Sugar Spun Fetish - Cult Nails (with Sinful Colors & China Glaze)

I decided to do some major study avoidance earlier in the week and the best way to do that was to try the sugar spun technique. I had already been wearing (and loving) Cult Nails 'Fetish' and that seemed like it would work as the perfect base. Let's start with 'Fetish'...

I have always loved the look of matte black polish but have never quite mastered using Essie 'Matte About You'. Lucky for me, Maria from Cult Nails created these wax finish polishes. I love that sort of rubbery waxy look of 'Fetish'. So different and pretty edgy if you ask me.

So here's my attempt at a sugar spun mani... I didn't top coat it because I think the texture of this is a big part of the look of it. Overall it went ok apart from that big old glob on my pinky nail. This was the last nail I did and I was gutted when I did that! Must have been rushing to get it finished. Oh well, I decided just to roll with it. The colours I used were China Glaze 'Splish Splash' and 'Surfin' For Boys' on my index and middle fingers and on my other two fingers I used China Glaze 'I'm With The Lifeguard' and Sinful Colors 'Dream On'.


'Fetish' was so easy to apply. I barely needed the second coat, as it's beautifully opaque. I had been a bit worried about the dry time seeing as you obviously aren't putting a quick dry top coat on top, but I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it dried. For the sugar spun technique I searched a lot of videos on YouTube and if you're wondering how to do it yourself, that's what I'd recommend. There are always lots of good tutorials. I think the main tutorial I used was one by xoxo Alexis Leigh.

Cult Nails polishes are available from the Cult Nails website for $12 USD.

Neon Water Marble Take 2...

Hi guys!

Sorry for being slightly AWOL. We have had a busy last week in Wellington trying to spend lots of time with family before coming home. Anyway, I had another terrible time trying to marble in Wellington. There is something about that city that means I just can't make it work! After about 3 hours of trying, I managed to pull together something that looked like it worked. I had wanted to do some pastel colours, but the China Glaze neons were the only ones that I could make marble, so here we go...

Don't look too close, because it is not my best work, but considering how much went wrong I think it turned out ok. I used OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' with China Glaze 'Sun-Kissed', 'Surfin' For Boys', 'Splish Splash' and 'I'm With The Lifeguard'. On the top is a coat of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva'.

As to what went wrong, I have NO idea! I was using polishes that I knew marbled well as I have used them before but something just wasn't right. We tried everything to fix it (temperature, different water etc etc) and I have come to the conclusion that there is just some sort of curse against me marbling in Wellington :) Now I'm back home I am going to reattempt my original idea.

Water Marble take 2...

HI!!

I know I've been slightly AWOL of late, but today's my birthday so I'm hoping you can forgive me.
If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you will have seen this mani in the making a few weeks ago. When I went to visit my family in Wellington, we decided to have an evening of roast dinner and water marbling. One of my other polish crazed friends came over too and it was lots of fun. I decided that due to the terrible weather in NZ at the time, I needed some neon happiness to pretend it was summer already. Like I said, the weather was pretty average, so my photos are under a very overcast sky, hence the ghostly skin ;)

I used four of the recent China Glaze Summer Neons - 'Splish Splash', 'I'm With The Lifeguard', 'Sun-kissed' and 'Surfin' For Boys'. I love how they mixed to give orange, teal and purple as well!
In the process of making of this mani, anything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Needless to say, it was a fantastic learning experience. For the longest time, the polish just wouldn't spread on the water. We changed the temperature of the water multiple times to no avail. After much mumbling and grumbling, The Boy realised that the polish itself was super cold. So everyone set to work heating up the polish and everything went according to plan after that :)

I'm also slowly learning how to avoid bubbles, but I did get a few little ones. There was a bubble on my ring finger that popped as I pulled my finger out of the water and as it popped, it released a whole lot of polish on to the surface, so I got a little ghosty smear on that one. Generally speaking though, from any regular distance, these looked pretty cool. I got a fair number of comments when we went shopping the next day :)

These were the designs on my ring and pinkie fingers on my left hand. They were actually my favourites so I thought I'd show you them too.


In the end, I think this water marbling attempt was a success. I had lots of fun doing this and I'm hoping that each time I try to water marble, I will learn a bit more. I can't wait until I have time to try marbling again :)

It's A Me, Mario & Go Luigi! - Dollish Polish + Neon Gradient

It's definitely becoming more spring like here in Auckland and with the sun, comes a will to wear bright colours (actually who am I kidding, I never follow seasons). Anyway that sound like a good excuse to try something more with the China Glaze Summer Neons.

I started with a bit of a gradient with 'I'm With The Lifeguard' (green) and 'Splish Splash' (blue). 'Splish Splash' isn't quite as opaque, so you can see the the green is showing through quite a bit under it on my middle finger. That's ok though, you'll see why in a moment. This is without any top coat, hence the funny texture from the sponge. As usual, I followed Sammy's gradient technique.

Seeing as it appears no manicure is complete, these days, without a lick of glitter, I dipped into my vastly expanding collection of wonderful creations by Dolly and had to get out 'It's A Me, Mario!' with an accent of 'Go Luigi!' on my middle finger.

I loved wearing this so much! So bright, fun and slightly obnoxious, just the way I like it. I couldn't decide originally what I wanted to wear 'It's A Me, Mario!' over, so I think it's good that I got to see it over both green and blue here. I also like the way that it's not immediately obvious that there's anything different about any of the nails, then you realise that one of them has green instead of red glitter. 'It's A Me, Mario!' and 'Go Luigi!' work so perfectly together.

The China Glaze neons, 'I'm With The Lifeguard' and 'Splish Splash', both are pretty effortless to apply. They are ever so slightly sheer and so I had to apply 3 thin coats, but it's worth it. Both glitters could have done with a little more shaking, but I was a bit too excited and so application wasn't quite as easy as it could have been. At the end of the day, just regular glitter application really though. I fished for one of the stars and got slightly over-zealous sticking it down - with the skewer that I used to mix the colours for the gradient! So the star on my middle finger is covered in green, but I promise you this is entirely my own fault and there is no bleeding of colour, or anything like that, with the polish.

China Glaze polishes can be purchased from Candy Girl (for the Kiwi's out there) and the Dollish Polish Mario collection can be purchased from the usual places - Dolly's Big Cartel Shop as well as Llarowe (and I've just now checked and they're in stock, so go quick!!).

Gradient Nails

So I have my first attempt at proper gradient nails to show you today :) I've always loved the look of gradient nails but I haven't really ever thought I could pull them off. I have dabbled in sponging a bit of glitter on my tips but that's about as far as I've gone. Until....... Sammy from The Nailasaurus posted this amazingly easy to follow tutorial... As un-creative as I think I am, I actually figured maybe I could manage this. So here we go, this is my take on gradient nails...

I wanted to use colours that were very different and do something nice and bright. What better than neon pink and navy. The pink I used is Color Club's 'Warhol' and for the navy, I used OPI's 'Yoga-Ta Get This Blue' (one of my favourites!!).

As usual, the neon was near impossible to capture colour-corectly, but this photo is pretty close. 'Warhol' is a super bright, saturated pink. I love the shimmer in 'Yoga-Ta Get This Blue' too.

While I was wearing this mani, I got some SWEET nail mail from Ninja Polish. I ordered Nail-Venturous 'Floam' and 'A Dash of Princess'. Naturally as soon as they arrived, I had to try one of them and surprisingly it was 'A Dash of Princess' that really piqued my interest. Well, I gotta say, I LOVE this polish!

'A Dash of Princess' is absolutely packed with a mix of large and medium hex glitters in pink, white and some sort of pearly ones (see my ring finger tip), as well as little wee pink hex glitters. Love, love, love! I don't know what else to say but just that, I love it!


I'm not even going to start to tell you how I did this because if you haven't already, you should all head straight over to Sammy's blog because she explains it all brilliantly. And while you're there, check out the rest of her blog, she is basically freaking awesome at all things nails, especially when it comes to nail art.
As to the formulas, 'Warhol' is pretty easy to work with. I used two coats and it was ever so slightly see-through at the tip, but that was OK because the navy was going on top. 'Warhol' does dry matte (usual for neons) so top coat is definitely necessary, but to be honest, you'll be needing top coat to smooth out the sponging anyway. 'A Dash of Princess' was also really easy to use. Sometimes these sort of glitters can be a pain, but this is so dense that you get heaps on the brush and it's pretty easy to place the pieces where you want them.
I absolutely loved sporting this look and I definitely will be trying this again. I got so many comments on it too :) Most of all, thanks Sammy for making that tutorial. I love that you've created such a monster with it. Gradient nails are taking over since that post and I love it!