Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Emily de Molly - A Certain Shade of Green

Hi girls! How have you been? I hope winter is treating you kindly, wherever you are (here summer it's still in full swing, don't hate 8)

Today I'm sharing one of my first Emily de Molly polishes (the other I got at the same time as this was Cosmic Forces). Emily de Molly is an australian brand of indie polishes which features beautiful mixes of glitter and linear holographic polishes.
A Certain Shade of Green is a mix of silver, lime green and tiny lavender glitter in a seafoam green jelly/creme base.

It was opaque in 3 easy coats, but to get the maximum amount of glitter I put the bottle upside down for a few minutes between coats and used the dabbing method to spread the glitters evenly on the nail (thought I did get some bubbling on some nails, but that's my fault not the polish).
I just love how the glitters seem to be suspended in the jelly base! The base color is also perfect, because it's in that blue-green territory I just love and can't resist. The mix of glitter is super interesting too, I feel like they're tiny flowers and leaves peaking up from underwater and somehow that makes me think of Ophelia.
Do you like indie polishes? I was kind of skeptical at first, but I've come to love some indie brands like Hare and, now, Emily de Molly. I already have some more of her polishes in my wishlist ;)

I got my Emily de Molly polishes from a Llarowe restock for $13.00 each (plus shipping, which was not cheap but these little gems are worth it, imho). If you're in Australia you can also get them from the Emily de Molly site.


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

P2 Attraction and Stamping

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo un nailart estampado con colores bien veraniegos (según yo). El esmalte de base es P2 110 Attraction, un fucsia con un brillito azul bien sutil. Para estampar usé Midnight Metal de Estée Lauder, un azul metálico super opaco por lo que funcionó perfecto para estampar con la placa Moyou London Suki 04.

Hi guys! Today I have a stamping manicure to share with you, using polishes that I got from amazing nail buddies :) Since getting a XL Squishy stamper I've been obsessed with stamping manis, specially now that I finally mastered the technique with this stamper (it was hard at first, I was so used to my firm Konad one)
For the base I used P2 110 Attraction, a bright fuchsia with a somewhat subtle blue shimmer, which gives it an overall cooler tone. For the stamping I used Estée Lauder Midnight Metal, a beautiful saphire blue metallic, with the Moyou London Suki 04 plate.
I was really happy with the outcome, specially because this was the first time that stamping with the squishy stamper wasn't a nightmare for me, haha. This article on how to prep the pad by Michelle from Magic Talons was a real life saviour (check out the rest of her posts too, her stamping skills are amazing).
 
I was hesitant to share this last pic, macro is NOT kind to my skills lol, but I think it shoes how well this Estée Lauder stamps, giving crisp lines. I need to figure out if we got this collection here, because I might need a couple more :)

Thanks for reading!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

OPI Movin' Out and Stamping

Hey guys! How are you doing? Did the first month of 2014 treat you well? I hope so :) I'm doing well, just a bit disconnected from the blogs because it's summer break here and summer always means bad things to my nails.

Anyway, today's mani is this sort of challenge/twinsie mani I did with my blogging friend Chester from Chester's Drawers :) To celebrate her acquisition of OPI Movin' Out we set a challenge to use this polish in a stamped mani,  the theme being "floral". So here's my take
OPI Movin' Out is a super sheer polish, with a slightly mauve base but filled with red-to-green pigment, which make this polish stand out so much. Originally released with the Holiday on Broadway collection back in 2003, this polish has achieved HTF status now.
As a base for my mani I used China Glaze Purrfect Plum. Then I stamped over it with Konad Special White using the BM221 plate (my original intention was to use my newly received Create Your Own plates, but none of the images was "floral" enough in my opinion, so I went with an old favorite).

Then I added one generous coat of OPI Movin' Out, using the sheerness to my advantage to turn the white stamping into light pink.

In real life the color shift from gold to green is more visible and prominent than in my pics but two things happened: a) in summer I don't get direct sunlight in the spot I usually takes pics of manis and b) my softbox was apparently tossed out with the rest of the boxes from when we were going to move, so I need to make me a new one :(

Anyways I hope you ejoyed my mani and don't forget to stop by Chester's blog to see her take on our theme :) Thanks for reading!