Tri-Polish Challenge (May #3) - Tie-Dye Explosion

Hello everyone!

Today is the third TPC post for May! These TPC posts finish so quickly; I can't believe that there is only one more post left for May! And even though May is almost over, Chicago can't seem to get its weather in check. Oh well...

Remember, the colors for May are Red, Grey, and Blue.

For today's post, I decided to use a drag marbling technique. I found an awesome tutorial by Brie from Lacquerheads of Oz. Take a look at how my attempt turned out!

To get this look:

• The tutorial says to use white as a base polish to create the look but I tried to do this several times with a white base polish and even if it was completely dry, I ended up peeling it over when I was dragging the other polishes.
• I worked with one nail at a time and first put a long red blob using Revlon Revlon Red on my nail, followed my a long grey blob using Revlon Midnight Haze, and then ended with putting a small blue blob using Revlon Coast is Clear. I put the blue last because it's a very thin polish and whenever I put it first, the red would end up mixing in with it and would overtake the blue.
• Then I used a toothpick (you can use a needle or any other pointy tool you may have) to drag the polish outwards (from the blue polish blob to the grey polish blob). 
• To get rid of the bumps and ridges, I added my favorite top coat.

It's the not as clean as Brie's tie-dye design but I think with some practice, I'll get used to this. I only got this end result after trying this out about 7 times on one of my nails, and I still ended up having to redo my middle nail three times after the other nails were done.

I think it turned out quite nice for a first attempt, don't you think? Have any of you ever tried the drag marbling technique? There are several other designs you can make with this aside from the tie-dye look.

I also love how the blue gives the whole look a nice pop! The pinky nail, to me, turned out the best, which is odd because usually I am the most disappointed with my pinky nail. Take a look at my pinky in the first picture I posted and the next picture.

Clean up was really hard. I should have used tape around my nails but I thought that it wouldn't get that bad. Clearly, I was so wrong and the nail polish decided to get back at me for not listening to the tutorial! I was also surprised at how hard this was for me considering the drag technique with a single polish blob is not hard at all. I even made a tutorial for that! Practice makes perfect, huh? I'll definitely keep trying!

Anyways, let me know what you think of this! Also, don't forget to check out the other great manicures from today! Check back on Thursday for the last TPC post for May.

Nail Art Tutorial: Splatter

Hi everyone!!

I made my very first nail art tutorial today! The tutorial is for the splatter manicure that I created for Day 4 of April's Tri-Polish Challenge. I'm very excited to show it to all of you and I hope it helps!! If there is anything that I missed or if you would like me to include another step in future tutorials, please let me know in the comments section below.

To refresh, here's the manicure that I created for the Tri-Polish Challenge:

To get the look, you'll need:
The exact names of what I used are in parentheses, but you can use whichever brands/colors you prefer.

Base coat (Essie 3 Way Glaze) and top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat)

 

A toothpick/small-sized dotting tool/orange stick

White polish (Sinful Colors Snow Me White)

*Cream polishes work best*
**You can use any combination of colors*
Purple polish (Sinful Colors Amethyst), pinky coral polish (Sinful Colors Timbleberry), green polish (Sinful Colors Irish Green)

 

Now, onto the tutorial!

I hope this tutorial was helpful! And as I stated before, if any of you believe that I missed a step, or believe that I should explain something more clearly, let me know in the comments section below. Also, if you try out my tutorial, I would love to see pictures! Leave me a link in the comments section!

Tri-Polish Challenge (April #4) - Splatter

Hey guys!

Can you believe that this is the last post for April's Tri-Polish Challenge hosted by Crumpet's Nail Tarts? May's challenge will be here soon, though, and the colors for May are blue, grey, and red so it'll be exciting coming up with new manis for that!

But back to this month's last post. To refresh, the colors for April are Turquoise, Pink, and Orange. I haven't used Orange for the last two posts so I had to bring it back for this last post. I wanted to do a splatter mani but I don't have any nail polish thinner. I tried to do it without the thinner anyways but it wasn't working for me. So I decided to do a freehand splatter! I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out.
**The turquoise that I am using is the closest to turquoise that I have**

To get this look:

• After applying a base coat, I put on two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. White nail polish is always streaky unless you apply a few coats. You could still see some streaks through the second coat but since I was going to be putting splatters over it anyways, I decided to leave it
• I then put "blobs" (one at a time, of course) of China Glaze For Audrey, Sinful Colors Island Coral, and Maybelline Color Show Orange Fix. 
• Using a toothpick (you could use any pointy/sharp object), I dragged the polish outwards to create the splatter look. 
• I also added dots of each polish here and there to enhance the effect
• To end it, I finished off with a top coat!

Doesn't it look cool? It wasn't hard to create either. What do you all think of my final post for the Tri-Polish Challenge?? Leave me comments in the section below to tell me what you think! I hope you all liked it! I have a tutorial for this so I'll be putting that up soon.

Check back soon for my next 31 Day Challenge mani! Animal print is next and I have a great idea for that :)

Toothpicks

Helloooo. Some of my bottles of nail polishes are a bit old and I noticed that the brushes aren't soft anymore. So whenever I put the polishes on, the brush would scratch the polish during the second coat. That got me wondering...what would happen if I used something sharp to put on the polish? I searched online and found out that you can do this with toothpicks!!

Doesn't it look awesome??

And it wasn't even that hard to do!

Here are the steps:
1) Pick a base color and apply (I chose white)
2) Pick some colors that you want to "scratch" with the toothpick (blue, pink, purple, teal in the picture)
3) Start with one color and do all of your nails so you don't have to go back and forth opening the bottles over and over again. Put a drop of one of the colors at the crown and then take a toothpick and start scratching it lightly towards the tip of the nail (the size of the drop will determine how far you are able to scratch the color)
4) Repeat with each of your chosen colors
5) Finish it off with a top coat!

I hope you like this because I sure did!!

And yes, that's henna on my hands. I got it done for a wedding that I had to go to.