Posts Tagged ‘Taupe’

NailArt Sunday – Stone Marble

Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

You don’t see a lot of nail art on this blog, and that’s something that I’m trying to do something about. Some of my excuses are lack of time and lack of skills, but you have to practice to get better right? And today is Sunday so I can actually take part of Lela’s NailArt Sunday! When I saw this beautiful manicure at One Inch Nails yesterday I wanted to try something similar myself. Can you really go wrong with some plastic wrap?

Well, my take on it is nowhere near as beautiful, but I kinda like the effect, it reminds me of stone marble so that’s what I’ve decided to call it. The base is a week old manicure with China Glaze Below Deck, a taupe/mauve type of color. I figured I should go with another neutral color on top, so I chose Pelican Gray from the same collection. I applied one coat of that, and then immediately dabbed away on the nails with a piece of scrunched plastic wrap.  To get an even texture I then added a coat of Seche Vite. The index finger nail looks a bit messy, I had to redo a part of that nail.

This last picture is pretty bad in quality, but I just wanted to show you a full hand photo of the manicure:

It may not be the most exciting manicure, but I like it with its discrete colors.

Catrice – Steel My Soul

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

Chaosophia of One Inch Nails wanted to see Steel My Soul, so that’s where I’m starting with the polishes that I bought in Germany. On the top of the cap it says “Brushed Metal Effect” and I think this is a fairly new polish that came out this Fall. It’s a light mauve taupe color with golden shimmer in it. So, what’s this brushed metal effect? It dries semi-matte (and pretty quick), and it does have a bit of a gritty feeling. I don’t really mind that as I think it’s interesting with some texture. To be honest I don’t think it looks that good up close, but at a distance it looks really cool. The formula is a little thick, and since it dries fast you need to be generous with the coats and don’t be too slow, or else there’s a risk of making a mess. I ended up with two-three coats on my nails.

It was a grey boring day so I did my best with the little light that was present.

I added a coat och Seche Vite to my index and ring finger nails, to see what it looks like with a shiny top coat on. The shimmer is more subdued, and the base color gets a little deeper.

An extra photo where I managed to capture some sunshine that bothered to show up for a couple of minutes:

Which do you think looks best? Up close i definitely prefer it glossy, but at a distance I really like the texture and color, it looks “natural” in some weird way, plus the shimmer is more prominent.

Below Deck and my first official Konad

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

Here’s Below Deck from China Glaze’s spring collection Anchors Away, it’s some kind of taupe/mauve creme. I’m not a creme person but I really like this one, it’s a nice neutral color with just a hint of a purple tone to make it more interesting. The application was nice and smooth, I went for three coats as usual and a coat of Seche Vite.

Generally I get bored easily by cremes if it’s not a super fantastic color, so after wearing it for six days I thought I’d try out some Konad stamping. I have to warn you though, this is my second attempt at doing Konad and I’m far from good at it. I seem to have a problem with picking everything up on the stamp, but I hope to get the hang of it someday.

First a photo of what I’ve used:

The standard pink stamper and plastic scrape, the M3 plate and the Konad special polish in white.

I guess it looks OK at a distance, but if you look more closely at the next photo you can probably see a few of the bald spots. At least I didn’t have any problems with smearing when applying my top coat.

Close-up of my index finger.

Have you tried stamping with Konad? Do you find it easy or hard to do? Is there any hope for me? =)