Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Great Sales on Ruby Wing NZ!

USA Nails Online is having a great sale at the moment, they have a selection of Ruby Wing polishes for under $10!

 Festival


 Moonstone


 Gypsy


 Sand Dune


Sweet Rose


Visit here to see Ruby Wing and Color Club polishes, don't miss out!

OPI Can't Let Go


This little beauty is from OPI's collaboration with Mariah Carey released early 2013. There were four liquid sand polishes in this collection. Can't Let Go is a pretty medium purple glitter that dries a gritty matte. 



This was two coats of Can't Let Go. It applied nicely and was easy to control. Although it dries gritty, it is actually quite smooth to the touch. Incredibly sparkly in the sunlight!




Thanks for reading!

~Steph

Monday, January 28, 2013

Nail Art : Flower Print


It has been too long since I have done some nail art! So I broke out the dotting tool last night and kind of made up a design as I went along. I have put together a nice, neat how-to version at the end of the post.

I used OPI Roadhouse Blues for the base, OPI Alpine Snow for the petals, OPI Skull & Glossbones for the petal shading and OPI A Roll In The Hague for the center of the flowers.



Thanks for reading! 



~Steph

OPI Tomorrow Never Dies



This little beauty is Tomorrow Never Dies from OPI's 2012 Holiday collection called Skyfall. It was released along side the new James Bond film, Skyfall.




This is two coats shown here. Never Dies is a perfect indigo! Depending on your skin tone it will lean more blue or more purple. In the sunlight Never Dies is actually a little frosty/metallic looking! 

The formula was a little on the watery side, it was hard to control. But easy enough to fix up with ear buds and remover. Despite the wateriness, Never Dies gives very good coverage.

A very similar colour is OPI's Into The Night from the Spiderman collection also released in 2012. Into The Night is more steel-blue and not so purple.


~Steph

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Nail Blogs You Need to Visit!


Hi guys!

I have some wonderful new friends from a certain page on Facebook, I wanted to share their blogs with you! And I want to remind you that on the right hand side of the page is a tab with the label 'Bloggies', this is where you will find a load more blogs to check out!













Lexie at www.nailgirl.net 



~Steph

Monday, January 7, 2013

52 Weeks of Beauty: Feature & Get The Look!




This was another Job that I got to work on with my friend Paige!

To create the look Paige was after, I needed a set of french tips, nail glue, a file, a black nail polish as well as a gold nail polish. In one of my many big cleanouts I decided that "pfft I don't use black that much, I don't need one" so I was scrambling to find a black! Luckily Orly's Le Chateau is a very dark teal jelly. SO dark it looks black in most lights. I found Zoya Richelle to be the most opaque gold in my stash.




So in class that day, I broke out my polishes, round shaped things and plastic bags. I was determined to create the moons beforehand, 'cause there ain't no way I'm doing that while on the job! But I had seen that you can paint on to plastic bags or cling wrap and peel the polish off later. So after spending half an hour trying to trace around round shaped things, I thought screw it and just painted strips of Richelle. It worked!


To create the look:


  1. Use Zoya Richelle to paint over 20 moon strips. This way you have extra strips if you happen to break one or they aren't quite round enough to be a moon. I painted over the strips twice so it was nice and opaque as well as having quite a rounded edge.
  2. Size the tips appropriately and glue as far down the nail as you can.
  3. Break out your file and file the life out of the edge corners! Make sure both sides are even and comes to a nice fine point. 
  4. Clean all excess plastic and furry edges off the tips. You want a clean palette for the base colour.
  5. Paint two coats of Orly Le Chateau, make sure to cover the sides of the tips as they're quite thick. Let it dry almost completely.
  6. Get out your moon strips and cut to length. Peel one off at a time and place over the nail. Push down with some pressure. Your base colour should still be a bit tacky, so the moon should grab on quite well. Push down on the strip as far as it will go into and around the cuticle area. Any excess you can remove with remover on an ear bud.
  7. Top all of your nails off with a nice top coat and your design is complete! I like to use Seche Vite's Quick Dry Top Coat on models as it dries super quick and your work is less likely to get damaged.


Here is a final picture of the look:






52 Weeks of Beauty
Nail artist: Steph