♥ NP Challenge #3 ♥

I am doing a little 'nail polish challenge' to see how many looks I can come up with using only 2 nail polish colors, along with base coat & top coat. I plan on doing some easy nail art, and polish techniques which are simple and require very little 'tools, like french tip guides, mailing labels, sponging etc.... Just for fun....

The colors I am using are Billie 'French White' & Wet n' Wild 'Sapphire Blue', along with a clear nail polish & Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat.

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Most of these ideas came form MayParis youtube & Blog page. She has tonnes of great videos and she explains things thoroughly. I still need alot of practice - but these turned out better than I imagined they would. I saw these nail art videos months ago, but never got into the spirit of trying to replicate them. MayParis has done an amazing job on all her videos as well as her blog.

My biggest problem with all five of these designs, is that my polish dried way, way to fast! Before I added the color I added a thick coat of clear Sally Hansen polish's - thinking that it would delay the polish from drying too fast and make the polish a little more workable..... There is still some 'lumpy' areas on my nails, but these are concept nails and so I will be taking this off shortly.

So in the future I will do these things for sure;

- use slower drying polish ( the Billie polish I used is a bargain polish that dries super fast)

- use less polish for the 'smoke' effect and more clear polish

- Maybe apply a good thick top coat, and letting it dry before trying any of these 'toothpick swirl effects'

Smoke look I was trying to copy...swiped this photo from the website Worth 1000....

I have written how created these designs above the photos of the individual nails below. These were all super easy, and I will likely do these again in the future sometime. All my photos are indoors with fluroescent lighting. I have changed my backdrop to white, I think it makes my hands look less like the undead, and brightens up the polish as well as the bottles.

THUMB - Swirly Smoke effect French Tip
INDEX - Swirly Smoke effect French Tip
MIDDLE -  Full Nail Marble ----- Tutorial HERE
RING - Day To Night Mani  -----  Tutorial HERE
PINKY -  Vintage French ---------Tutorial HERE  =   Blog post HERE


I am looking forward to perfecting this 'smoke' technique, I think this will look really cool with a Grey polish, and then a sheer milky white for the 'smoke' effect. I think that a 'flames' look, with orange, yellow, and red will also look really cool and is on my list to try ( like 1 million other things ).

THUMB

- 2 coats of Billie French White

- 1 thick coat of Clear Nail Polish

-  apply 4 medium sized dots of blue polish and gently swirl with a toothpick, picking up just a little of the white, but being careful not to scratch up the white polish underneath too much.

I had hoped to have a more sheer blue, but this Wn'W polish ' Blue Sapphire' is very pigmented, so next time I try this, I will use alot more clear polish and just a few very, very small dots of the blue. I think this is a nice twist on the traditional french mani - but i need to figure out how to do this with less polish to prevent bubbles..

 

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INDEX -

- 2 coats of Wet n' Wild Sapphire Blue ( let dry )

- apply clear polish 3/4 of nail, starting from tip

- apply a few dots of white polish to 'french tip area, and gently swirl white polish with a toothpick.

- I used too much white as I was hoping to have a more sheer 'smoke-like' effect, but it's still pretty♥

 

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 MIDDLE

- Apply a clear polish to entire nail immediately followed by dots of color polish

- Swirl polish's around and into each other with  a toothpick.

- Let dry and apply Top Coat

 ~ Wow ~

 

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 Day to Night Mani

- Apply 1 thick coat  of different colors polish to each side of nail

- Immediately drag a toothpick horizontally in both directions across nail

- Apply Top Coat

 

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PINKY -

- Apply a thick coat of polish to 3/4 of nail, immediately followed by a thick coat of polish in contrasting color to nail tip area, 'sorta' overlapping the colors

- Using a toothpick, immediately swirl the polish's together, I did a circular swirl and some dragging to get the colors to blend.

 

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