The owls are not what they seem.

 Who's excited about the return of Twin Peaks? Meeee!

I've been wanting to do some Black Lodge inspired nail art for a while, but it kept on not happening somehow. 
Then I ordered some chevron-guide stickers and.. they were way too big for what I wanted to do, so that didn't pan out.

Then I got a pair of those scissors that cut zig-zag patterns, which is how I accomplished this. The scissors kept misbehaving though, so I'm not sure if I'll see a return of the chevron on my nails again soon. 

Damn fine cup of coffee.

The base whites are Safari's 'No56' and a Hema polish, neither of which I particularly recommend. The black, Catrice's '39 Black to the Routes'. The red nail, based on the scenery of the waiting room, is actually several shades of red stripes layered over each other to get that curtainy effect, though it's not too clear in the pictures. They are YSL, 'No04', Max Factor '549 Red Passion', Rimmel '035 Wine Not' and Koh's 'Red!'.

Rest in Peace, Leonard Nimoy.

I took a break from nail art, which unintentionally turned into a break from posting as a whole. Real life situations, and relying only on a temperamental laptop kept me away. I've built up a small backlog of photos I'll be posting in the future, but for now I want to post some new nail art.

On Friday the 27th, Leonard Nimoy passed away at the age of 83.
I'm a long-time Star Trek fan, and though he had lived a long and full life, it's still upsetting to see a hero go.


So my return to this blog is a little nail-art tribute to the original Mr. Spock.

I'm very sad about his passing, and I don't really have any more words to express it, so I'll just continue by listing the polishes used.




Base - Rimmel, '825 Sky High', Spock face - Essence, '03 Cotton Candy',
Blue - Koh, '217 No Worries', Hair & lettering - Catrice, '39 Black to the Routes'.

Four Rimmel Gradient.

 From left to right (all Rimmel),
700 Block Your Green, 825 Sky High, 420 Aqua Cool, 425 My Denim

Something more than a plain colour from me again? Could this be? Yes, it could, and so it is.
This gradient proved a tough one to photograph since lighting conditions everywhere are terrible. Outside the sky makes everything drab and gloomy, inside everything is made to look oddly orange. My photo situation is complicated.

My material for sponging has changed since last time! When I bought Emerald, I threw some makeup sponges into my basket as well. Prior to this I'd actually been using a cutting from a facepainting sponge, which is a lot more porous than makeup sponges and you can really see the difference it makes. The green nails are still done with the facepainting sponge, whilst the lilac/blue uses the new sponges. The gradient is so much smoother, I'm super pleased!

Shrug.

Mostly, nail polish is my ally. Some days it just refuses to work with me.
My previous polish had long since started to come off but I just didn't feel like sitting down to remove its remnants and put on something new. After trying a polish on my pinky that refused to apply properly, and then trying another on my ringfinger that had other issues I was starting to regret ever beginning.

Still, I'm not somebody that can stand bare nails for long so I grabbed Rimmel's '600 Deliciously Dark' and applied that, it being mostly and untried after all, with my only holo, Koh's 'Metallic Green (127)' as an accent.

The result.. meh. Deliciously did not apply well and looks messy. It also started to flake very quickly.

They can't all be winners.

It's purple, I promise. It just refused to come out that way.

Black & Blue.

Another half-rhombus. By now a cliché trademark choice.

I needed a new black since my older ones are getting droopy and no longer as easy to restore with a drop or two of nail polish thinner. Wanted to combine a light colour and that black in something easy.

Catrice, '39 Black to the Routes' & Rimmel, '198 Azure'.

Double Swatch.

Heya. Swatch time.

I'd describe this as a burgundy with purple undertones. It's a Miss Sporty polish bearing the number 340 and is apparently 'Long Lasting'. It started chipping on day two of wearing it but I guess 'long' is an undefined term.. I do really like the colour though it was hard to get it evenly over all the nails. I'm thinking another coat would have done it, though.

Flash - artificial light.

Somewhere down the line it appears I stopped doing these light comparisons, which is a shame, really. One picture in one kind of light is unlikely to really show the full scope of a colour so I intend to bring it back for my swatch posts. You can see the purple undertone in the artificial light quite well.

Bonus swatch that I still had lying around from June but would be silly now to devote its own post to:

This is one of the Rimmel polishes I was given for my birthday, '519 Desert Beauty'. I'm not sure how to describe this colour. It's not quite a gold. Too shiny to be described as really resembling sand which I think the polish name is aimed at. Like a lot of lighter tones it's hard to get longer nails covered opaquely, so it requires more coats for longer nails, less for shorter.

Eat the Rude.

I'm sure most have now heard about and possibly seen NBC's new 'Hannibal' show. The first season's nearly over, and I have to admit I wasn't hooked from the get go. A few episodes ago, though, it seems like something clicked with me and now I'm sad I'll have to wait for the next season for so long.
I tend to follow up my fancies with nail art, so Hannibal is no different.

I stopped layering this red (Rimmel - 035 Wine Not) so it wouldn't be a completely opaque shade. The effect won't come across in the picture, but I like the subtle changes it makes in the shade when the light hits it differently, making it reminiscent of liquid. (Blood or wine is anyone's guess.) Bottom polish is YSL 141, which is probably my favourite silver. And obviously it's another half rhombus mani because it suits the theme and not because I am just obsessed with them. Obviously.

And now the more clearly Hannibal part of the nails -

Swiggity swag, I'm a stag.

Black is the Koh polish of the same name, and the antlers are acrylic paint.

Outta This World.

My birthday was earlier this month, and a friend of mine got me some polishes! (All Rimmel; 035 Wine Not, 198 Azure, 519 Desert Beauty, 600 Deliciously Dark & 700 Block Your Green)

I've already worn Wine Not and Deliciously Dark in a pretty nice layering experiment which I sadly (due to lack of camera) didn't get to photograph but which I may have to repeat in the future because it created a lovely dark burgundy sort of shade.

For today's mani - which is another half rhombus - I used Azure.

 The tape came off very smoothly so I got excellently crisp lines in this one! The silver under Azure is YSL shade 141 - White Gold.

Post title brought to you by this little alien guy.

Is this not what you expected to see?

If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes,
You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise ♪

I really, really love The Wall. I'd been meaning to do this for a while but kept putting it off (dreading the effort I expected was involved in getting the bricks properly across both hands) but I did it now!
Not really as planned, and my right hand definitely came out looking less than stellar. If I can have a superpower, I want it to be ambidexterity.

Polishes used;
Koh 'Black!'
Miss Sporty Clubbin Colours '70'
Rimmel 'Nail Tip Whitener'
NYC '003 Prey of Grey'
Bodique (Hunkemöller) 'Rood (red)'

Border Nails.

I know, I should be (and am) ashamed for posting my nails in the state they're in. I was late in taking pictures, and at this point the manicure had already seen the best days of its short life.

Wanted to try border nails, a nail art trend I think can look either fantastic or horrible.
Sadly, my attempt did not fall in the 'fantastic' category.
When lining white (which is what it started off as) over Rimmel's '700 Block Your Green' I realised I had made the wrong choice, colour-wise. It just doesn't look good, and within a short period of time the white had absorbed some of the green and turned yellow. Experiment failed, sadly.




But on the bright side, Block Your Green is a pretty polish and I'm glad I bought it.

(I know, I know, I'm sorry!)

Just reminding you all the discount is still valid! Use it while you can!

Nothing Else Matte-ers.

Again with the puns, I'm not sorry.

In my Let Them Talk-nails post I mentioned I'd been on a bit of a matte kick, as such, these nails were done prior to the others. I'd often seen the 'glitter polish with matte top coat'-thing on other blogs and always liked it but never actually tried it myself! So, here my first experiment with it, using Rimmel 825 Sky High, a Herôme glitter polish, and NYC Matte Me Crazy.

I like how it turned out! I'll definitely do this again sometime.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Tuuurn and face the strange, ch-ch-change-- sorry. On with the post. 

One coat my ass.

To get on with trying my untrieds, I had to do some layering. The above is Rimmel 825 Sky High which, aside from being rather unfairly marketed as a 'one coat polish', is really a very nice colour and is just fine as long as you put on at least two. Which I did do after taking the above pictures. It's also not untried, I've worn it before.

The actually untried polish I wanted to try here was the Blaze polish that changes colour in sunlight. I've used polishes of the brand before, so I knew wearing just that would do a very poor job of covering my nail in less than 20 layers. Hence the layering with Sky High. Anywho, my Blaze bottle lacks stickering of any kind that could tell me the name, but a search on the product website leads me to think it's Tahitian Skies to Purple Rain. Bit of a mouthful. Personally, I think it leans more to a pink than a purple in the bottle.
I quite like the effect obtained from layering it over Sky High, gives it a bit of a mother of pearl look.

Before and after exposure to sunlight. Do forgive the lack of clean up, I ran outside to catch a bit of the sun before it'd disappear for the day!