China Glaze Custom Kicks from the "Kicks" collection is a vibrant teal with a gorgeous golden sheen, so I wanted to use China Glaze Passion which is a golden chrome-finish polish, to do the design to bring the gold in the base color out a bit. I also used Konad plate m78 for the design. I love this particular image because it reminds me of jewelry draping across the nail. This is another reason I loved the idea of a gold stamp. I really like this mani a lot, and I like the image a lot more than I thought I would.
If you weren't already aware, I'm a pattern fanatic. If my Konad addiction weren't enough of a tip-off, you might recall my love for toile. It doesn't stop at toile; something about patterns just gets me. The uniqueness and interesting designs I could stare at all day before I could ever have a real grasp on what's really going on in front of my eyes. For this reason I also love Vera Bradley products. I love seeing the new patterns every season, even if they're not my cup of tea. Same goes for Liberty of London, who is famous for busy and breathtaking patterns that leave me in awe. When I found out MAC was collaborating with the London store for a new collection, I was so excited. Sadly, barely any of the products are calling out to me enough to actually buy them, but the scarf caught my eye. I'm not going to be purchasing a scarf with a makeup brand's name on it for $100, but I can still enjoy the look of it.
The sun is making appearance this week after our long battle with feet of snow freezing, windy days, so I wanted to do a holographic manicure. I picked Color Club polishes in Worth The Risque (base) and Wild at Heart because they've both got some holo qualities and have a nice contrast with each other. I've been obsessed with my Konad plates recently, so of course I broke 'em out for this one. I thought this design from Konad plate m64 fit with the prismatic quality of these polishes. The design really reminds me of light cutting through a prism and shooting off in different directions.
I've been on a french mani kick the last few days, so bear with me. I thought I'd make it a little less redundant by putting them all in one post, so here you go! All three are over Color Club Milky White Base Coat and topped with Seche Vite. The above mani is done with OPI Desire for the tips, Essie Vanity Fair for the base, and then I used Konad plate m29, and China Glaze Heliyum and Color Club White to stamp the flowers then I dotted Color Club Rebel Debutante in the middle of the white flowers.
Konad plate m51 is full of intricate swirling designs and has long been one of my favorites. I used a base of two coats of China Glaze Flyin' High and and let it dry without topcoat. Then I stamped over it with this plate and China Glaze Adore. I liked that unless you looked up close, you couldn't tell it had a pattern on it. The flash on the camera makes it more obvious, but in person it was a tough design to see. I kind of liked it's subtlety; if you can call turquoise nail polish subtle.
If you're new to Konad, you can watch this how-to video to learn more about it.
This manicure was a concept that I'd been wanting to do for a couple weeks, but I'd never used striping tape before. I figured there's a first time for everything, though, so I went to Sally and picked up a roll, and went to town. Here's how I did it:
1) After base coat, apply a coat or two of your favorite opaque white. 2) Using Konad plate m73, I used Orly Gumdrop to stamp the floral pattern over the whole nail, concentrating mostly on the base of the nail. 3) I applied the tape by starting a little above the bottom corner of the nail and pulled it diagonally across until it met with the very corner of the top of the nail. 4) On the portion above the striping tape, I painted the top using Orly Gumdrop. 5) I applied Seche Vite on top of it all.
I painted a bit on the tape itself, I think that next time I'll use some sort of guide to paint the section first and then apply the striping tape. The color scheme was inspired by a manicure idea my sister came up with when she used her new Konad set for the first time. She used the zebra pattern from plate m57 to put white zebra stripes over Essie Mint Candy Apple, and the color combo really sounded amazing. I'm working on trying to get her to send me photos, hopefully she'll relent.
For this Konadicure I used Shades by Barielle polish in U-Concrete-Me as a base and with Konad plate m78 I put this design on with Pure Ice Celestial. I gave it a title quite lacking in originality, but I love the book, and the pattern reminds me of waves. Ok, I didn't think it through very well, sue me. ;P
I was quite surprised about this polish from Pure Ice. I got it at Walmart for about $2 and it looked like a chrome to me. I'd never seen a darker blue chrome so I nabbed it immediately. The consistency was quite watery, very thin and insubstantial, but it creates a nice effect. The grey was a bit darker in person and there wasn't so much contrast between the shades in most lights. At arm's length, it really appeared as a dark dusky blue with a flash of light metallic here and there as I moved my hands. A very chic and subtle way to do a konad manicure I think.
Yup, that's a snap bracelet. If you're a girl and you were a kid in the 80s/early 90s, you had ten thousand of these damn things. Now they're back and my 6-yr-old, whose style is oh-so-Eighties, loves them. Especially this one.
The credit for this konadicure idea goes to grayeyez and brazenspider of MakeupAlley. I think that grayeyez did it first, by the sound of this post, but either way, it's such a cool idea. They called it rainbow snow leopoard, and I like that. I used Color Club White for the base, then used OPI Black Onyx and Konad plate m57 for the leopard print. Then I used a dotting tool and China Glaze High Hopes and Grape Pop, Color Club Power Play and Explosive for the dots inside some of the spots. I topped it all off with Seche Vite, which melds the whole mess together and makes it glossy as can be.
Here's a video I did that will acquaint you with the Konad method of nail art.
Ahh, the lace manicure; an inventive and creative nail art option that is the brainchild of Barielle celebrity manicurist Elle. The amazing mani she created uses actual lace and resins to seal the look. Aside from the easy, breezy Konad, I'm completely bereft of nail art skillz, so I went through my plates to see what I could do. Turns out there are designs that are very obviously begging to be made into lace. Namely the fishnet from plate m57 and the floral (I like to call it toile) pattern from plate m71. For the base I used three coats of Essie Like Linen and then let it dry completely without a topcoat. Then I used OPI Black Onyx to stamp on the fishnet on all nails, then the floral pattern on all nails. I sealed the deal with Seche Vite topcoat. While it's obviously imperfect up close, it's killer at arms length, and very sexy. The nude color underneath elongates the finger but there's still something going on on the nails. Love this and can't wait to try it over red. Woo Woo *wink*!
Here's a How-To video about how to use the Konad Stamper. It's crazy-easy, I'm telling you.
Here is the original bona fide lace manicure by Elle. If you want to give the real thing a go, grab some lace and check out this tutorial by Megan McIntyre from Beauty on a Dime.
