Ther-marbling and Gradients with Polished by KPT

Hello!

I have been wanting to play with my Polished by KPT thermals more for a bit and I have had this mani in my brain for ages and I finally got around to doing it. And... I freaking love it and don't want to take it off and now I just want ALL THE THERMALS!

'Being In The Pink' and 'Kelvin Bleu' are both so yummy and gorgeous and so fun and easy to work with. They were so easy to marble with and I'm pretty happy with the way this marble turned out. I love the way this mani looks in between hot (bottom picture) and cold (top picture) - as it is in the middle picture. I also love how the gradient isn't very obvious when cold and then everything becomes so obvious when it heats up.


For swatches of these polishes on their own, check out my posts here and here. Polished By KPT polishes are available direct from Katherine's Big Cartel shop if you're in the USA. For us international people, check out this 'where to buy' tab.

Denim - piCture pOlish

Hi folks!

How are you all? I am about 1 week out from my last exams of my current degree! WOO. So that's why my posts are a bit further apart at the moment. Anywho, I have a gorgeous piCture pOlish shade today that you saw in my Blogfest mani a bit ago. This is 'Denim'...

'Denim' is the most gorgeous intense periwinkle blue. Anything remotely periwinkle, I must have, so I lusted after this baby for a fair while. I was so excited to get it as one of my Blogfest polishes! 'Denim' has heaps of shimmer and little irregular particles in it that catch the light and shine so beautifully giving an almost iridescent look. For my accent watermarble, I stayed in the piCture pOlish family. I used 'Cosmos', 'Monroe' and 'O'Hara'. I quite like how these colours complimented 'Denim' so well. It reminds me of the chromatography science experiments I used to do at primary school - you know separating the colours out of a dot with a felt-tip pen... No?... Ok...


'Denim' was pretty easy to work with. It is a little bit thick, but dries good and fast so no worries about pulling or anything like that. I used 3 coats for these photos, but I think you could get away with 2 (depending on how thick your coats are).


piCture pOlish is available from a whole bunch of places. Make sure you check out the piCture pOlish website, you can order this polish direct from them for $10 AUD or you can have a look at their list of distributors. You can also find piCture pOlish on instagram, twitter, facebook, pinterest and YouTube.


Some of these products were provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.
For more information, see my disclosure policy.

The Halloween Mani that Isn't...

Hi!

I have a mani on today that was originally going to be very different and was set to be my first Halloween mani of the year. I always try what I'm going to do on my left hand first, but when I stamped over the polishes I used on my left hand it didn't show very well, so I decided to use the same colours with paler polishes... Long story short, it is no longer even remotely Halloween-ish other than the fact that the Dollish Polish glitter is part of a Halloween collection :D

So as you can see, not overly Halloween-inspeired in the end, but oh well. Once I saw how the gradient on my middle finger looked, I knew I had to use a chevron stamp inspired by my biggest nail crush of all time, Lauren of Tales About Nails!

Polishes used... The base for the glitter is Lime Crime 'Peaches <3 Cream' and the glitter is Dollish Polish 'What's This? What's This?' from last year's 'This is Halloween' collection (which has been rereleased in limited quantities this year). On my middle and index fingers is a gradient and water marble using Lime Crime 'Peaches <3 Cream', 'Pastelchio' and 'Lavendairy'. These are both stamped using Color Club 'Beyond' with Bundle Monster plates BM-408 (index) and BM-423 (middle).

As mentioned, Dolly has brought back last year's Halloween collection by popular demand. At the time of writing this post, these are still in stock, so hop over to her shop ASAP and grab them because they are awesome!!

Black & White Watermarble

Hi lovely people!

I have so so much going on with uni work at the moment so this will be a short sweet post. I did a water marble a couple of weeks back and lets just say it was not the easiest time I've had. It was a really cold night and I couldn't make any of my polishes that are usually fine work. Anyway eventually this happened...

I can't even tell you how many polishes I tried the night I did this. It looked as though some polish explosion had happened afterwards though, as there were bottles of polish EVERYWHERE! In the end I had to go back to my trusty a-england 'Camelot' and OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' and this time I added INM 'Northern Lights' to the mix. I also put a layer of 'Northern Lights' over the top of everything too to give a teeny bit more sparkle.


Overall I don't think this came out too bad. Lots of people seemed to like it, but I just knew how much trouble it was, so for that reason alone I couldn't love it too much... Anyway, hopefully next time I have a little more luck.

Polish Days - Seven Deadly Sins

It's Polish Days time again! I love Polish Days so much although at the time ,it always seems to stress me out. Basically though, no matter how busy I am, I try and make time to do a little something different for this each month. And for that reason, I really want to thank Hannah (Polly Polish) for setting up this whole fantastic thing.

This month's theme was the seven deadly sins. I have to say this one threw me a little and in my very limited time I had no idea what to do. In the end I just went with a simple water marble using colours inspired by four of the sins...

My sins left to right are...
• Greed - a-england 'Holy Grail'
• Lust - a-england 'Perceval'
• Envy - a-england 'Dragon'
• Pride - a-england 'Avalon'
With each of these main colours I used a-england 'Bridal Veil' and Girly Bits 'Hocus Pocus' on all the fingers.

I started out with the idea that I wanted black, one colour and clear polish as the marble on each finger. I love love love when Sarah from Chalkboard Nails uses her natural nail colour in designs and I wanted to incorporate this somehow. But for the life of me I could not make any clear polish work. I tried so many different top and base coats (quick dry, slow dry, everything). I really didn't want to give up though and in the end The Boy pulled this out and said "Will this work?"... Can we all just take a moment... He is a genius! I am so happy with the effect and I think you can expect different marbling variations using this polish in the future.

Make sure you check out how everybody else interpreted this month's Polish Days theme...

Polish Days: Get Back To Nature

It's time for February Polish Days. I love Polish Days as it makes me do something a bit different each month. Trouble is, I always seem to go a little overboard and can't seem to ever just have one idea and a nice simple mani. This month is no different :) The theme this month is all about getting back to nature. I decided to go with the weather theme that Hannah suggested, in particular the four seasons...

I decided to use different techniques on each finger. For Autumn, on my pinkie I tried the saran wrap technique for the first time. I quite like how that turned out actually. I have to say, the seasons aren't particularly appropriate for New Zealand, but oh well (e.g. it doesn't snow in Auckland and it is certainly not Easter in spring). I used quite a few different polishes so I will just list them below...


Autumn:
• Enchanted Polish 'Mean Mr Mustard'
• Takko Lacquer 'Va Va Voom'
• a-england 'Holy Grail'
• OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls'

Winter:
• KB Shimmer 'Witch Way?'
• Stamping - Konad Special White and Bundle Monster plate BM-323
• "Glequins" from Born Pretty Store

Spring:
• Lime Crime 'Lavendairy', 'Once In a Blue Mousse', 'Pastelchio' & 'Crema De Limón'
• Chi Chi 'Disco Diva'

Summer:
• OPI 'No Room For The Blues'
• Studs from Born Pretty Store


Make sure you check out all the other lovely Polish Days manis...

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.

Christmas Mani #2 - with Cult Nails, a-england & CrowsToes

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I have been away for a bit because we went camping in the Hawkes Bay with my brother and his girlfriend. It was kind of nice to be away from all technology for a few days and just enjoy some nature,  good company and a good book. Anyway, my nails have been naked and unfortunately we had a few breakages. That's ok though, my nails have been growing fairly quickly lately.

So today I have my actual Christmas Day mani to show you...

 I already told you in my previous post about how much I LOVE a-england 'Perceval' so naturally I simply had to use it again. And with the perfect red, I had to use the perfect green and in my book, greens don't get much better than Cult Nails 'Deal With It'!!

On top of the water marbled finger is, of course, a layer of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' and on my middle finger is a coat of CrowsToes 'Maxxed Out'. Déjà vu anybody?

I am so much in love with the amazing golden shimmer in 'Deal With It' and the best part... It's really not shy. The golden shimmer is really quite visible in most lighting.


'Deal With It' had a really lovely formula and for this mani I used 3 thin coats. Again, I used 2 thin coats of 'Perceval' for my pinky finger. I am pretty happy with how this mani turned out and I think I am finally getting the hang of water marbling! Yay because I really love the effect of it.

Hope you are all having safe and happy New Year celebrations! I'm off for another roast dinner tonight! I think I'm going to burst if I keep eating like this!

Christmas #1 with a-england and CrowsToes

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I had such a nice Christmas Day yesterday. It was 29˚C in Wellington which is basically unheard of. Anyway, this is one of the Christmas manis I did before Christmas...

I loved wearing this mani. It felt so festive. a-england 'Perceval' is one of my most favourite polishes in my entire collection and I have been grabbing for it more and more lately. It seems such a perfect red for Christmas.

For the water marbling on my index and middle fingers, I used OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' and 'Perceval' with a coat of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' on top (apparently I can't do anything without it these days). On my ring finger is a coat of CrowsToes 'Maxxed Out' (BEST CHRISTMAS GLITTER EVAH!!) and on my pinky is a coat of CrowsToes 'Hell Hath No Fury'.

As far as formula goes, 'Perceval' is about as good as it gets. For this mani, I did use 2 coats, but I have many times in the past worn it as one coat.The glitters were both great as well. I love the glitter payoff you get with all CrowsToes polishes.

Hope you are all having a safe and happy Christmas/Boxing Day. I'm off to have another family feast tonight :D

Polish Days: MAN-icure

My first Polish Days! I'm very excited to have finally joined up with this awesome idea. This months theme is MAN-icure in tribute to Movember. I instantly knew what my MAN-i would have to be, as it is something that I get teased about loving, due to its manly nature (according to my friends). One of my big loves in life is Formula 1, namely Sebastian Vettel.

For those of you that don't know, Vettel is the current world champion, having won the championship for the last two years in a row, so he is car number 1. The 1 on my ring finger is the one on his RB8 (car) this season. The water marble is taken from the Red Bull colours (his team).

This is a quick snap of my Red Bull cap. Unfortunately I got this before Vettel won the championship the first time so it has number 5 on it. Anyway you can see the colours of the team there nicely.

The final MAN-i that you have just seen was actually attempt number two... I originally wanted the bright yellow from the nose cone of the RB8 in the water marble, but it didn't quite work as I had wanted...

As you can see, the colours all sort of muddied together. Much as I don't hate this, I am glad I redid the two nails. I love how the F turned out in the top one anyway.


I used a whole lot of polishes for this MAN-i...
a-england - 'Excalibur' & 'Camelot'
OPI - 'Red Lights Ahead... Where', 'I'm Not Really A Waitress', 'Yoga-Ta Get This Blue', 'No Room For The Blues', 'The 'It' Color'
Nicole by OPI - 'Listen To Your Momager'
Sally Hansen - 'White On'
Konad - Special White

If you have any questions about what I used where, please leave a comment and I'd be happy to tell you more :)

For the middle finger I used LeaLaC XL - B stamping plate and for my ring and pinky finger I used striping tape to get all the lines nice and straight.

I had lots of fun doing this MAN-i and it actually served as the perfect distraction to take my mind of the pain in my tummy while I was sick :)

If you want to sign up for the next Polish Days, hop over to Polly Polish for information.

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 :)

First Water Marbling Attempt!

Today I have for you my very first attempt at a water marble mani! I've always looked at pictures and tutorials for water marbling and thought that I'd love to give it a go some time, but I was never brave enough. Well, yesterday I plucked up the courage to give it a good go. It took a fair while but I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it came out considering it was my first go... To the pics...

Here it is! I used three of my gorgeous a-england polishes - 'Saint George', 'Excalibur' and 'Avalon' - and OPI 'No Room For The Blues'.

I came up with this colour combo in the middle of the night the other night and I think it was pretty cool. I want to try a bit more subtle water marble in the near future, but I do love how this one looked. 'Excalibur' tended to spread further than the others so that's why the silver is a bit more prominent in 2 of my fingers.

 

You can see what I mean about the silver spreading in these photos (plus I just love the look of the bullseye! So pretty). A handy tip I picked up from LTHP was to use a smaller glass so that you can get a tighter bullseye with less polish, though in saying that I didn't actually end up doing a tight bullseye at all.

There's a couple of kinks that definitely need to be ironed out. I'm not 100% sure why, but I got a few bubbles. I have actually since found a pretty awesome little tips and tricks post from Lacquerish that may explain this little problem. Like I said earlier, I am definitely going to be giving this technique another go soon, hopefully with a bit more finesse thanks to the things I've learned! It was so much fun, albeit very messy!

These are the designs on my thumbs. I didn't really get fantastic pictures of them, but you can certainly get the idea. My thumbs ended up being some of my favourites! Both of my thumbs some how came out with perfect little french tips in silver on my right thumb (see the left side of the top pic) and in purple in my left thumb (the right side of the bottom picture) - please excuse the tip wear, I got called into work last night and they got a bit thrashed!

Just because this is a post about my first marbling attempt, I thought I'd better pop in a photo of the actual first finger. This is on my left hand (hence it not being in the other photos) but it's kind of cool. Very different to the more flower sort of designs on most of my right fingers.

So what do you guys think? I had so much fun doing this mani and I can't wait to try some other exciting techniques. Anyone with any tips or suggestions about how to avoid pesky water bubbles, please let me know in the comments section! One other small problem I had was with top coat. Every single one of my top coats except one, Essie's 'Good To Go', made the polishes go all blended and cloudy. Particularly 'Saint George' would tend to mix with both 'Excalibur' and 'No Room For The Blues'. Curious, but luckily I tried my other top coats on my left hand fingers and thumb before doing anything on my right fingers :)