Daring Digits Master Shake and Crackle

A cute polish from Daring Digits, this is Master Shake. It’s a white jelly based polish with teeny purple and gold metallic glitters – and it reminds me of passionfruit yoghurt. Or smoothie, I guess, milkshake could be the name. Passionfruit milkshake. 😀

This is moderately sheer, three coats in these photos.

Pretty even though, not too many streaks to fill, which is nice for a white jelly polish!

Shiny, and dries quickly with no need for a top coat. Smmoooooth.

Then, because I had it, I used CR crackle polish in purple on my accent fingers, diagonally because I prefer that effect. Just to show you all again… this is why crackle polish NEEDS a topcoat. Before…

And after. MUCH better.

This was a nice, simple and fresh looking manicure, and I got a few comments on it, which is nice 🙂

Have a great day
Ami

Kleancolor Metallic Yellow, 24 Karat, and Black Crackle

This is Kleancolor Metallic Yellow, and basically it’s my perfect gold polish shade.  I wish I’d had this for the 31 Day Book Challenge, as it would make the perfect base for the One Ring mani. Look!

Kleancolor Metallic Yellow

This is two super easy coats, no top coat. It’s shimmery and beautiful. I had a PVA base coat under it.

Then, because I had it, I added a layer of Kleancolor 24 Karat, which is a lovely gold and holographic glitter in a clear base. It also has these really awesome silver with a pink flash diamond shaped glitters – although I personally think they look less like a diamond, and more like the snap-off bits from a Stanley or craft knife. hehehe.

Wow, that upped the bling factor! I LOVED this. I’ll wear it again for sure.

Then I added a CR black crackle I bought from the Otaki Coin Save, because the effect pattern on the top looked like a crocodile effect.

It’s not. But, when painted on the diagonal, it’s not too far off it! The vertical (normal up and down) looked ok, and the horizontal… eek. Burn that braincell. But the diagonal looks quite fun, I think. And I like the little knife blade glitters peeking through…

This was finished off with a coat of Kleancolor Fast Dry.. which actually dried fast. It was super strong, lasted a whole day and then a day involving digging a grave for a goat (poor Curly! He’ll be missed 😦 ) with no gloves.. and it didn’t chip at ALL.

Have a great day, full of glitter and no graves!

Ami 🙂

Swamp thing manicures!

Neither of these were really intended as Swamp Thing manicures, but I’m really pleased they turned out the way they did.

The first, a week or so ago, was a jelly sandwich of Mode Say Cheese (deep yellow jelly) with an in between layer of BYS Dazzling and finished with a last coat of Say Cheese.

I loved this look!

Radioactive swamp snot hehehe. A whole hand shot…

And todays: this is Jordana Green Glitz: A very pretty grass-ish green with holographic glitters and bar glitters.

These photos are 3 coats, it’s fairly sheer but not streaky, and dries super fast. Without top coat it’s a bit matte and a fair bit lumpy, but still very pretty.

Then, I used CR 16 yellow crackle, applied diagonally, and Kleancolor Fast Dry top coat.

Hehehe, look! Reptile nails!

Even Mr Husband Man liked these, he thought they were crocodile nails, which is awesome. Any mani he likes I make sure I brag about 😀

This dried fast and strong, no danger of chipping these quickly. I hope it doesn’t stain, because I didn’t use a base coat.. whoops. You’d have thought I’d have learnt after the Kleancolor Metallic Green incident, but you’d have thought wrroongg… (p.s. it didn’t stain!)

Have a lovely day!

Ami 🙂

Day 29: Inspired by The Supernatural

Sister V (on a roll, she was!) suggested something ghostlike – pearls, whites, glowing eyes. I liked that idea!

So, as this was ‘inspired’ by the supernatural I went with ‘ghostly’ rather than ‘ghosts’ – trying to give the colours and suggestion of it, and mutiple eyes. I used CR 58 (white) as the base coat, and over that I layered L.A Girls Cracked in white to give a tattered look. On my pinky I layered two coats of CR instead – not as an accent, but because I grabbed the wrong bottle of white polish. Ah well! Over all that I put on thin coat of China Glaze White Cap, with its glittery prettiness, and randomly placed red microbeads for glowing eyes in the tattered fog. One set of eyes is three eyes not two.. but I think that’s even creepier 😀

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

 

Day 28: Inspired by a Flag

So, this one was easy enough to come up with a concept – there’s ongoing wrangling in this country about what flag we should use – which gets a teeny bit tiring for me because they ALL want basically the same colours, and there are FAR more important things to be arguing about than a flag. But anyway, here are 4 flags all inspired by NZ flags:

Pinky finger is the first flag NZ had – the flag of the United Tribes. I based it off this article here, and I do quite like this one. And the name! What a cool name. Ring finger is the official National Maori flag – I do love the power colours in this! Middle finger is the ‘official’ flag of NZ – nice enough, but I think it’s too close to Australia’s flag, personally. Pointer finger is the official sporting flag – the silver fern on the black background. Or, in this case, white blob on black. Meh.

The colours I used were CR 58 (white), China Glaze Liquid Leather (black), Miki 8 (red), and Kleancolor Cobolt (blue).

Any favourites? Any other ideas for flags for this country? Me, I think I’d have the silver fern on a gold background with the unity symbol from the  Maori flag running through the middle and the four stars from the Southern Cross in the upper left corner… maybe 😀 The website with the full list of NZ flags can be found here 🙂

Have a great, trivial drama-free day!

Ami 🙂

Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

My amazingly artist sister, sister V in this case (I have two sister, both of whom are incredibly talented artisitcally!) suggested I take inspiration from Van Gogh’s  Starry Night or Monet’s Waterlillies. To paraphrase Shrek: oh yes, like that’s going to happen. My ‘skills’ are nowhere near being up to that! Instead, I chose to be inspired by this artwork by Piet Mondrian, from this awesome art website here.

Why did I choose this? Well, I was going to paint my nails black with a white line and just be lazy, but thought I’d go a bit further with the black and white theme, and while google searching modernist images this caught my eye – something about the splashes of colour and random sized grids, I think. And I thought it might be easy…

Well, I was wrong. I’m very often wrong, so it didn’t suprise me, but still! I painted my nails black with China Glaze Liquid Leather, then taped off the lines with striping tape. At about that point I realised it wasn’t going to be easy… parallel lines and I aren’t good friends. Then I tried to add the colour squares.. and that didn’t work so well. The blue was Kleancolor Sea Ice, the red was Depend 36 and the yellow was Depend 210 – and they’re both jellies! Over black! Argh! The white was CR 58.

Right in the middle of this, we had a man come around to give us a price for chopping down two of our huge pine trees – they’re too close to the house and damaged in a wind storm. So, during all of that the polish was drying – and collecting dog hair – and getting bumped… so when I did get a chance to pull off the tape the lines weren’t that clean. I topped up the colours a bit, so the red and blue is more colour accurate and a LOT more lumpy, and the yellow looks a bit like a boogy hehehe

Looks a bit odder when holding my hands normally!

Topped off with a coat Orly In A Snap, took a photo, took it off 😀
Have a great day!

Day 18: Half Moons

Day 18 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge – Half Moons.

I thought I’d be clever and make the half moons look like actual moons. And then realised I had no circular stickers as guides, and no white polish!

Half moon moons…

Polishes used for the mooon: CR 115 silver, China Glaze Sea Spray and Julep Melissa (dotted with plastic wrap onto the silver), accented witha frankened glittery white. The ‘space’ is Kleancolor Metallic Black.

I wasn’t happy with this: the colours weren’t right and the tape didn’t work too well, but I was surprised at how much I liked the overall effect.

I’ll try this again later, with proper stickers and prep work!

Have a great day 🙂

Ami

Kleancolor Sea Ice: Swatches and Layering

When I went to pick up Catch Me, I saw this one first. And then realised I had to have them both… plus a few extra.

This is much less teal than Catch Me, but it has just enough of a tint of green in it to remind me more of the sea than the sky – guess that’s why they named it Sea Ice, huh.

Sea Ice in the shade…

I’d still class this polish  colour as a true blue rather than a turquoise or teal though. Although, interesting-ish tidbit from my recent research into antique jewellery – the turquoise shade that we call normally class as turquoise (you know, greenish blue!) is not the best kind of turquoise: the best quality stone is pretty much this nail polish shade – a true, light, blue. (image from http://www.vintage-turquoise-jewelry.com/Anglo-turquoise-jewelry.htm)

The formula on Sea Ice was on the thicker side, but not too thick, and it did self level nicely. This was two coats – one thick one would have surficed, but two thinner ones looked better. Dry time was average.

Sea Ice in the sunshine!

I’m quite fond of this colour!

Then, inspired in part by Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise , I went looking for a pinkish top coat to put over Sea Ice. This is CR 106 – and yep, I did put it on outside in case this one too has nasty chemicals in it! While nowhere near as pretty a polish as Arctic Sunrise look, I do quite like this.

These photos are one coat of 106, and one incredibly thick coat of Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry. The last of the bottle, actually, I need more. And I will clean that bottle to use for PVA glue base coat: now, isn’t THAT an exciting development! Oh, if anyone is curious as to whether PVA is bad for your nails (no, it’s not), lasts long as a base coat (yes, it does), actually works under glitter to make removal MUCH easy (heck yes!) or under a creme polish (apparantly not as well), or whether you should use a base coat under the PVA (no… use one over it, if you need to!) then check out Pretty Purple Polish – she has done an AMAZING job of researching all the above for us.

So, yes, here is my mani using Kleancolor Sea Ice, and CR (naughty nasty polish) glitter. I like it.

Have a great day!

Ami

Day 04: Green Nails

Day four of the 31 Day Nail Polish challenge: Green Nails. I love green!

I got a chance to use my franken polish! I showed you all the what not to do post here… and now I get to use it.

This was one thick coat of China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint – which I left alone on the least streaky nail. (Democratic way of chosing an accent nail, methinks). Then I put one coat of my franken polish with the green and gold holographic glitter in it.

This was thick. It was like I just poured whole bottles of glitter into this polish. Oh yeah, that’s right, I DID heh heh heh. The base was a CR polish with holographic silver glitter and stars in it, one of which you can almost see peeking through the glitter on my index finger.

It was nice to be able to use this 🙂

Have a greeen day!

Ami

Kleancolor Americano: Swatches, Quick Comparison, and Fishtail Braid

I just typed fishtail brain into the title. I would have left it, but someone would have been disappointed 😀

Right! This is Kleancolor Americano, a very pretty nude which seems pretty metallic in effect.

Kleancolor Americano

These swatches are two coats, and no top coat. It dried quickly, and lasted quite well. I liked this colour more than I expected to!

Not sure why this looked so munted at the tips! Eeek!

This was SO shiny. It did look very foil or metallic, but not frosty at all – formula was excellent, a bit thin but no running issues. The photos pick up on some VNL with the two coats, but I am certain 3 coats would have covered this, and you certainly couldnt see nail line in real life – Americano was just too shiny! The only down side was getting ‘ba ba Americano” stuck in my head.

Blurry to show that amazing shine 🙂

I thought I’d compare it to the other Kleancolour neutrals/browns I had, and the Revitanail – which was far and away the closest.

Revitanail Prized Platinum, Kleancolors Americano, Frappachino and Cappuchino (who is rolling away in disgust at even being included in this ‘comparison” heh heh heh)

But in the close ups it’s pretty clear that Revitanail Prized Platinum looks a lot more cool/silver toned then the Americano, which is warmer/golder. I didn’t put them on, sorry, just not enough time. And I remember not loving the Revitanail due to the sheerness of it (earlier post here… oops, a photo didn’t load and now I don’t have it. Oh well, you get the idea!)

Then I tried another fishtail braid on my ring finger, using CR 113 (the silver), and China Glaze Harvest Moon. I wish I’d picked another colour than the CR (and not just because of potential health issues!) but because the silver was super reflective, as was the Americano, and it was a bit hard to tell them apart. The Harvest Moon was a good choice though.

I also started the fishtail braid off on the wrong angle, and it subtly bothered me until I took it off – but I survived 😀

Mani in the shade…

These swatches had a top coat – Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry.

Ok, I’ll ‘fess up, the blurry isn’t on purpose, the shiny freaked my camera out. But that’s ok, still looks cool! 😀

Have  a great day!