Sharpie Nail Art

I'm sure many have thought of it before - why not draw on your nails with a Sharpie marker? I have tried and here is what I found out:

• It bleeds and smudges when you put a topcoat over it pretty badly.
• It rubs off almost easily - don't even think about washing your hands without a topcoat!
• Wears off the edges pretty much instantly (I had to do a few touch ups for the photo, even)
• A basecoat is a must, because I'm sure they will stain your nails if touching them directly.

If you can get past this - and I have, Sharpies are pretty fun and easy way to sometimes do precise black lines and drawings on your nails. I really want to try this again, but maybe without making the tips black because the need too much maintenance. The base polish for this mani is Illamasqua Load.

Have you ever tried using Sharpies/other unorthodox materials on your nails?

Illamasqua Serenity

With topcoat

And a few weeks later!

Man, I love Illamasqua polishes more than I probably should so it's no surprise that I was happy as hell when I finally found Noble on the Sephora shelves. It's one of their rubber finish polishes, which are semi-matte when dry. I like to use topcoat to give them shine though.

Creamy formula, basically a 1 coater, dries fast, it evens very nicely, which is a surprise for matte polishes. There's no need to go over with a topcoat, then a matte topcoat since there is no lumps when this polish dries - best matte I have tried in a while.

PS: this is actually as long as my nails got EVER! I had to cut them down after this mani - they started getting stuck in the mouse scroll wheel :( Goodbye, claws

Illamasqua Scarab again

Ahh Scarab - my only vampy color so far and it's all I need for now. I've written about it before, but just had to wear it again. The formula is a pleasure to use and the color is so rich and sexy, it's super alluring to me. It looks better on shorter nails in my opinion but sometimes I like dark claws with either this color or black. I'm very happy with the sunlight in these photos - it helped capture the shimmer perfectly. I only had flash photos of this color and getting sunlight pics makes it look even sexier. Mmm!

Illamasqua Collide

Illamasqua Collide is what began my descent into neon pink madness this spring. It's a very creamy cool neon pink which seems very dupable in color, but the formula is absolutely fantastic. This polish doesn't need undies, doesn't chip; it does dry matte like any neon should, but I have not had any issues with staying power.

 Illamasqua polishes are a type of drug to me, they are high end polishes and the price reflects that; their formula is addictive and amazing (most of them, anyway...I'm looking at you, Load). They have a stock of common colors, even 5 shades of  bright red and I almost want to buy all of them! Why? Because I know it's going to be a breeze to apply and they won't chip for like a week. Every day I fight the urge to put on Illamasqua colors because I reach for them every time I want to do a manicure... that sounds a little weird, but they are seriously addicting to me. 

Have you tried Illamasqua polish yet? If you did, what was your favourite?

Dotty nail art with Illamasqua Rare

I'm usually terrified of full nail designs for Konad, especially with fine details such as gradiated dots, but I decided to take the plunge and practice. Illamasqua Rare is a wonderful neon, but it was a little too much by itself, so I added dots. For the accent finger, I immediately realized my mistake... while black is solid enough to stamp on yellow, yellow is not solid enough to stamp on black. I had to do it manually with a dotting tool, but it came out better than I expected. I had a good experience with this stamp and hope to try using it again sometime soon.

What do you think of a bright mani like this? Would you try wearing it?

Abstract Graffiti nails with Illamasqua Jo'Mina

I was itching to wear Jo'Mina again, so I decided to spice it up with a little bit of abstract nail art!

To create this, I used a white nail art polish and went a little crazy with the corners. Also, my thumb spells my first name in Russian, written as АНЯ. I'm pretty happy with the way this came out, I'd love to try more graffiti nails eventually.

Spring is finally here, there is sun outside, it's time to bust out the holographics! Ooh, I can't wait for flip flops, tank tops and shorts! It's a little late this year, but as long as it starts, I'm happy. Flowers have come and gone, but now the real fun begins. I can finally take my sketchbook outside and eat ice-cream on the street and wear sandals...

What's your favourite thing about summer?

Illamasqua Jo'mina leopard gradient

I'm not usually big on animal print, but my favorite Konad plate (m57) contains a GREAT Leopard print stamp which always works and I wanted to try a Leopard print gradient, but with better colors this time. My last attempt was all over the place and I picked terrible colours to gradient.

Learning from my mistakes, I faded 2 cool toned colors (in this case Illamasqua Jo'Mina and OPI Pink Friday) which creates a nicer gradient, since the colors don't blow each other out. 

Pink Friday is a very cool light pink and it fades perfectly from a bright lilac like Jo'Mina.

The leopard print looks a LOT better over this and I really loved the way it came out. I was even considering redoing the same mani but with all fingers jazzed up instead of just accents. Expect to see more Leopard print in the future, now that I've finally found my favorite Konad plate M57.

What do you think about animal print on nails? Cute or kitsch?

Matte strawberries nail art

I did this one a little while ago and apparently forgot this existed! I did another strawberry manicure, this time with blue strawberries too! I cut out triangles from tape, applied it to the nail and painted green, then removed the tape right away. After, I used a topcoat to smooth it down and then matte topcoat. I used normal topcoat under matte, since matte finishes make imperfections very obvious. I like blue strawberries for some reason... They are so very cute ♥

Porcelain nail art with Illamasqua Load

For this manicure, I really wanted to create a teacup kind of look, so I went with Illamasqua Load as the base and went crazy with dotting tools and the GOSH Matte Topcoat.

I started with the leaves first, by dragging a drop of green polish over the base color. After it dried, I made the petals, then the muddles with a peach color. After they tried, I covered them with Seche Vite, a fastdry topcoat. I really like how it evens out all imperfections...with a perfectly smooth set of nails, I appied the matte topcoat and voila! 

Perfectly smooth matte porcelain nails! 

Do you have a favorite tea/coffee mug? If so, have you tried to recreate it on your nails?

Zerg nails! Starcraft 2 nail art.

Ahh this was a request from a friend of mine, we got to thinking about nails and the topic of StarCraft came up. I'm not a big SC player myself but I might get into it sometime, RTSes are always fun! I wanted to do Zerg nails, but figuring out a way to go about this was difficult. I ended up using the pieces of the Zerg logo and doing a Hydralisk face on my ring finger. I didn't have any brown, so Hydralisk is dark red...with bits of flakies in the middle. The NP bottle is Illamasqua Scarab. These photographed better in matte, but look so much better shiny! Too bad the sun left a reflection, but I hope you can still tell what they are.

here they are in matte

Polishes used: WnW Black creme, Art Deco brushes in white in black, Daiso blue shimmer, Nfu-oh 38, OPI Dutch' Ya Love OPI?, Illamasqua Scarab and Rare, Kleancolour nail brush and polish duo in Vigorous.

I really like experimenting with NP brushes! I look forward to doing even more designs in the future.

WARNING: Nails! - with Illamasqua Rare

I wanted to learn how to do the drippy looking nails with dotting tools and succeeded with this manicure!

I used WnW Black Creme for the tips and drippies, as well as an Art Deco Black nail art brush to smooth it out and for the lines. The base is Illamasqua Rare. I am honestly shocked and really, really happy with the way this came out. I wanted to make it look like a caution sign/tape and it worked! The neon yellow worked very well against the black, so the contrast was perfect. I might be recreating this again, so look forward to more drippy manicures!

What do you think of this one? Too goth/neon to wear everyday or would you still rock nails like these?

Illamasqua Phallic

Illamasqua Phallic is a dark blue creme with secret blue shimmer. The formula was a two coater and dried fast, shiny. I enjoy the Illamasqua formula, as it's thick, yes smooth and very pigmented. I'm surprised - the base color for Phallic is actually a lot more green than I expected, but the blue shimmer is very dense and turns the color dark blue instead. You can see what the base color looks like closer to my cuticles.
I am a bit disappointed that the shimmer isn't stronger. I was almost expecting this one to be a lot like OPI Yoga-ta get this Blue, but it normally looked like a blackened blue. The shimmer was very hard to see and usually never came out. Here is my attempt at catching it in the bottle:

Very pretty, huh?

Other than that little quirk, I still very much love this polish. The way it looks, dries and wears is very nice. I fee like I am getting fancy luxury polish for 14$ a pop, so I am very happy with the Illamasquas I purchased!

Illamasqua Rare

Illamasqua Rare is a super neon hi-lighter yellow! This polish dries slightly matte, but I always use a topcoat. This is 3 coats on its own, no undies! I was amazed with the coverage and consistency of this polish, it dries fast and wore fantastic on me. This is totally an office safe colour...there's hi-lighters in the office, are there not?

I got a lot of comments on this color actually, it's somehow even more radiant and glowing in person, I have a feeling I'll be going back to this one quite a bit. This winter I've told my dark and neutral colors to take a hike, I'm wearing brights! Glitter! NEONS! Nothing will stop me. With the spring coming, it's only the beginning to this dragon-tastic year (did I mention I am a dragon in the Chinese Zodiac?)

Is anyone else excited to have a dragon year? Since this happens every 12 years for me, I'd say it's a thrilling time...a  year with a lot of change (which is already happening in full swing) and new opportunities. Of course, you can say that for every year, but I'll still use it as a chance for inspiration.

 What are your thoughts on neons in the winter?

Illamasqua Load and nail stickers

Illamasqua Load is...a very very interesting colour and name. When I first heard about it, I winced and made a face when I saw the swatches as well. Sheltered much? So a year or so later, I've been looking for...an off-white, interesting, strange creme. Nothing seemed to fit the bill like Illa Load, so...I had to buy it. Even just for the name. It's a beautiful slightly yellow slightly cream colored polish, but I found the formula a little runny compared to the way other Illamasquas apply. Even though it was runny, I really loved the way it looked like ivory, pure and clean, yet interesting and striking.

I put on some more cellphone stickers from Daiso! These look VERY chunky and I am sad; I do wish they were thinner, but it looks great from a distance!

Illamasqua - Lament and SOPI - To the Glitter End!

Here it is with the Illamasqua bottle

Illamasqua Lament is a beautiful coral that just draws me to it... It's like a flame, the brightest popsicle, burning neon orange-pink creme. It's a 2-coater with buttery formula I find so often in Illamasquas. I decided this is going to be a layering test for pewter glitter, Sephora By OPI - To The Glitter End!

On its own, TTGE is unable to become solid, which disappointed me. My ring finger contains 4 coats and still not solid. However, as a topping glitter it's fantastic! This polish is a unique cookie in my collection because of its color and uniform glitter shape.

with the SOPI bottle

As for Lament and TTGE together, it's an interesting combination! The contrast is there, I think if I layered this over silver, I'd get a very cool fishscale effect. Fishscales - that is exactly what TTGE reminds me of. 

Overall, I'm very happy with Illamasqua Lament and pretty satisfied with Sephora by OPI To The Glitter End, but only as a topping glitter.

Illamasqua Scarab

This is one of the Illamasqua polishes I hauled at Sephora and it's a gigantic win for me!

Let me say this first: dark red and vampy colours are not something I'll reach for first, if ever. I don't think I have any dark reds in my collection, so Scarab is a cautious venture into the unknown for me.

After seeing swatches of this I just HAD to get it. It's such a beautiful red shimmer in a dark brown base. Truly, like beetle's shell. Although it's named Scarab, it does not match the color of Scarabaeus viettei's shells, which is black. This looks more like the shell of Lucanus maculifemoratus instead, with a bit more red shimmer.

The formula impressed me the most. This polish applied unlike anything I've ever put on! The color was pretty much a one-coater, slightly thick but not chunky, flowed perfectly. The easiest way to describe it, as if I was applying liquid vinyl on my nails. It was a beautiful experience and I am still blown away by it. I neeeed more Illamasquas! I wore this for 2 days and while there was tipwear, it did not chip and stayed on like iron. 

This is a wonderful polish, colour and formula wise. It's 14$ dollars in the Canadian Sephora, but that's a lot less than Deborah Lippmann, Chanel and NARS. Scarab has been a wonderful experience and I'm hoping I can get my hands on more Illamasquas. 

Sephora haul!!

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