Spring Flowers - Sally Hansen Crush on Blue, Sinful Colors Purple Kraze, Ulta3 Honolulu

So it's been awhile but I think it's time for some dry water marbling using a silicone nail art mat.

[Spring Flowers]

Isn't this a lovely and bright colour combination?

[Sally Hansen Crush on Blue, Sinful Colors Purple Kraze, Ulta3 Honolulu
on Born Pretty's silicone nail art mat]

I started with a clear base polish, which I find is necessary otherwise it all kind of falls apart when you peel the mani off the silicone nail art mat. Then I did thick stripes of different coloured nail polish and dragged through the stripes using a toothpick to create the patterns above.

The nail polishes I used were Sally Hansen's Crush on Blue (such a pretty light blue creme polish), Sinful Colors' Purple Kraze (lovely purple matte polish), and Ulta3 Honolulu (a bright yellow creme polish).

[Sally Hansen Crush on Blue, Sinful Colors Purple Kraze, Ulta3 Honolulu]

Above, I've applied a base coat and then pressed on the nail polish patches to my nails before the base coat dried. I hadn't applied the top coat yet. I actually prefer the semi-matte look without the top coat, and the colours look more vibrant too. But if you don't seal it with a top coat, the mani really doesn't last.

[Sally Hansen Crush on Blue, Sinful Colors Purple Kraze, Ulta3 Honolulu]

And here it is with the top coat and the glossy finish.

I do feel like dry water marbling is quite a bit of work but I have to say, I love how it turns out and I particularly love this combination of colours for this pattern.

Fruity Sunset - Maybelline Lux Lobster, Rimmel Peaches & Cream, Australis Bless Thy Socks, pa AA38, Born Pretty BPL-023

Ah! After last week's gradient on my long-ish nails... I totally broke a nail! So I chopped them all back down, phew~

[Pining for apples]

And stuck a stamp over the top! Cutting my nails down also conveniently solved the tipwear issue, hehe...

[Cuticle to tip: Maybelline Lux Lobster, Rimmel Peaches & Cream,
Australis Bless Thy Socks; Topcoat: pa AA38]

Quick recap, here's my base which was a sponge gradient manicure using Maybelline Lux Lobster, Rimmel Peaches & Cream and Australis Bless Thy Socks, with pa AA38 flakie polish over the top.

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night; Born Pretty BPL-023]

Using a plain black stamping polish (Hit the Bottle As Black As Night) I used the pineapple stamping design from Born Pretty plate BPL-023.

I think this may be the first time I've used a stamp where the base polish is in the negative space! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to get a nice coverage over the base polish. You can see a bit of the orange base peeking through but it's not particularly visible to the eye.

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night; Born Pretty BPL-023]

I quite like the look of a stamped-over gradient, however I'm not sure how clear it is that these are pineapples! As you can see, I didn't quite manage to pick up the fine hatching on the pineapple itself. I know what they are meant to be so it seems obvious to me, but I asked someone and they had some trouble at first.. I think it would be more in-your-face if this design was stamped in black, and then leadlighted in green and yellow - just a thought for next time!

Juicy Jubes - Maybelline Lux Lobster, Rimmel Peaches & Cream, Australis Bless Thy Socks, pa AA38

Once in a while, my nails get long and I feel like I should probably do something to take advantage of it. 

[Sparkles for spring..]

Which in this case, means gradient time! I decided to go for some juicy fresh shades as the weather is just starting to warm up here in Sydney.

Here are the polishes I used - from left to right, Maybelline Color Show 60 Seconds in Lux Lobster, Rimmel Brit Manicure in Peaches & Cream and Australis Bless Thy Socks. I applied a base layer of Lux Lobster, and then painted stripes of all three onto a little cut-up square of (dishwashing!) sponge and sponged over the base to create a gradient from the darkest to lightest shade.

I then coated the gradient with a layer of that polish there on the right - pa AA38, a polish I picked up in Japan. This ones a translucent orange base with a generous helping of orangey-gold flakies all throughout. The flakies do settle, as you can see in the photo, but are very easy to resuspend. 

[Cuticle to tip: Maybelline Lux Lobster, Rimmel Peaches & Cream,
Australis Bless Thy Socks; Topcoat: pa AA48]

I think the jump from Lux Lobster to Bless Thy Socks was a bit much actually! Maybe just the first two shades would've been enough for a gradient. I know my nails don't seem all that long in these photos, but trust me, when I cut them down, they are totally nubbins!

Winter Wine - Dance Legend Hex

What we've got here is Dance Legend's Hex, a nail polish that looks interesting the moment it's applied and is still work appropriate! I believe this was a present from Ev which I'm just putting on now, but thanks, Ev!

[Winter Wine]

Hex from Dance Legend's Bow Conversion collection is a temperature colour changing nail polish. It's dusty red when it's warm and a very dark red when it's cold, with a smattering of holo microglitter. The nail polish dries semi-matte.

[Dance Legend Hex]

As you can see, Hex is a solid dark red in its cool bottle. I also quite like Dance Legend's rectangular bottles, which I believe I have gone on and on over it before. :P

[Dance Legend Hex]

The last photo is slightly blurry just to capture the holo microglitter. Honestly, the microglitter is too sparse to be very noticeable in person but what I really like about Hex, and all of Dance Legend's colour changing nail polishes, is that they are really sensitive to temperature changes. I don't have to do that whole washing my nails with cold water just to see the colour change. The tips and the rest of the nails are always different colours in autumn/winter and so they always make for such striking manis.

Sneaky Side-eye - Rimmel Winky Pinky, Australis Totes Orchs; Hit the Bottle As Black As Night; Born Pretty BP-128

Check out today's silly cute mani!

[Kitschy Kats]

It doesn't get any better than having some sneaky kitties on your paws...

[Bottle to nail: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

My dusty pink creme from last week (Rimmel Winky Pinky) was a great base for some stamping action.

[Born Pretty BP-128]

The plate I'm using was kindly provided by Born Pretty. This is plate BP-128 which features a whole host of adorable kitties, and a little group of bears too! As usual, it comes in a pretty cardboard storage sleeve, and a protective blue film over the plate.

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night, Born Pretty BP-128;
Base: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

I decided I wanted coloured-in kitties for this mani, so I painted a few patches of clear polish onto a silicone nail art mat to prep for some stamping decals.With a black stamping polish (Hit the Bottle As Black As Night), I stamped several different parts of the plate onto my dry patches of clear polish. I then filled in different parts of the design with white and a deeper pinky purple (Australis Totes Orchs).

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night, Born Pretty BP-128;
Base: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

When the decals were good and dry, I peeled them off the mat and cut them to fit my nails. I applied a clear coat to my base shade to get some tackiness, then placed each decal on and removed any excess, finishing up with a clear coat to seal.

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night, Born Pretty BP-128;
Base: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

I'm happy that I managed to get both cats and bears on my nails! The colouring-in could've been a bit neater, but I was lazy and used the polish brushes to fill in the pattern instead of searching for some fine brushes.

[Stamping: Hit the Bottle As Black As Night, Born Pretty BP-128;
Base: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

I love the look of coloured-in stamping decals! Definitely one step above a regular stamping mani.

If you want to try it out, you can find this plate and more at Born Pretty. As always, our discount code above will take 10% off full-priced items. =)

Rubies and Amber - Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs, Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone

It's time for studs~ For some nail studs. ;)

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs
Base: Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

Simple to do and looks quite fancy, in my opinion.

[Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs
Base: Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

I started with Pretty Serious' Forbidden Zone as the base, which is a deep red jelly nail polish with gold hex glitter of varying sizes. It takes two coats to be mostly opaque.

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs]

Then I used Born Pretty's Holographic Marquise Nail Studs to liven the mani up. There are six colours, one colour for two sections; gold, pink, green, red, silver, and aqua. These nail studs are really holographic and shiny by the way.

I dabbed a little clear nail polish on the spot I wanted, then I pressed a nail stud down on that spot. Hold it in place for a few seconds and then leave it be. Rinse and repeat for all the other nails. Once you're done, you have to seal in all the nail studs with a thick top coat (or multiple coats of a thinner top coat).

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs
Base: Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

I took a slightly blurry photo above so you could see the holographic shine.

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs
Base: Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

So, that's a variety of different things you can do with the studs.

But if those are too over the top for you, I think the studs can be used in really simple ways that still look pretty good.

[Born Pretty Holographic Marquise Nail Studs
Base: Pretty Serious Forbidden Zone]

How simple is that? But I love how it looks too. I think the marquis shape really lends itself to versatile patterns, from simple but fancy to more detailed and fancy. This is possibly my favorite kind of nail studs of all.

If you like what you see here, you can get the Holographic Marquise Nail Studs here at Born Pretty and you can get 10% off on full price items if you use the code above.