Sunday, December 28, 2014

I Like Sandwiches...

I'm on Team Turkey. Panera is rather delicious. How bout you? Peanut butter? Jelly?

I'm expanding my horizons and trying a jelly sandwich today...

...well, not exactly.

A jelly sandwich is technique where you apply a layer of a translucent jelly polish, then a chunky glitter polish, and top that with another layer of jelly polish. I have a tutorial on this technique (you can find it in the Tutorials tab--it's the very first one in that category!) if you want a more in-depth description.

I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Greenlight (which, by the way, doesn't seem to exist. Literally, I can't find any swatches of it online.) Greenlight is a squishy green-toned teal jelly, and when I bought it I actually thought it was a creme. To my surprise, it was a jelly! Hurray!

The glitter I used is Maybelline Clearly Spotted, a really versatile topper of black and white matte hex glitters. 


What would a peanut butter and jelly sandwich mani be? I'm thinking a jelly, a glitter, a shimmer topper, and another layer of a jelly. Huh! I might have to try that out...

XOXO

Is

Monday, June 9, 2014

Some Recent NOTD's

Greetings, nail lovers! I have A LOT of catching up to do with my NOTD's, so I guess now's the time! Some of them are recreations of various YouTubers' or bloggers' designs, in which case I will link to their post. Oh, and one more thing! I've been doing my lovely friend's nails recently, so some of these mani's are hers.


Here we have a lace half moon mani. This is a sort of recreation of Lucy's Stash's Lace Half Moon Manicure, one of several that she's done. I used Spoiled Correction Tape to paint the white base. I waited for it to completely dry, then applied reinforcement stickers to the "half moon" area and painted over it with Sinful Colors Cream Pink, a squishy neon pink with gold shimmer, and peeled off the reinforcements, revealing a white half moon. I waited for THAT to dry, and then used a black Hot Designs nail art pen to make a smaller half moon inside the white one and then black dots at the edge of the white half moon, and then connected the small black half moon to the black dots with black lines. Wheeee!


Here is just a simple mani with an floral accent nail. This are the gorgeous nails of my very dear friend, who I am currently getting addicted to nails. The hot pink is Essie Mod Square, which you can find a review of here. The accent nail is Essie Fiji, with flowers made with a dotting tool. The blue is Essie In The Cab-ana and the silver centers are Essie No Place Like Chrome. This mani definitely shows that I LOVE Essie!


This mani is based on the Chit Chat Nails' technique called a Skittlette, which she describes here. I like this idea a lot! However, I didn't quite like the result. Originally I had made the my pinkie completely covered in pink glitter, but I didn't like the look of that, so I took it off and changed it up. I started with a black base (Spoiled Visually Slimming). I then used a tiny paint brush to paint small swirls on the middle and ring fingers with Essie Mod Square and then went over the swirls with Essie A Cut Above. I finished with a matte top coat and then added a faux rhinestone with A Cut Above at the base of the nails. Done!


This is a nice mani, cute and sweet. It is a recreation of cutepolish's Pearls and Pastel nails, which I really liked! I painted the bottom half of my nails with Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac. I then added white stripes to the purple with Spoiled Correction Tape with a tiny brush and used a dotting tool to add white dots where the purple met the naked nail. I added OPI Happy Anniversary! to the white dots to imitate the nail art pearls (which I don't have). I finished with top coat, and then added a matte top coat to the polish! Pretty!


Here are my awesome friend's nails again! This is a simply triangle look. I started with Sally Hansen Pixie Slicks, a nice bright pink. I then blocked off a triangle with Scotch Tape at the tip of the nail with Spoiled Paying With Platinum, an interesting duochrome. It's grayish with flashes of purple, and at extreme angles, green. It went well with the pink... I like green and pink and purple together!


This is a recreation of a look from a video by MissJenFABULOUS, a YouTuber. I started with Essie In The Cab-ana on my thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers and Sally Hansen Pixie Slicks on my middle and ring fingers. I stroked In The Cab-ana down the middle of my middle and pointer fingers and then, with a tiny paintbrush, I flicked white (Spoiled Correction Tape) and the pink over the blue. On my 
thumb, pointer, and pinkie fingers, I made a large dot of pink at the base of my nail and a smaller pink dot above it, and smaller white dots inside the pink dots. Voila!


This was a rainbow dotticure. I used (in ROY G. BIV order) Essie Mod Square, Essie Really Red, Sally Hansen Sun Kissed, some non-brand random yellow ice cream shaped polish, Spoiled I'm So Jaded, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away, and OPI Funky Dunkey. I made rows of dots with a dotting tool. I wore it like that, then a few days later added Maybelline Clearly Spotted on top. It looked sort of ombre this way!


Now we have watermelon nails, again on my BFF. I started with Sally Hansen Coral Reef for the watermelon color, and then with the Kelly Green polish from the Hot Designs nail art pen I made a green French tip. I added a white line with the white Hot Designs pen in between the green and coral. Then, with the black pen, I added three seeds on the coral.


Last (and kind of least), we have a jelly sandwich. The polish I used was a bit too opaque, but oh well. I started with two coats of Orly Sky Blue Color Flip, a blue polish with a lavender and sometimes sea foam green sheen. I added a coat of Essie Set In Stones, a silver hex glitter, and then another coat of Orly. It turned out to be a bit thick, but it was a really nice mermaid-y look.

Whew! Well, that's it! I'm all caught up. I hope you enjoyed, and maybe it gave you some inspiration! If you decide to recreate something, please show me in the comments down below! See ya!

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XOXO

Is

Friday, March 21, 2014

Jelly Sandwich Manicure Tutorial

HELLO EVERYBODY!! I'm feeling pretty peppy right now! Anyone else? Today was just a good day. And it's Friday! It's a bonus!

So! Onto the manicure!














































































































































































































































































































































































You're probably scratching your heads and wondering what a jelly sandwich is. First, let's start out with the basics: What is a jelly nail polish? This type of polish is sheer, with a gooey, shiny finish. Here are two of the best descriptions I've seen so far: "Imagine applying a thin layer of red jello to your nail. That's what a red jelly polish sort of looks like! Some describe this as 'squishy,' meaning that it looks like you could squish a jelly polish (like jello)." -Nouveaucheap.blogspot.com. "...jellies are like lip gloss for nails while cremes are like lipstick." -blog.birchbox.com. So there you have it! Now, a jelly sandwich is a manicure technique in which you sandwich a layer of glitter polish between a jelly polish. This makes the glitter look suspended in the polish, similar to the look of fruit trapped in a gelatin mold.































































































































































































































































So here we have a diagram of a jelly sandwich. As you can see, the bottom layer is jelly polish, the middle is glitter, and the top is jelly.

And now, onto the tutorial.

STEP ONE: GATHER YOUR SUPPLIES



























































































































The first thing you will need to do is gather your supplies. If you are giving yourself a full-on manicure, get whatever materials you need for that. (I might do a post on my mani routine at some other point in time.) For this nail design, here's what you'll need: A base coat of choice (I use Essie Grow Stronger), your jelly polish (I will be using Essie Bouncer It's Me), your glitter polish (I will be using Essie Set In Stones), and your top coat of choice (I use Milani Quick Dry Topcoat). Note: For your manicure to come out looking right, choose a glitter polish with fairly large glitters and a clear base. It's okay if there are tiny glitters mixed in as well, just make sure that there are some big ones in there. A cool alternative to the regular square or hex glitter is to choose a polish will shapes in it, like stars, hearts, or other shapes.

STEP TWO: PREPARE THE NAILS

If you are giving yourself a full-on, luxurious mani, go ahead do so. You might want to cut and/or file your nails, push back your cuticles, etc. Once you do this, apply your base coat.

STEP THREE: ADD TWO COATS OF JELLY POLISH
































































































































 Paint your nails with two coats of your jelly nail polish. This will be the first layer of your jelly sandwich.

STEP FOUR: ADD GLITTER POLISH





This glitter will be the middle layer of your jelly sandwich. Depending on the density or "glitter payoff" of your chosen glitter polish, you may want to do one or two coats. The polish I used is the right amount of glitter for me, so I just did one coat.
STEP FIVE: ADD ONE COAT OF JELLY POLISH


This will create the "sandwiched" effect. Pretty cool, huh?
STEP SIX: ADD A TOPCOAT
A glossy shine is just what this mani needs to give it even more depth.
That's it! You're done!




























































































































I absolutely LOVE this manicure, and I will definitely be trying it out again soon. Just for fun, I added a satin (semi-matte) topcoat on it later.



















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































 Ehh. It kinda took away the depth. I wouldn't recommend it. 

One more quick tip: If you haven't heard of jelly polishes before, take a look through your collection and see if you have any sheer polishes. They may be jellies, and you never even knew! I had about three jellies in my collection already that I wasn't even aware of! 
That's it for this post. I hope this tutorial was helpful. Good luck with your jelly sandwich manicures!
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XOXO
Is