31DC2014 Day 09: Rainbow nails

Hello there!
Since this challenge started I've been waiting for an opportunity to do some less serious and more naive nail art and this is I think is a perfect time! My inspiration for this  - these nail wraps from BornPretty store.

I dont think I've mentionned this before, but I'm left handed and I swatch my left hand, so any nail art involving free hand drawing done by me sucks! :) So I had to find a sneaky way around it. I painted the rainbows on a sheet of plastic using a fine nail art brush and a bunch of polishes (if you are interested in the polishes I used just let me know in the comments), then after it dried I applied a good coat of topcoat over that and let it dry for a night. On the next day I separated the rainbows from plastic sheet and cut them out of topcoat with manicure scissors. So I got my own hand made decals! Should have taken a picture of them for you but I was too excited I guess :)
I started with 3 coats of Models Own Blueberry Muffin nail polish and after that was dry applied a thin coat of clear polish so I could stick my decals to it. I removed extra pieces with clean up brush and acetone. Then I used a large dotting tool to make the clouds. All done! Was not as time consuming as I expected. Doesnt look as neat as I expected either haha. Next time I'm doing these decals I'm gonna try for a thinner coat of topcoat, because my decals came out too thick which made them harded to work with. Overall I'm pleased with the result.

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC2014 Day 02: Orange

Hello there!
For today's 31DC2014 manicure I picked Sally Hansen XtreamWear #150 Sun Kissed. It is a bright orange creme polish, I used two coats for full opacity. For my accent nails I applied 3 coats of Models Own Banana Split and then made the bubbles using Sun Kissed and nimbus technique. The difference between the tutorial and what I did was that rather than thinning a drop of polish with acetone, I dripped polish into acetone, making it a very sheer and thin substance, then I applied just one coat of bubbles using a q-tip.

An InLinkz Link-up

NOTD: Pastel gradient

Hello there :) I'd like to share this cute and simple nail art with you

 

To create this manicure i applied two coats of white polish and then made a cradient using my new Models Own polishes - Banana Split and Blueberry Muffin. I actually tried to do it more traditional way - applying Banana Split as my base, but the Blueberry Muffin wouldnt show over it at all, so I tried laying white polish down first. I used cosmetic sponge for gradient. When that was completely dry i applied Valzer (which i believe comes from China) blowball water decals. They didnt show too well over yellow but I actually liked that.

My first Models Own purchase!

Hello there! Today I want to show you 6 polishes I got from Models Own bottle store.

I have seen a lot of swatches of Models Own so I couldnt fight the temptation to go ahead and buy the shades I liked. I got 6 shades for the price of 5 and the girls at the store put them into a box too which was lovely :) Also, every bottle was sealed in plastic and I loved the idea of knowing for sure that nobody has opened it in the store.

Let's start with 3 shades from Fruit Pastel collection.

Banana Split is a banana scented pastel yellow creme.

I have actually been looking for a good pastel yellow shade for quite a while and this one did seem perfect to me in terms of colour. Unfortunately the formula was not quite as joyful. The polish seemed too thick for my taste, the round brush it has and the thicker formula just won't work together for me. The worst part is that because of this formula the second coat turns out too thick and gets bubbly, also takes nearly forever to dry. I could have used a fast drying top coat, but i actully loved its glossy finish and didnt want to apply anything on top of it. But waiting around two hours after doing my nails and then still ruining it when trying to reach something in my bag... well that's not good.
The colour however did not disappoint me, it turned out exactly as I wanted and I totally loved the scent!
Swatches in the sun (2 coats, no topcoat):

And in the shadow:

Strawberry Tart is a strawberry scented baby pink creme.

The formula was a bit better on this one, less thick, yet I'm still puzzled about how people manage to apply 3 coats of this for their swatches. I did 2 coats with no topcoat.
In the sun:

Blueberry muffin is a blueberry scented blue pastel creme.

This one has the best formula of all three. The colour looks blue next to purple and purple next to blue :) I think it's best described as "blueberry milkshake shade". I got most accurate pictures in the shade (2 coats, no top coat):

In the sun my camera captured it baby blue:

Overall I think this collection looks awesome in the bottles but is not so great formula-wise. The scent is a nice touch and I loved how my nails smelled even in couple of days. It's always possible that I'm just not good enough at painting my nails and you will be able to pull better results out of these polishes. Good thing you can go to Models Own bottle store and try it out because they have testers available for every shade.

Moving onto Polish for Tans collection.
Bikini is a yellow neon.

Another formula I'm not a big fan of! Extremely thick and wont even out itself at all. Does get better with a top coat though. I didnt apply it for pictures because I wanted the semi-matte finish to be visible. This is two coats:

I imagine it would suit better to someone who actually has some tan, but even with my super pale skin it looked okay, made it look healthier even.

Flip Flop is a green neon.

This one is extremely bright. I can see myself wearing it to the beach :) Same thick formula and even matter finish.

The last polish i have is from HyperGel collection. This collection is supposed to have a gel-like glossy finish and increased wearing time but it's applied and removed just like regular polish.
Blue Glint is a bright sky blue.

My bottle has this cute shiny cap:

I have read online that these caps are limited edition though.
I was very happy with this polish to be honest. The formula was so much better than the other 5, it was very opaque too, I think i could have gotten away with one coat if I didn't use OPI Nail Envy as my base coat (it always, always makes polishes patchy). Dry time is not the quickest I've seen but it's alright. The finish is definitely gel-like glossy. Also the removal was a very pleasant surprise - if you ever worn blue polish you might know that blue pigment tends to spread all over your fingers or even stain nail beds and stay there like forever. Well this stuff comes off like a miracle.
Two coats without a top coat in the pictures below:

I know that if I'm buying another Models Own nail polish it's gonna be from HyperGel collection, there are some interesting shades left too. Overall I think all of these thicker polishes would benefit from a flat wide brush so much.
That's it for today, thanks for reading!