NOTD: China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le + China Glaze Fault Line (& A Crackle FAIL)

I started off with 2 coats of China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le:

 

 

Then I topped it with China Glaze Fault Line from the new Crackle collection.  The cracks generally go in the direction of the brush strokes, so I experimented & decided I was going to apply it at an angle.  Topcoat also made a huge difference:

 

 

I loved it!  So much in fact, I thought I'd give the Crackle polish another try.  I wanted something pale & subtle.  I used China Glaze Sci-Fi + Lightning Bolt ... and it kind of sucked IMO:

 

I actually took this off immediately because I disliked it so much.  Part I think was the chrome polish - it seemed like the crackle didn't want to do as much of it's thing over top ... it may not have been quite dry enough?  I'll have to experiment more sometime when I'm feeling adventurous LOL.

 

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Semi-Fail NOTD: Claire's Memaid Funky French

I don't know quite what to say about this.  It was disappointing on so many levels.  I knew that Claire's Mermaid was sheer, and I thought I had a pretty good plan for dealing with that - a black french tip with a silver smile line.  I used Color Club Black for my tips - I really should have used some polish thinner on it beforehand, but it was sooo late, and I was sooo lazy.  I used Art Club Satin Silver striper for the smile line, a very pale silver.  I did 2 coats of Mermaid over the top.  And got this:

 

 

Poor application all around, sloppy french tips - if it hadn't been 11 o'clock I'd have taken it off & started from scratch.  I should have picked something more foolproof in the first place ... oh well.  I even had one girl at work tell me they weren't up to my usual standard, which horrified my mother that anyone would say anything so mean - of course, she liked them & didn't see most of the glaring errors that bugged me all day LOL.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

NOTD: OPI Sun Streaked + Hidden Treasure Fail

Yes, that's right.  I didn't think it was possible, but I had a big ol' FAIL with the wondrous Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  I started out with a dusty I recently picked up, OPI Sun Streaked:

Nice color ... but boring.  Well, Hidden Treasure makes everything better - right?  Well, in this case actually not so much - the flakes are barely visible, it just mainly made the mani look lumpy:

I'm not sure what the problem was, if the color was just to shimmery, or too light, or too close to HT's base color?  So I though to myself, "Maybe matte-ifying it would help."  I was wrong:

Still lumpy.  Lumpier even.  And still boring.  By this time it was quite late & I didn't have time to try anything else & had to go through Thursday rather displeased with my nails.

Does anyone know what collection this OPI color is originally from BTW?  It's black label, so kind of old, but I'd never heard of it when I spotted it in the nail shop. I hope someone can satisfy my curiosity =)

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Purple Fail

The title of this post was supposed to be NOTD:  Purple Glitter Chevron Marble.  Not talking water marbling, so if you're intimidated by that technique, you might want to try this out.  All you need is a small nail art brush.  & please don't let my fail turn you off LOL.  I have pulled this off successfully several times ... this just wasn't one of them.  I messed up one nail in particular past salvaging (you will see ... pretty much instantly LOL), and at that point I was irritated enough with how the mani was going that I took the whole thing off instead of just redoing that nail. 

The thing with this technique is, you want to apply topcoat before it's completely dry, so that it helps everything kind of blend & level out, but if it's too wet, it gets smeary.  Very smeary ... All polish was Sinful Colors, base is Purple Diamond, stripes done with I Love You & Daddys Girl:

If you'd like to check out this technique on a smaller scale - and more importantly, SUCCESSFULLY - you can check out my French Tip Marble Tutorial HERE (which also has a link in the sidebar to that post with more pics).  Thanks for reading.

~Colette