Acetone Wash Nails

I guess these aren’t technically acetone wash because I used a non-acetone polish remover to do it.    Whatever you want to call them, I think they’re pretty cool.
I did one good layer of each of my polishes and waited several hours until they were pretty dry.  Then took a cotton swab soaked in non-acetone nail polish remover and started rubbing.  I first saw this technique on Nail Nerd, and thought it was pretty awesome.  It was kinda hard to photograph because it ends up with pits in it so the light hits it a little wonky.  I really like this effect though.  I’ve read of people using nail files rather than nail polish remover to achieve the same effect.  I thought the polish would get a bit gummy and pilly if it wasn’t completely dry if I tried to file it.

The polishes I used for this mani were Orly Terracotta, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Sinful Colors Aquamarine and WnW Buffy the Violet Slayer.  What do you think of the acetone wash look?  Do you think you’ll try it?

Guac

I was eating my usual salad for lunch the other day and, there it was, the inspiration for my mani.  Avocado nails.  Silly, I know and a bit of a stretch of the imagination.  Avocado is one of my most favoritest things in the world!  Om, nom, nom.

I used Sinful Colors Nirvana for the pit, Orly Green Apple for the meat and a mix of China Glaze Starboard and Sally Hansen Black Out for the skin.

Lace Nails Tutorial

When I guest posted on Amandalandish last week, I promised a tutorial for these awesome lace nails. Here you go!  For my lace I headed over to my local fabric store and bought some lace trimming.  I got 18″ just to make sure I had plenty.  I didn’t want to mess up a few times and run out of lace.  It was only like $1.25.I started with a base color of Sinful Colors Mint Apple.  While that was drying, I cut my lace.  I held the lace up to each nail to decide how I wanted it to line up.  I started with the rough shape and size of my nail and continued to trim here and there until it was just right.  I used very sharp, small craft scissors and tweezers to hold the small pieces.  You can wait to trim the length until after you’ve “glued” the lace to your nail.  I’ve heard of people using sharp nail clippers to do this.  I found it easier to trim it to size first.  You can sort of use the design of the lace as a grid to help you keep track of where to cut.

You can see here that there is a piece of lace customized for each nail.

To “glue” them down I used a thick top coat that dries a bit slower than Seche Vite.  This Jordana top coat is very comparable to Seche Vite, but doesn’t dry quite as fast.  Go one nail at a time.  Put a generous coat of your chosen top coat on your nail, grab your piece of lace with your tweezers and lay it on your nail.  You have some time, so make sure you get it on straight.  Now you want to press it down a bit with your finger.  If you lick your finger, it won’t stick to the polish.  I’m sure you could get it wet in the sink too. 😉  Once you get each nail glued, add your finishing top coat.  Go slow when you brush it on to avoid air bubbles.  You’re done!

Ta da!  And you thought lace nails were going to be hard!  Cutting the lace to size is the time consuming part.  Now you can totally customize your lace nails.  You can pretty much use any lace and pair it with any polish color.

I used 2 coats of Seche Vite to finish off this mani.  It was still a bit bumpy and the edge of the lace around the edge of my nail was a bit scratchy.  These were surprisingly easy to take off too.  Once you get the top coat off with your polish remover, you can peel the lace off, then remove the underlying polish.

I loved this mani and was sad to take it off.  I didn’t eve get to show it off; not even to my husband.  I’ll definitely be doing this again.  If you try this design, send me a link; I’d like to see it.  Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or if I missed anything.

Chevron Nail Tutorial

Last week I guest posted on See Sarah Swatch with this awesome chevron mani. I promised a tutorial so here you go.
*Please excuse my dry skin.  I took off one mani and started into the next without moisturizing between.

I started with a white base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  The yellow I used is Sinful Colors Unicorn and it takes several coats to get good coverage.  It’s tends to be really streaky if you don’t do 4+ coats so to remedy that I put it over white.  One good coat of Unicorn over Snow Me White was pretty good.

I used some pinking shears to cut lots of small, little strips of scotch tape.  You have to make sure you line your zig zags up when you’re cutting.  Wait until your polish is totally dry before you put tape on it.  If you want to use a fast drying top coat to speed up the process, go for it.  Stick the strip to your hand a few times to get most of the sticky off the tape before you stick it to your nail.  If you use full strength sticky tape, it will likely pull your polish off.  Line the strips up to your liking.  I used tweezers to help with this since the strips were so small.  Press them down firmly and use an orange stick to get into the sides of your nails.

Apply one coat of your second color, blow on your nail for a few seconds and apply another coat to get full coverage.  While your polish is still wet, carefully take your tape off.  Put on your top coat and you’re done!

This is an example of what will happen if your base color is not completely dry before you start sticking tape to it.  Beautiful, right?

I love this chevron mani.  I guess I will have to get myself a pair of pinking shears so I don’t have to borrow them from my neighbor the the next time I want to try this.  The grey polish is Sally Hansen Wet Concrete.  Let me know if you have any questions.

**Check out my other Chevron manicures HERE.

Splatter Tutorial

When I guest posted over at Nailed: A Nail Polish Blog last week, I promised a tutorial on how I did my splatter nails.  Well, here it is!

First paint your nails your chosen base color.  I painted my nails white.  I didn’t worry too much about them being super opaque because it was going to be covered up.

I dripped my colors into my palate.  I used a regular old fountain drink straw cut into thirds (just so I wasn’t wasteful.)  I taped my fingers off like I would for a water marble.  I didn’t want polish splattered all over my hand so I took a latex glove, cut the finger tips off and put it on.

To keep the splatter from getting all over the place, I took a small cardboard box and kind of cut it open so I could basically put my hand in it (like a back drop.)  Actually getting the splatter to hit my nail was the hard part.  You can see from the box that there was plenty of splattering going on, but my nail is such a small target that I kept missing.  I did find it difficult to actually get the polish to splat off the end of the straw.  Quick, powerful bursts of air seemed to work the best.  It seemed like I wasted a lot of polish to try to get my nail covered.  I’ve since tried the splatter again with a coffee straw and didn’t really notice much improvement.  Like with my water marbles, while the polish was still wet I took the point of my shish kabob skewer and ran it all the way around the edge of my nail to get the polish that was flooding the sides and cuticle of my nails.  It helps with the clean up.

When I took off the tape I wasn’t sure I was actually going to post these pictures.  What a mess.  I got out my trusty cotton swabs and acetone and started cleaning.  Once I got a top coat on it I was pleasantly surprised.  I really quite like it.

See all the purple at the tip of my index finger?  That’s where a giant glob of polish landed on my nail and I tried to fix it.  The giant purple spot on my pinkie is camouflaged a bit, but that’s where I accidentally blew the straw right out of my hand and it hit my nail.

Precision is not a word I would use to describe a splatter mani.  Although messy, this was a pretty easy mani to do.  Leave a comment if you have any questions, tips of your own to add or if I’ve missed anything.

The colors I used for this mani were Sinful Colors Snow Me White, WnW Buffy the Violet Slayer, Orly Terracotta and Sinful Colors Happy Ending.