Turkey Marble!

Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you who are celebrating today. I think it's wonderful that we take time to expressly put gratitude into the world, whether we do it every day, or just today.

So this is my second shot at a water marble. I started with a coat of Sally Hansen CSM Haute Chocolate, then marbled a mix of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, L'Oreal Downtown Chic, Finger Paints Sketch n Etch, and Sally Girl Amped. It started out rough, but I got better at it with each finger, so my right hand worked better than my left.

I dotted on each individual color in the barer spots, and I really like it. I think I've got more of the hang of water marbling. It's still a huge pain and messy as heck.

Time for me to make some green bean casseroles and give thanks with my loved ones.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

I haven't, as of yet, gotten very political or very personal on this blog, as my real name is attached to it. And I won't do either here and now, but if a frank discussion against xenophobia in this culture is upsetting, you can stop reading and my feelings won't be very hurt.

I did my manicure in response to Lacquer Lad's request for support in honoring the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The guidelines he gave in particular were that blue and purple should be used and maybe a candle.

I used Sally Hansen CSM Good to Grape and L'Oreal Rainy Picadilly for my colors, with a gradient between the two. I attempted to do a light purple flame (Good to Grape mixed with a little White On) on my middle finger... and it was a huge disaster. So I covered the whole nail with the mix, did some distressing with a little acetone, and added my attempt at this symbol with more White On (swiped from Wikipedia's Gender Symbol page):

Here's our frank discussion, now. We all perform gender roles as we've been trained. I know, love, and respect several human beings who perform gender roles in different ways than society wishes they would, and you know whose problem that is? It's society's problem, not theirs.

We're afraid of what we don't understand. We're afraid of people who seem strange or don't do what we expect. Without teaching ourselves to consciously accept people who are different from us, we end up missing out on amazing experiences and relationships, we add hate to the world, we add justification to those who hurt people for being who they are, and that makes us complicit in the violence against transgender or gender-queer people.

I sincerely doubt anyone reading this is the type to perpetuate violence on people who look or behave differently, but on this day, please remember those who died because other people had no such compunction:

Transgender Day of Remembrance Memorial List 2012

Dotty horizontal gradient in green!

I was plopped in front of the computer (which only requires a head-tilt to see the TV) with my kids on Friday night, watching Toy Story 2, while doing my nails. I didn't really have much of a plan, but I remembered that I'd bought a six-pack of green polish at ROSS for $4, and I should do something greenish.

How's that for a hilarious hand position?

So I used a base of Finger Paints' Sketch N Etch, and then dotted each nail with a bit of each of my Kleancolor greens -- green grass, jazz olive, melon grass, mystic grass, and TLC, going from blue-est to yellow-est. And then I added a row of dots on each side to make the gradient more gradient-y. Which is a word. Swear. Then I threw on a coat of starry meteor, which was the star of the show. It's a beautiful holo top coat with duochrome bar glitter. And it wasn't a huge pain to take off!

There was no good way to photograph this. But it was cute! Three different retail workers complimented it over the weekend while I wore it. They weren't even the kind of retail workers you're expected to tip!

An homage to the art of the fan brush

I saw the coolest mani, done by Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner that I knew I wanted to replicate. Hers turned out far better, as you can see if you click on her blog name.

So I asked my 11-year-old daughter to find four colors that worked together but weren't too similar. She did a great job, picking Sally Hansen CSM Black Platinum, Sinful Colors' Let's Talk, NOPI Lights, Kim-era, Action!, and Circus by Andrea's Choice Tightrope.

I put on two coats of the NOPI, then took my fan brush, spread the bristles, and dipped it into drops on my palette. I did light horizontal swipes each way, changing between the Circus, Sally Hansen, and Sinful Colors after completing both hands.

It's a cool effect, but the versions done by Kimber and her inspiration were both better executed. I think my fan brush wasn't quite stiff enough, plus I think I had too much paint on the brush.

I'll try again sometime, perhaps with a craft fan brush instead of a (totally never used) make-up fan brush. It's a learning process. :)

Baby's first watermarble

I tried watermarbling about four months ago, before I started taking pictures of manicures, with dollar store polish. It ... didn't work. At all. The polish immediately sank to the bottom of the cup or seemed to instantly dry on the surface of the water, and couldn't be manipulated in any way.

I'm older and wiser, now. I was sure I could do it. I've read every tutorial, seen every YouTube video, have a dramatically better stash...

But for some feeble-minded reason, I didn't use my awesome polishes. I tried with two Style Essentials unnamed polishes (I got a set of four at ROSS for $4) and one Finger Paints lacquer, Cerulean Seascape.

Guess what? It was a mess. While I used filtered room temperature water, the Style Essentials polishes didn't spread AT ALL, so even when I had a pretty design in the water, they were super thick and gloppy. I'm only really happy with my index finger.

On the good side, while this dried before my topcoat, I spent a while seeing what various polishes did in the water and I think I have a chance of a good result on my next effort. The Sally Girl stuff and Sally Hansen polishes seemed to behave well, the OPI cremes did okay, but the shimmers didn't spread at all. The L'oreal stuff seemed to play along nicely, too. I didn't try with any glitters or indies because it seems like a waste.

If you have any tips for a good watermarble, I'm all ears! I shall overcome the dread watermarble! And we will all rejoice! Someday.

This time with texture!

Ever since I got my matte topcoat, I had these grand plans of doing tone-on-tone awesome manis. I finally gave it a shot with this manicure; two coats of butterLondon Chancer, followed by the matte topcoat, followed by dots of Seche Vite on top. It would be lovely!

Well, it's not bad, really. A girl at 7-11 admired it without me actively waving my nails under her nose or anything. The sparkles from Chancer show up really nicely. But it's BUMPY and irritates me. You can see the topography on my thumb. I think I like smooth nails better. It could be that my bottle of SV is beginning to get gloppy, it could be that I'm still incompetent with my dotting tool, but it feels like there's STUFF on my nails that I should scrub off. This manicure won't last long.

Also, the formula of Chancer was really tough to work with. Streaky coverage in the first coat, too liquidy to avoid a ton of clean-up, and with all of the shimmer in it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a royal pain to take off unless I go with the foil method.

We can chalk this up to a learning experience, I think. I learned that I prefer smooth nails, and also that I need a new bottle of SV.

Sparkly French Blue-ness

I'm working on a light box, as budget and time allow. And then I'll be like a REAL blogger. Me and Pinocchio, with our senses of inadequacy, make a great pair.

Anyway, I knew when I got Dandy Nails' Caught in the Crowd that I was in love and wanted to use it really soon, but I thought it needed to be over a deep blue for true perfection in manicuration. I hereby declare manicuration a word. Work with me. The deep blue came in the form of Finger Paints' Cerulean Seascape, which went on like a dream.

My original plan was to have "Caught in the Crowd" as a gradient going from bottom to top of the nail. It turned out to have a thicker base than I expected, and I didn't have sponges handy to do a gradient that way, so I ended up painting my thumbnails and then dabbing on french-ish tips on the rest of the nails. I really loved the effect.

A couple of things about Caught in the Crowd. It's got aqua and silver microglitter and small aqua hexes. It feels REALLY smooth to the touch, almost like a creme. I don't know how that was possible, but it was really lovely. I want more; it feels that good on the nail! Also, it wore like a champ. I painted my nails Friday night and took the pictures this afternoon. No chips, no tipwear, and I type for a living. No clean-up, either, and I know you can tell. I'll do better, I promise.

I'm trying to think of more ways to use Caught in the Crowd. And more ways to budget lots more Dandy Nails' polishes. Lovely.

No H8 Purple and 3-D Shadow

Let me be honest. I know I'm not all that good. I'm a self-proclaimed crappy artist. I am improving, but I can laugh at my mistakes and I never take myself too seriously. I've learned to laugh at myself first, which takes the wind out of others' sails when they want to laugh at me. While that might cover real insecurity and that is absolutely a defense mechanism I have learned, I never let the bastards get me down. I even, just today, added a way for my readers to vote -- abominable, adequate, or awesome. I fully believe that you'll see a combination of all of them at some point, as long as I keep this up.

Personally, I am so new to beauty blogging that I haven't had enough exposure to be bullied, but there is something in our culture, and especially on the Internet, that leads people to one-upmanship in hurtful, cruel ways. I've seen it on other blogs, and I can't imagine how it would feel to be knocked down for no good reason based on the quality of one's cuticles.

Today's manicure was inspired by Vicky Boombastic Nails, who did it with a silver, blue, and purple combination. I had never heard of the technique before, and found a NYFW tutorial on the Daily Makeover, which made it look humanly possible for my talent level.

I really like the completed effect -- I wondered how such a red and such a blue purple would look next to each other, but it seems to work. I started with several coats of Sinful Colors' Let Me Go on the inside edge of my nails. After that was dry, it took just one coat of OPI's Suzi & the 7 Dusseldorfs in another thin, slightly curved line, and I filled in the rest of my nails with Sinful Colors' Let's Talk. A coat of SV on top smoothed it all out.

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

Vote!

I did patriotic nails in honor of the election. I don't care who you are or what you stand for, but if you're qualified to vote in the US election today, you certainly should. Even if it's for Roseanne Barr or "none of the above". Because it's a right and a responsibility that millions of people fought and died to gain and preserve.

The base is actually an unnamed L.A. Colors color craze polish -- I had bought a set of six of them at ROSS Dress For Less for my kids to use before the Great Polish Disappearance of ought-twelve (only two remain). I don't have any good non-shimmery blues in the good stuff. It only took two coats for decent coverage. Then I used two coats of Sparkler, by Kawaii Nail Lacquer. I love this polish, I hate this polish.

On the good side: there's microglitter in red, silver, and blue. There are red, white, and blue medium squares and hexes. There is white bar glitter and silver and blue stars, all in a nice clear base.

On the not-so-awesome side: I had a heck of a time convincing any big pieces to come out, even though I had flipped the bottle between each nail and rolled it between my hands. I had to use a toothpick to tease the big stuff not to all glomp together when I did get it on the nail. While the medium and small stuff lay nicely, the stars just wouldn't, and I had to pick one off of my ring finger even after three coats of SV.

Overall, it's pretty, it's patriotic, and I love how it looks, but it's a pain in the ganeckdagazoink to make it work.

So now, since I went to all of that effort to inspire you to vote with my lovely manicure, did it work? :) I'm totally willing to take complete credit for it.

Let Me See Ur Peacock giveaway!

Check out these awesome gifts in Let Me See Ur Peacock's giveaway! And read her blog if you don't -- she's hilarious and does great manis!

Galinda! (Or Pretty in Periwinkle and Pink)

In my awesome grab bag from Love For Lacquer came a really neat pink crelly with periwinkle and purple glitter, Galinda, by Lacquer Convention. I put two coats of it over three coats of Sally Hansen CSM's Shell We Dance.

I loved this manicure -- the pink wasn't so saturated that it was Pepto Bismol-y, the purple and periwinkle was lovely and came out of the bottle really nicely and evenly, and the micro fuschia glitter added great visual interest. It held up really well for like four days, and no chips marred its loveliness. I skipped a top coat because I really liked the amount of shine in the glitter and crelly polish.

But...

I used the PVA (or Elmer's Glue) base coat since I was putting on some glittery polish. I've had the same bottle made up for a few weeks now, and I used it exactly the same as I have since I started putting PVA under manicures, and it came off in tiny little chips, not at all in the lovely full-nail (or close to it) sheets that I've gotten when removing previous manicures. I felt beat up and violated by the time I peeled it off. I'm not sure if the Sally Hansen color base was the problem, if the Galinda stuff just didn't want to cooperate, or if I didn't use enough base coat this time. Regardless, it was a pain in the bleepity to get off.

I've got another glitter manicure on now to last through the election and possibly Veteran's Day, but I used Seche Clear and will try the foil method to remove it when it's time. I need a break from the PVA base coat. It's usually worked so well!