shiny All Laced Up is on its own! The holo is amazing!

[LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo]

I thought a good base to go under All Laced Up would be LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo, because of its own super holo sparkliness~

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

Application for All Laced Up was pretty simple. They were a little bit delicate in parts, but transfer wasn't difficult. Ev goes into some detail on how to apply foils here, so I won't rehash that.

I used two thin coats of Blush-amour clear polish over the foil, and then Jordana Quick Shine topcoat (which is also a quick dry) over that. I find that Blush-amour's clear polish doesn't cause crinkles in some shiny foils so I tend to resort to that when I'm using foils. In this case, no crinkles again, which is awesome! I use quick dry over all of it for the extra shiny and also to dry Blush-amour's polish quickly.

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

Unfortunately, the holo on the foil was much reduced with the topcoat over it. But you can still see some of the holo in the above pictures, better photographed in the blurry photos as usual.

It's a shame my nails are a little small - cause my hands are small :( - to properly display the lace pattern of the foils, but the foils do look rather gorgeous as is.

Double Hearts - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: I Heart You

For my third foil transfer from the Epic Nail Essentials kit, I decided to change it up a little. I'm not quite sure if I succeeded or not though!

[Hearts on your nails, not in your mouth...]

Rather than doing a full manicure, I went with something a bit more cutesy to go with the heart design in I Heart You. Here's how I did it!

[Base: Revlon Powder Puff (1 coat); Topper: Color Club Pearl-spective, pa AA39]

I had a two-day-old manicure on which was a base of Revlon Powder Puff, a matte white polish with a blue sheen, topped with an iridescent topper (Color Club Pearl-spective) and tipped with flakies (pa AA39).

[Base: Revlon Powder Puff (1 coat); Topper: Color Club Pearl-spective, pa AA39]

I thought the shimmery white would make a great base to show off the deep pink and holo in I Heart You, so that's what I went with~

[Epic Nail: I Heart You]

Here's a shot of I Heart You - a dark pink background with shiny holo hearts. So adorable!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail I Heart You]

I carefully cut out three heart shapes freehand, and then one rectangle for my ring finger. I applied glue all over the nail for all except my pinky, where I did a french tip in glue. Once that was dry, I placed one heart on each of my nails, with a full nail on my ring finger. For my pinky, I used leftover scrap edges and transferred them onto the glue-tacky french tip.

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail I Heart You]

It worked pretty well, not as great as I hoped! The full nail looks great and I'm looking forward to doing a full manicure with this design. The hearts did not transfer as well as I had hoped, simply because when you cut out a specific design, it's hard lifting the transparent plastic away from the transfer as there aren't any free unglued edges to grasp.

I think some great alternatives would be to paint on designs (or even stamp them on!) in glue, somewhat like the french tip I did on my pinky. It's so fun to get creative with nail art and foil transfers are such a great way to get fancy looking patterns on your nails with minimal effort~ ;)

Stay tuned for Jme's reviews of the remaining three designs in this set! If these foils interest you, head on over to Epic Nail to check out what other goodies they have available! Don't forget to use our coupon code BLOGPLISHERIFFIC to get free shipping on all orders with a product total of $30 or over, up to the 31st of December!