Fail Friday: Sunset Pink

Ugh... Just... Yeah. Before we get into this ridiculous post, please note that none of these photos (or any of the other fourteen billion I took) are anywhere near the actual colour of this polish. This polish downright refused to photograph accurately, and I finally gave up after three separate 'photoshoots' attempting to get the right colour. Gah. Just, yeah. Humph.

*deep calming breaths* Well hi there!! Happy Friday!! Quite some time ago I used to do 'Fail Fridays' showcasing some of my rather plentiful nail-fails, and though I didn't intend on doing one today, it kind of just happened. At the height of my frustration photographing this stupid (not really, I love it, actually) polish, I realised it was Friday, so I could use this as a Fail. 

Today's polish was sent to me by a fellow Kiwi nail blogger Anneke of PinPointPolish. She is wonderfully sweet and super passionate with some amazing photos, so go show her some love!! She found the brand Ulta3 (which is common in the US / Australia but previously unavailable in NZ, as far as I know) at a pharmacy in Auckland and offered to send me a few bottles. Jumping up and down, I went on a Google Images rampage and picked out three, and they arrived safe and sound today in a well packed little box, with some chocolate hiding underneath! Thank you again, Miss Anneke! I love them sooo much!!! Without further ado, may I present the deeply beautiful but unreasonably stubborn Ulta3 Sunset Pink.

See the colour in the bottle? Add two dashes of red-wine shades and a plum or two, and you're a bit closer to the true shade of this baby - a deep berry pink, not a light red as it decided it wanted to be today. This is two easy coats, though the formula was quite a bit thicker than I'm used to. It dries to a rubbery / nearly matte finish, so a glossy top coat is necessary if you want it to shine. I used a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat.

I was going to write something here, but this is so far away from the colour that I just... *sigh*.

In this photo, my index and middle fingers are sans top coat so you can see the 'original' finish. Again, nowhere near the colour. Honestly, I'm not sure why I bothered posting these photos, except that I'm always so excited about new polish! I absolutely promise with all my heart that it is a beautiful polish that I don't ever wanna take off. Seriously. Even though I messed with my white balance and tried to adjust the shade in photoshop and all that jazz, I could not get an accurate shade without making my fingers bright cyan. So [expletive] it, that'll do. Humph.

That concludes this train wreck. Bah. 

What colours do you find the hardest to photograph? What was the last polish you bought / received? Thanks for checking in loves, and sorry for the entirely useless post! =( 

Edit: This is much closer to the colour that it actually is IRL. Delicious deep berry lipstick-y kinda colour. It's beautiful, I promise. I googled around and couldn't find any particularly accurate photos of the polish, so it's nice to know I'm not alone with this stupid blimen thing!! =P

Happy Weekends! ^_^

French Grapes (and some Whine)

Well hello again! I know, I know, slack blogger is slack, and I really have no excuse... But look! A gradient mani! The prettiness makes up for my slackness, yeah? *ahem* Anyway... Today's mani is a gradient mani using BYS French White and OPI A Grape Fit - my current obsession.

There's not really a tonne to say about this mani... I stamped the accent nails using French White and Bundle Monster plate BM310. The stamping on this mani is craptastic, and that's the nicest word I can think of to describe the train-wreck that occurred. I photographed the best nail (yeah, I know, that's how bad it was...) which I had to double stamp because it translated so badly the first time. I tried to line it up, I swear! But it was not to be. *sigh*

At least the gradient is pretty, right??

Ugh. This mani was just NOT working with me today. I didn't even attempt to photograph my right hand because it was twice the disaster of what you've seen. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks really nice here in photo form, but the stamping was horrible, my right hand turned out extra crappy, and overall it was just a total downer for me. You ever have that "This is gonna look sooo great!!" moment in your head, and the execution is just... meh.? Yeah, that's what this was. Humph. 

Sorry to be such a total Debbie Downer on you today, but this is just such a 'could do better' mani that it's left me all meeerghhh... Maybe a nice watermarble will cheer me up... ;-)

What was your last mani-related disappointment? Do you try to touch up what you don't like, or take it all off and start over? Thanks for reading, lovelies, and sorry again for such a pfft reading experience... =P

Moody Marbled Blues

Well as it's Monday, it felt somewhat appropriate to post a blue, blue, blue mani for you today. It is a bit of a fail - though the overall effect is pretty nifty, it's not where near my usual OCD standards, and I didn't wear it for longer than it took to take the pics. Here's a relatively crap water marble. Enjoy!

OPI I Vant To Be A-Lone Star, OPI No Room For The Blues (my current obsession), and China Glaze First Mate. Because IVTBALS is so sheer and shimmery, I started with two coats for a base colour so that it would show up at all when marbled. Always good if you want to use a colour that doesn't necessarily show up on its own very often.

Then the horror began. Believe it or not, my middle finger was the one I did twice, and this is the better result! I wasn't feeling it, I guess, and you can tell that there isn't much love in this mani =(.

Though I did kinda like how my thumb turned out... I tried for a swirl for once. Ya like?

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. It just wasn't workin' for me, I tells ya!

Then I started playing around with my camera... Heh heh...

Technique aside, as it was not my best day and I couldn't be bothered fixing all the bloopers, what do you think of the colour combo? Do you like one colour marbles (like this one) or are you a fan of the ones that use different colours? What was your best / worst colour combo? I'd love to hear from you lovely people!! Hope your week's off to a better start than mine ;-). 

Fail Friday: ALL the Colours!!

Hiya guys! Today's Fail Friday post is a well-intended mani that simply didn't turn out as imagined, and actually looked bad enough that I couldn't bring myself to leave the house with it on! I think it was a mixture of the crap-tastic stamping and the wrong tones for the rainbow and my rush to get something done that resulted in just... no. Wanna see?

From left to right: Revlon Red Hot, BYS Tempt Me Tangerine, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and BYS Drop In The Ocean. I think I had the wrong orange, green and blue for this to be an effective multi-coloured rainbow mani, but they're kinda all I have at the moment... I'm working on it, I promise! 

I painted each nail a different colour - red on my thumb through to blue on my pinky - and hated it, so I tried to mute it by stamping over them all with fauxnad plate m65 in BYS Black Satin. Again, well intended, poorly executed... Smudge smudge smudge all the way home...

See what I mean about the wrong 'tones'? The theory was there, but it just... failed. 

Gah. Thank goodness that's over! What was your last mani-fail? Have you mastered the rainbow mani yet? I'd love your feedback, guys! Oh, and happy weekend!! =D

Fail Friday: First Gradient

Happy Friday! The weekend's just about here, wahoo! I've got a lot of pics for you today, and you'll be able to tell they were taken a while ago! This was my first ever attempt at a gradient, and I think it went terribly wrong. I recorded it step-by-step in the hopes that it'd be awesome, but it was not to be.

The three colours I chose were OPI Steady As She Rose, Do You Lilac It? and Lincoln Park After Dark. 

Base coat

 Base colour: Steady As She Rose. The rest of the photos kinda speak for themselves...

Yeeeeah.... This is not the look I was going for. In an attempt to smooth everything out and hopefully help the 'gradual' effect, I smothered my nails in OPI Princesses Rule. Not any better. 

I'm so glad I've improved my gradient technique, because this could seriously put a girl off ever trying again! Ugh just... no...!

Short and sweet today my lovelies! I'm off to look at cameras... Mmmm... Apart from the fact that I seriously love new stuff, my big camera that I use for just about everything is quite a bit behind in the times, and it's not really standing up to what I need it to do anymore. As a point of reference, my stepdad's cellphone produces better images than my big expensive 5yr old camera. *sniffle*. So, to the shops! Thanks for checking in, you wonderful people! =D

Rainbows For A Rainy Day

Hiya guys! Happy Monday! Well, as happy as a Monday can be... To attempt to brighten up the start of your week, I've got a rainbow gradient mani for you today. It didn't quite go as planned, as so many of my manis don't, but after the second shot at it, I was relatively pleased with the results! I started with two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! because I wanted a white base colour to work on, but not a total white out like I get with my BYS French White or OPI Alpine Snow. DTMT is a very sheer white creme-jelly that is simply delicious, as is the rest of the NYC Ballet collection that this comes from. Sorry about the inside after-midnight crappily lit photos at the start! I thought I should snap my base colour but it was very late and all the sun was gone. 

Mmmm I just love the whole NYC Ballet Collection, they're just soo yummy! It's been a while since I've applied an OPI colour as a straight base colour, and I'd forgotten how much I love the 'pro-wide' brush! It completely covers my nail in one or two strokes - it just glides on and smooths itself out. Dream application! Once my base colour was almost dry (I wanted a little bit of tackiness) I made tiny puddles of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple polish all in a row, and then started sponging! That was the first try...

The above pic of my thumb is from the first attempt. The rest of the photos are from the second (more successful) go. After sponging the polish onto all my nails, I realised how specific my sponging had to be to avoid over-mixing the colours and losing the gradient altogether. Then the intelligent corner of my brain went "you know red and yellow makes orange, and yellow and blue makes green, right?". After sighing at my own over-eager too-much-polish-using ways, I took it all off and started again, using just Revlon Red Hot (red), China Glaze Happy Go Lucky (yellow), and BYS Drop In The Ocean (blue). And whaddaya know, my primary school colour-mixing knowledge was right! This was a lot cleaner, brighter, and easier! Behold!

The wonderful thing with this gradient technique (which I now swear by!) is that you get such an overlapping mix of colours - a true gradient. As eager as I was to use all my colours for this rainbow mani, the more colours I used, the worse it looked! Keep It Simple, kids, and you'll have a lot more fun. Trust me. 

It's still not particularly perfect but the effect is very cool, and I've been itching do to a rainbow mani for months!! Part of my craving is satisfied, but I think I can do better. Watch this space!

Dog came to help me take photos, so I thought I should get him back by snapping his. He's not a huge fan of the camera and was particularly shy today (he's the biggest wimp ever) but I got this one so I thought I'd share. Isn't he gorgeous? He sits at my feet under the desk while I write these blogs. Sometimes I reckon he thinks he really is a dog. A wimpy girlish dog, but a dog all the same! 

Hmmm yeah it was definitely time to go back inside. The big black clouds were rolling in again so indoors with hot choc and fluffy dressing gown it is! Such a tough life ;-).

What do you think of my first / second attempted rainbow gradient mani? Have you tried to do a rainbow mani? What's your favourite way to see a rainbow mani done - vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, dots, an actual 'rainbow' curve? Tell me what you think, I love hearing from you guys! Enjoy your Monday ;-).

- Ally xx

Fail Friday: Splattered

Hello hello! I know it's a late one today - sorry! - but I thought I'd share with you a technique I've only tried once, and will probably try again but not anytime soon. Behold, the 'splatter mani'. 

You can tell it's an oldie by the round nails... I've really been liking my squarer nails, to be honest! This is BYS French White and Drop In The Ocean. I found this on Youtube and had to try it. The technique involves dipping the end of a small straw into a puddle of whatever polish you're using, and then blowing on the (OTHER) end of the straw so the paint splatters out and onto your nail (and everything else in the vicinity...). I think I got a bit carried away trying to cover the whole nail, and it ended up just looking a mess. My base colour application left something to be desired too.. An all over fail, don't cha think?

I originally saw this done with red polish splattered over white, and the result was very gorey - perfect for Halloween! My blue version just resulted in my nails looking like I'd had some accidents while trying out test pots of paint... Not so glam. 

Have you ever tried a mani technique that didn't work anywhere near as well for you as it did for the person doing the tutorial? What's your favourite Halloween mani look that you've come across? Just think - it's the weekend tomorrow! Happy Friday night, loves =) Thanks for stopping in!

- Ally xx