Before & After: I'll Never Skittle

Hello!!

I recently found quite a gem among the Pure Ice display...I'll Never Tell. No, I mean, that's the name of the polish: I'll Never Tell. It's a brown polish that might be fairly ordinary except for the addition of pearly flakies:

Pure Ice I'll Never Tell

Now including bonus cat hair!

I was in the mood for something elegant, so I stamped on two fingers with China Glaze passion, using Cheeky Gals plate GA37; on the other two nails I put gold studs:

This is probably one of the simplest manicures I've ever done in terms of execution, but it's also one of my favorites. I love the elegance of the simple skittle and the play of the gold, brown, and the flakies. Sublime!

Thanks for looking. Hugs and amazing polish dreams,
M.

NOTD: Bright skittle stamping :)

Hello!

Today's Sunday Stamping prompt in Adventures In Stamping is to stamp over a skittle. These days my favorite type of skittle is a 2 + 2 skittle, with two colors each on two nails, and one of the colors on the thumb (although you never get to see the thumb, lol).

I was feeling very summery, so I decided to go with some deliciously bright summer colors. I chose Zoya Darcy, a bright lemon creme, and Zoya Mitzy, an avocado matte. Holy moly, Mitzy is a huge pain in the butt to apply--I mean on the level of old-school holo pain in the butt. Not only did I have to pull out every trick in my bag to apply it, I had to invent new ones. It made the application of Darcy look easy, impressive as she was a bit problematic, too. Don't get me wrong, I love Zoya, and most of the time have little or no problem with their formula--and ever brand has a few difficult children. So I don't mean to malign the brand, at all. I just had to get that little whine off my chest. :)

Back to the issue at hand. Next I put D&R Apothecary (formerly known as Hit Polish) Sour Candies over Darcy on my pinkie and index finger; Sour Candies is a very fun mix of blue, green, yellow and white glitters of varying sizes, in a nearly clear green-jelly base. Then, I stamped over Mitzi with China Glaze Hanging In The Balance, using Cheeky plate GA3. Finally, I finished off with two yellow glequins on the middle nails:

If that doesn't put some summer spring in your step, I don't know what will! Yes, it's bright, and I love this combination of colors for summertime. Maybe subconsciously it reminds me of a beach ball or something. :)

Thanks for taking a look! Peace and love,
M.

Before & After: Red Skittle

Hello!

Sometimes I overthink things, lol...When I saw 'Inspired by your favorite color' as a challenge prompt, I thought a lot about what that meant, particularly since we've already done 'your fav color family' and 'your fav polish'. Of course my favorite color is red, and people talk about it as a 'power' color and a color that people are attracted to because it gets attention. I certainly like the fact that it's a bold color, but for me I think it has more to do with the warmth of it. It feels warm and cozy to me, and I love being surrounded by it. I thought about doing something with flames or fire, but that just didn't quite feel right, so I kept thinking. I also have always favored red because it favors me--it has always set off my dark hair and my light skin beautifully, so I like the way it looks on me, and I love contrasting it with neutrals.

It was that contrasting-it-with-neutrals thought that captured my attention when I was thinking things through, and I decided to do a mani that uses the contrast between red and black and silver. :)

I started with a base of Layla SE07; This is a dark red polish with a matte finish:

Layla Softouch Effect 07 in indirect light

Direct light

I like the matte finish, but honestly I think this polish is at its most beautiful with a shiny topcoat, so I did some skittle madness with it and then shined it on up:

Look at that rust-gold sparkle that comes out when you add topcoat!

On the pinky finger, I put a silver and a black study; on the ring finger, I put a stripe of Orly Liquid Vinyl and a stripe of Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. On the middle finger I put some loose diamond glitter; the silver ones are from Born Pretty Store (I will do a review later this week) and the black diamonds were a gift to me from a friend. Finally, on the index finger, I painted half of it with Orly Liquid Vinyl, and then stamped over it with Silver Mercedes and LeaLac Plate LLC-B.

The more skittle manis I do, the more I love them. This is the second or third set I've done with red, and I think it's just such a great look!

Thanks for stopping by, and please check out what the other challenge participants came up with, linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.