Reddit Challenge - Week 11: Glitter

I've been looking forward to this week's challenge! I love glitter polish, though I don't have nearly enough, and I wasn't sure what to do for this week. I ended up with something simple, but very pretty and sparkly. You see, I keep seeing gorgeous nails with a nude base, and a glitter gradient at the tips, and I've always wanted to recreate that in my own way. And then I realized I have a very good glitter for that.

This has been my manicure for the past week. I didn't want to take it off because I was very glad with the result, even if it's kind of simple.

I used two coats of Essie Mademoiselle to give my nails a lighter but natural pink, because they're a bit orange tinted from all the nail polish I wear. Once this was dried I simply freehanded the tips and then used a sponge to make a fade effect. The glitter I used is a purple holographic one by Claire's, which doesn't have a name but is extremely pretty.

As a finishing touch I applied one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust over all my nails, and I was done.

It also didn't chip at all, so I wore this for almost a full week, which does not happen often... mostly because I tend to get bored and change my nail polish before it even gets a chance to chip.

I hope you like it! :D

Coral and silver french tips

 Hey guys.  Today I have something pretty simple for you. I was feeling a bit uninspired so I wanted to give myself some simple french tips which for some reason just wasn't working out. That's why I came up with some differently coloured and diagonal tips!

This is how it turned out. The coral is Essence - Off To Miami! I originally bought this colour just so I had a coral and orangey colour in case Iever needed one but I ended up really liking it. I let it dry for an hour and then I added the silver tips which is NYC - Platinum Card. 

So yeah, pretty simple but I think it came out pretty nice! I really need to practice with tape some more to get sharper lines. Good thing I have a ton of ideas for tape manicures. :)

Pink French Tape Manicure

 A few days ago the rolls of striping tape I ordered finally got here! I already tried it out for my Dalek nail art but since I watched the season premiere yesterday I decided to do a full manicure with my striping tape.

... speaking of Doctor Who, if you have seen it, wasn't it amazing? I'm not going to spoil anything for those who still need to see it, but I loved it! :D

Anyway, the manicure I did was not an original idea of mine. I pretty much copied a manicure I found on Google, and I wanted to give proper credit to the person who did it but I forgot to save the link to their blog and I can't find it on Google anymore. So if the idea seems familiar, that's why.

This is my result. While striping tape is very helpful for making shapes and sharp lines I really love to add them to the nail as an accent. So for this manicure, I first used some regular scotch tape to create the diagonal french tips. After that had completely dried, I carefully added the silver striping tape. I really need to practice with putting the tape on properly because some bits of tape at the edges are letting loose as I'm typing this. Oops.

After I had added the tape I added some glitter to my tips. I'm still not sure if I like the glitter or not, though.

The polishes I used were Catrice - Hot Or Not? for the pink tips and Essence - Party Princess for the glitter. The striping tape I purchased from eBay. I have 10 different colours that I got for about 4 dollar from this seller. I'm pretty happy with it and ofcourse I'm already thinking of other manis to create with it. :)

Lavender French Tips

Today I was feeling inspired. I saw a lot of pretty french manicures on several websites, and I decided to try my own. I have these french tip nail guide stickers, but they were absolutely terrible, and I am horrible at freehanding anything except for dots. As a result, my first ever attempt at taping was born!

It's definitely not perfect, but also not bad for a first try. It was surprisingly easy, and I'm very happy with how it turned out! I'm probably going to try out different colour combinations.

As for the colours, I used Essence Pink Diamond for the stripes and NYC Lavender Cupcake for the tips. Topped it off with the Essence Gel-Look Topcoat. I think I would have liked silver stripes better, but I like this combination as well!