Mish Mash Challenge Week 4 - Untried Nail Art Technique! 2 different manicures!

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Hello Lovelies! Man, am I late with this post! See what happens when I take it easy? Haha! Actually part of my lateness is due my own indecisiveness. I had one manicure in mind for this week's challenge, but I wasn't 100% satisfied, so I tried something else on the other hand. Then I couldn't decided which one to use, so I'm posting them both and you lovelies can decide which you like best.

Both manicures are brush stroke manicures, just different techniques. This first manicure was done with the polish brushes and is comprised of random brush strokes of 5 different polishes. I used A-England Camelot as my base, and Sally Hansen HD Polishes in DVD, Byte, LCD, Spectrum, and Resolution for the brush strokes. Once the brush stroked were finished, I stamped using Bundle Monster Plate BM 208 and Konad Black to create a Mosaic style manicure. I really dig how this one turned out!

Also, I photographed this in different lighting and I'm still getting used to it. Forgive the brightness here, okay? :)

I really dig how this turned out, even if you can't really tell it's a brush stroke mani. Those HD Polishes are beautiful and have great color, but they're also sheer and full of flecks, which makes getting the brush strokes to show is tough.  Not a total fail though since I love mosaic designs and this one was great fun to wear.

The next brush stroke technique is more along the lines of the awesome Ozotic mani from Fashion Polish, except I used Jewel Tone polishes. This technique is done with a fan brush as opposed to the polish brush, but still derives its effect  placing soft, random brush strokes of polish at random on the nail. A-England Camelot is the base color again, with A-England Avalon, Order of The Garter,  and L'Oreal The Muse's Attitude, The Mystic's Fortune, and The Mystic's Future for the brush strokes.

Also, I'm showing you my left hand here, which is uneven since I'm letting it grow out to match my right hand. I've actually managed to refrain from using my middle nail as a soda can opener!

Now I *really* like this one, however the jewel tones are kinda hard to see in photos. I dig how the brush strokes are a touch more blatant (thanks fan brush!) and I adore Jewel Tones on black. This was also much faster than the HD Mosaic Brush Stroke Mani since I didn'thave to use multiple brush strokes for each color. And of course, no stamping.

 I think the Jewel Tone is my fave, although the mosaic is so colorful and fun. What do you think? Which is your fave?

While you're at it, check out all my girls and their awesome manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

I'll be back later today sometime with the first polish from the upcoming Polish TBH Diagon Alley Collection. So excited to share these with you lovelies! Such an amazing collection - I mean, it's Polish TBH, so I don't expect anything less than amazing! I'll be showing the entire collection over the next few days, so be sure to check back often. I also have some amazing polish from Cinema Swatch Lacquers and Squishy Face Polish coming up as well.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber




















*Product(s) Featured purchased by KLK. Please see Disclaimer/Legal Page for more information**

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30 Days of Blue for Autism Awareness - Sally Hansen HD Spectrum

Hi guys! I'm still a bit under the weather, but not as bad as yesterday. I've been able to get out and function a bit, but I'm pretty run down now. Ugh! I will be adding people to my sidebar later this evening - I didn't forget you guys! I'm just a huge whiny baby when I'm sick!

Today I have an awesome blue polish to share with you. I couldn't think of a better polish to celebrate those on the Autism Spectrum than Sally Hansen HD Hi-Definition Polish in Spectrum.

Spectrum is an awesome bright blue glass fleck with a subtle purple duochrome flash. She's a bit shy in direct lighting, but when she shows her colors, she is gorgeous! This is 3 coats of Spectrum over Instant Artificials base coat and topped with SV:

Isn't Spectrum just gorgeous? I love duochromes and glass fleck so very much! I'm not sure why I hadn't worn this polish sooner, but I'm glad I gave it a shot today.

Formula was actually quite lovely, but she is a bit sheer so I needed all 3 coats for complete coverage. I think this would be so pretty layered over a bright blue or possibly black. These polishes are such chameleons that when layered over different colors they completely change. Makes them very versatile and for the price (I think I paid around $5.50 at Ulta), these are worth having.

I'm off to go rest some more still I'm still feeling a bit icky. Hope you are all doing well and are having a great week!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Petites Electric Indigo & Sally Hansen HD DVD

Hi guys! Hope you're enjoying your weekend and are gearing up for Superbowl Sunday!

Today I have a fabulous little polish to share with you. I love Petites polish. It's inexpensive yet their colors are stunning, the formula is awesome and the wear is excellent. I picked up this color, Electric Indigo, last week while out grocery shopping. For $1.29, this polish is amazing! I have been dying to wear this color since I picked it up. It's an absolutely gorgeous periwinkle blue, which is one of my very fave blues. It is frosty, but I've never minded frosts as long as the formula is decent. I also had a layering combo in mind for this, so I broke it out this past week ahead of my older untrieds. First, let me show you Electric Indigo by herself:

I can't tell you how much I am in love with this color! The formula on this baby was fairly decent. It does start off pretty sheer and streaky but builds nicely. Since it is so frosty it does have some visible brush strokes, but I think it's worth it for such a gorgeous color. I wore this color alone for the first day since I just fell so deeply in love with it.

My original plan was to layer Sally Hansen's DVD from the HD collection over Electric Indigo, since EI is a great match for the blue in DVD.  I finally managed to layer it on the second day, but begrudgingly! I am glad I did though! This combo is so pretty! The multichrome glass fleck in DVD really shines over Electric Indigo, and the flashes of pink, purple, and blue are actually very strong in person. My pictures don't do this combo justice at all!

Love! I was sad when I had to take this combo off. This was my first time using DVD for an actual mani, having only swatched it over black previously. While it is amazing over black, I really prefer it over Electric Indigo. I imagine this is what DVD would look like on her own if she wasn't so sheer.

Have a great Superbowl Sunday!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Pink Wednesday! (Better Late Than Never Version!)

I almost missed posting today due to inadvertently forgetting what day of the week it was. The city was basically shut down on Monday so my daughter didn't have school, and that always leaves me a day off. Thankfully I realized it wasn't actually Tuesday at the very last minute, and threw together a quick mani.

This is Sally Hansen HD in Byte layered over Wet N Wild Black Creme. I loved it on it's own, but had to see what it would look like taped off with some more black. This is what I ended up with:

This was definitely a fun mani, despite having some OCD issues with it. My OCD is raging lately and when "Pro Manicure" woman basically destroyed my cuticles, the cuticle area on my middle finger became swollen and is still rather puffy and red. That makes my nail bed somewhat shorter than the rest, which in turn drives me insane (Good thing I always place my watermark over my middle finger, right? haha!). I can handle losing my length due to carelessly whacking my hands on things, but having one nail bed shorter than the rest is making me a bit crazy! I'm working on it, though. Wish me luck. OCD can be a bear.  At least I'm not letting it take over everything and I'm working hard to get it back under wraps.

Enough about that though! I am loving Byte layered over Black! This is actually 3 coats over the black, since I wanted it to really pop. It looks amazing with just 1 coat as well, but has a bit more purple to it. If you want the pink to really shine over that black, I would use at least 2 coats. However, don't go past that if you can't handle your polish looking a bit heavy and thick.

I'm still editing pics for tomorrow's post! It's taken awhile since I took hundreds of pics of all 3 polishes that I'm planning on sharing with you, and I've had such a hard time narrowing it down! Until then....

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge, Day 12: Stripes!

Hi guys! Wow, this challenge was a TON easier than I had anticipated (I'm finding that's a theme here!). I have very little experience free-handing even something as simple as stripes, so I was dreading this one. I had planned on doing a tape mani, but even though I love how tape manis turn out, I don't like the work that goes into them. With stripes, I would have to tape off the nail to make the first stripe, then tape off to make stripe number 2 as well as tape off stripe number 1, and so on and so forth. That just seemed like a lot of work to me for a mani that I wasn't sure I would actually like! I decided to bite the bullet and freehand my stripes, and if ya'll laugh at me (I can hear some of you laughing just because I said "ya"ll"!), then so  be it, right? I'm learning, and the only way to get better at this stuff is to practice!

Having made my freehanding decision, I had to pick polishes. I knew I wanted to use 3 colors, and that I wanted them all to have the same finish, but had no idea which actual colors I wanted for my stripes. I considered using some of my recently acquired China Glaze or my unused Orly's, but in the end I settled on 2 unworns and a tried and failed (remember the bad faux-nad I posted with the blue holo, white stamping and silver bullion?).  I'm actually pleased with how it came out! My lines aren't too bad at all this time around, and I love love love the polishes I used! Another challenge mani I don't want to remove so quickly :(

For this mani I used: Milani 3d Holographics in HD, Digital, and Cyberspace. These are the only holo polishes I own, and they've been hanging out with my untrieds for a good while. I love holos, but I prefer a strong holo effect and I wasn't convinced these had it. I was wrong! For holo polishes that cost me less than $5.00, they have a decent holo effect! They are a scattered holo (I really really really want a linear holo polish, but I can't find one in my budget so that probably won't happen for a good long time *cries*) with a fairly strong effect, especially in sunlight. I had a very hard time capturing the holo in my pics since I'm still using the less than stellar camera until I can replace my good camera, and these were taken in early morning sunlight as opposed to full, direct sun, but I assure you it's there. You also get to see the result of my stabbing myself in the side of my cuticle with a pair of rally sharp and pointy tweezers (was trying desperately to remove a stray piece of fluff from my polish)!

The formula on these babies was wonderful - nice and smooth and opaque in 2 coats. I used these over my newest base coat loves, Nailtek formula II and Orly Bonder. I did use a coat of SV to top it all off, since the edges of my lines were a little thick and needed to be smoothed out. It did diminish the holo effect, but not half as much as I had expected. But again, enough babbling! On to the pics!

In the light box:

And in early morning sunlight:

And my usual bad macro shot (but at least it shows some of the shimmery holo!)

I had a lot of fun working on this one, and I think I'll be trying out some more striped manis in the future. I love that this challenge is taking me outside of my comfort zone and I'm learning a ton! I do get sad when I have to remove a mani that I really like, and I've had to change some ideas on the fly since I'll see where a fellow blogger has used the idea before I could get to it (I wrote down all my mani ideas for this challenge when I started, and I've had to change rainbow, polka dots, and a few things from the upcoming inspiration week), but overall I'm having fun with it!

Tonight is Animal Print night, and I'm really excited about it! I'm going to be using 2 colors that I have been dying to use since I picked them up and just hadn't found the right mani for them.  Now I'm going to finish my coffee while reading some awesome blogs (see blogroll!). I'm anxiously awaiting Manicure Addict's rainbow nails!!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber