Indie January: CrowsToes Tangled Web

It's Day 9 of Indie January, and today's polish is an awesome glitter topper from CrowsToes!  Tangled Web is a clear base packed with black hexes, bars, and micro glitter, as well as blue duochrome hexes.  

I layered one coat of Tangled Web over two coats of Zoya Dove, and topped with two coats of Seche Vite.  Application required some extra work because it was super thick, so I dabbed it on like I described in this post. 

You're probably aware of my love for black glitter, and I really like the pairing of black and blue instead of the normal black and white!  It gave this really cool almost graffiti look to my nails, I had so many people grab my hand and ask me how I "did" the black, haha!   I find that most nuggles (nail muggles) have some mental block with the concept of matte or black glitter, ("But glitter is sparkly!") 

CrowsToes polish is currently in stock on Llarowe, and follow The Polished Crow's blog for updates.

Black glitter: Yes?  No?  Do you like the different pairing of colours, or prefer the normal black and white?  Comments make me happy!  :) 

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent to me for review. 

Nubzen Claus

**Voting for Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Challenge Week 3 is open until December 12th! Don't forget to vote!  See my entry here, and click here to vote!**

I'm so tired this morning; I had rehearsals and a performance last night and didn't get to leave the theater until 10:30pm, then I had to be back at the studio this morning for ballet class at 9:30am and I have matinee and evening performances later today!  (And this isn't a scheduled post, because I'm awful at planning ahead when it comes to blogging!)

Anywho, I've got pictures of two pretty polishes from a new-to-me indie brand, Nubzen Claus.  Take a look! 

Vampire Eyes is a stunning warm-toned dark brown polish with a blue colour shift and scattered holo.  The  brown is very flattering, and the colour shift can make it appear black, charcoal, brown, or blue depending on the light.  

I used two coats here; it applied easily and covered fully, but at certain angles there were slight bald patches near the cuticle.  One coat of Seche Vite. 

I think that the holo glitter is a nice touch, and I actually ended up liking the brown/blue colour shift a lot than I thought I would!  Overall, a lovely vampy polish. 

Castle Rock is another interesting polish; a light grey creme/jelly with micro bronze square glitters, small gold hex glitters, and medium brown hex glitters. 

It covered in two coats, and I think the balance of the various types of glitter works well.  Application was pretty easy, only a little dabbing here and there for a couple glitters that had clumped together.  One coat of Seche Vite, though I'd recommend two for a completely smooth finish. 

This polish apparently wasn't inspired by anything in particular and just ended up looking like limestone bricks in European castles, but I'd like to stay in my little ignorant bubble and pretend that it was inspired by my favourite show, Castle.  It totally works.  (Castle Mani Monday, anyone?)

I'll also mention that on the sides of the bottles, there's a perforated label that says "Unleash the Pretty", and it breaks when you twist the cap to open the polish.  I love details like this on indie polishes!

You can find Nubzen Claus Nail Pretties on Etsy here.  I have two more polishes to show you in a couple weeks, but for now which of these polishes is your favourite?  :)

Disclaimer: Products in this post were sent to me for review and my honest opinion. 

Swan Song

So I'm a little late on today's Castle Mani Monday post (seeing as I've just finished watching tonight's episode) but I've got a quick post! 

I'd like to put it out there that I'm going to be keeping these manis pretty abstract in the interpretation so that they can be enjoyed by everyone.  Since last week's post was inspired by Beckett's look, today's mani was loosely based off of one of Castle's looks in tonight's episode. 

Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle

I started with a base of Zoya Dove, placed stiping tape in a line down the center, and painted over with Orly Decoded before removing the tape and adding a top coat (which apparently didn't do much good since it got all scratched up right afterwards).

I haven't been doing my nails as often as I'd like the past couple of weeks because I'm swamped with rehearsals for a big performance that's this weekend (that plus the fact that I'm almost done reading The Hunger Games series and I only started 3 days ago.)  My birthday is this coming Friday (the 16th), and I'm having trouble deciding what I want to wear on my nails!  I'm thinking of re-creating one of my favourite previous manis in different colours, so let me know if you have any suggestions!  :)

Grey Ombré

I'm sitting here trying to come up with some clever name for this like my Grey-dient.  Grey-bré?  Om-grey? Yea, not really working for me.

This was my first time trying ombré nails, and I really like it!  I've been sick for two days now (though I still have to go to dance - can't miss any rehearsals with the show coming up next Saturday!) and even though it was late last night, I had already been wearing my last manicure for three days and it was getting pretty chipped.  I wanted something fast and easy that was still more interesting than a plain mani, so I finally decided to try this. 

From thumb to pinky I used Sally Hansen Black Out, Orly Shockwave, Grey franken (2 parts Zoya Dove, 1 part Orly Shockwave), Zoya Dove, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. 

I like the look of the colours transitioning from one to the next across the fingers!  I was a little nervous about having to mix a colour for the middle finger, but I think it came out just right.  I actually ended up liking the colour so much that I might make myself a mini bottle of it! 

I also went a little crazy with the nail file last night, they feel like such nubs after how long they've been the past few weeks!  Oops! 

I'm working on collecting some stuff for a giveaway soon, because lots of exciting events have all seemed to converge!  I just passed 300 blog followers, I'm getting close to 5000 Instagram followers (@emmaclarem), my next post will be number 100, and it's my 17th birthday next Friday, November 16th!  :)

Reciprocal Gradient Tutorial

As promised, here is a step-by-step picture tutorial of my Reciprocal Gradient nails from yesterday's post.  Here is what the finished mani looks like:

For this look I used Zoya Dove and Orly Decoded, though I'm sure it would look great in a lot of other colours combinations too!   Please excuse the the less-than-desirable lighting in the tutorial, it was nighttime and I had to use artificial light (I seriously need to make a lightbox) but I figured you'd rather have a funny-coloured tutorial than none at all! 

1.  Begin with a base coat, and paint your nails the lighter of the two colours you've chosen.  

2.  Sponge on a gradient, I use this method. (Skip to 2:10)  Add a quick-drying top coat.  

3.  Place pieces of striping tape (or very thinly cut pieces of normal tape, if you have no striping tape and a lot of patience.)

4.  Sponge on another gradient using the same method, but this time reverse the colours.  So if your gradient was going light-to-dark before, now sponge on dark-to-light.  You may have to go over this one a couple of times to completely cover the gradient underneath.  

5.  (not shown)  Peel off the striping tape, and clean around your nails, first with q-tips and then with a makeup brush dipped in acetone. 

6.  Add a couple coats of your favourite quick-drying top coat for a nice smooth finish, and you're done! 

How do you like it?  Was it easy enough to understand?  Will you be trying this?  If you write a post about it, please link back to this post.  If you do try it, email a link or a picture to ecm.dancer@gmail.com.  I'd love to see!  :)

Reciprocal Gradient

I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, and I don't *think* anyone else has done it before, so I decided to give it a go.  I'm SO happy with how this turned out!  

I started by painting my nails in a Grey-dient with Zoya Dove and Orly Shockwave.  Unsure of how my idea would turn out (regardless of the fact that it looked awesome in my head) I decided to do only my thumb, and if it looked awful I would leave the rest as plain gradients.  At that point I was almost wishing my idea would look awful, nearing 10:30pm, just so I could go to bed sooner...  

Unfortunately, after finishing my thumb, my exact thoughts were "Oh crap, this looks awesome.  Now I'm going to have to do all 10 nails." *facepalm*  Take a look. 

Zoya Dove and Orly Shockwave, with two coats of Seche Vite.  I consistently have problems with these two greys photographing way more blue than they actually are.  Grrr.  

I felt so cool naming this the reciprocal gradient.  I was thinking about nail polish while doing math (I promise that doesn't happen all the time,) and the word popped out at me and it just seemed to fit perfectly  :)

So, since I'm hoping that you'll all love this and want it on your own nails (and then it'll blow up and become a huge trend... Ha. Right.) I took a couple pictures as I was going and I'll post a step-by-step picture tutorial tomorrow!  Awesome nails for all!! 

So you've probably got it figured out that I think this is awesome, but what about you?  Do you like the reciprocal gradient?  Will you be putting it on your (probably lengthy) to-do list of manicures?  Remember to check back tomorrow for a tutorial, and if you re-create the look shoot me an email (ecm.dancer@gmail.com) I'd love to see!  :)

F4 Polish: Gravel Dust

I've got one more great F4 Polish to show you today, Gravel Dust!  You can see my review of the F4 Polish Halloween Collection here.  

Gravel Dust is a medium grey crelly (creme-jelly) filled with tiny pink, purple, and green matte glitters.  The application was easy, and the glitters spread evenly by themselves.  

I've shown three coats here, but if you don't have a very visible nail line or don't have much free edge, you could easily get away with two coats.  I only had time for one coat of Seche Vite (morning mani,) but it was still pretty gritty so I'd recommend two coats of a thicker top coat for a completely smooth finish.  

I've made no secret of my love of grey polish, and this one hits the spot!  I think that it's really unique, and I love the uniform size of the glitters.  This would be a great polish for someone who wants something fun on their nails, but doesn't want to go too crazy.  ;)

You can find F4 Polish on Facebook here, and on Etsy here.  Jenn, Lacey, and Lexy, the geniuses behind F4 Polish, consistently turn out original and quality polishes, and I can honestly say that they are some of the most sweet and enthusiastic girls when it comes to their brand!  :)

Do you own any F4 Polish?  Do you like grey polish with glitter?  Let me know what you think! 

Orly Electronica Collection

Or, well, half of it.  I picked up two polishes from the Orly Electronica collection sometime in June when they were on BOGO sale at Sally's; I'm really glad I did because they'll definitely be some of my go-to colours for fall!

Decoded is a dark grey creme, which you saw a couple of days ago in my Grey-dient.  In the pictures it's leaning much more blue-toned than it is in real life, it really is a true grey.  Two coats, flawless formula, stunning colour.  LOVE.

Shockwave is a rich dark royal blue which you saw in my review of Tough As Nails Lacquer the other day.  Pictures were taken outside, and it appears quite a bit darker in indoor lighting.  It's one of those blues that looks navy at times but never looks black; love that!  The VNL you can see in the pictures wasn't visible at all in real life.  Same thing: two coats, flawless formula, amazeballs colour.  DOUBLE RAINBOW.

Gosh, how I love Orly.  Every polish I own is so freaking fantastic (despite the near-inevitable SV shrinkage!)  Luckily I've learned to mostly avoid it with very careful application, and it's sooo totally worth it! Orly FTW! :D  

Do you guys love a good fall-coloured creme as much as I do?  Do you own either of these polishes?  Which one is your favourite?  Comments make me happy :)  Thanks for reading!

Grey-dient

Puns aside, here's a fall-appropriate gradient that I'm absolutely loving!  I started with two coats of Orly Decoded, (swatches soon) and sponged on Zoya Dove. 

I didn't realize until after I was done, but I did the opposite of what I normally do for gradients.  Instead of starting with a lighter colour and sponging on the darker, I started with the dark and sponged on the light.  I guess that Dove was opaque enough, because it obviously worked alright. :P

The colours are showing up really blue in my pictures, but in person they are both true grey colours and blend together beautifully.

Hate to toot my own whistle, but I felt like a freaking genius when I thought of this grey-dient thing.  Not gonna lie.  (Super awkward for me if its been done before and I didn't know...)

Anywho, I've also done some layering over this which looks super awesome, but you'll have to wait for another post for that ;) 

Recently we've been seeing gradients done more often in pastel and bright colours, but how do you like the gradient with more muted fall colours? :)

Stripes & Dots

Hooray!  I'm done my provincial exam!  I think it went pretty well.  Now I only have a couple of outstanding bits of assignments left to do, and then I'm done Socials forever! (It's my least favourite subject, if you can't tell.) 

Anywho, here's the nails!  On my (first ever) trip to Ulta (heaven!) last weekend, I picked up 2 new polishes for myself, Essie Mojito Madness and Zoya Dove.  So on Wednesday morning I painted my nails with Dove, an absolutely beautiful grey!  Is it normal to call grey beautiful?  I'm a real sucker for grey polishes.  I want them all!  Anyways, I knew the plain mani could only last so long, so after about three hours of studying  that night (and feeling very brainwashed) I took a quick break to add stripes in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out.  Stripes are my absolute favourite thing to have on my nails, but I don't do them near enough.  Since I don't have any striping tape and have to literally cut up strips of tape, I got lazy and just did polka-dots on my right hand.  I actually quite like the two hands similar-but-different!  Picture of both hands at the end of the post.  

I know I said I'd never take a picture like that again because it looked like a spider, but I couldn't figure out  another pose for both hands that wasn't super awkward. 

Also, I have some good news and some terrible news.  Terrible news first: the ballet school that I'm going to for a month in the summer doesn't allow us to wear nail polish in class.  I think I died a little when I found out.  Of course I'll still paint them super-sheer neutral colours, but probably nothing worth posting.  I'm figuring out some different posts for those four weeks.  If you would like to do a guest post for me to be posted between July 22 and August 18, please let me know ASAP, I'll be extremely grateful!  You can e-mail me at ecm.dancer@gmail.com if you're interested.  

Good news: I'll be having a small giveaway once I reach 100 followers, so keep an eye out! :)

Studs and Pokeballs

Hello!  Today I have two more manis to show you.  

The first is using a polish I recently acquired from Orly's Cool Romance Spring Collection, 'Faint of Heart.  This colour is a light brown-ish gray with a very interesting finish.  In the bottle it looked like a flat creme, but once I got it on the nail  I noticed there were little black specs in it.  The finish is very interesting, and reminds me of concrete (in the best way possible).  The PolishAholic has a great close-up picture showing the finish on this polish.  Formula was a little goopy and streaky, but workable. This is two thick coats, with 2 coats of Seche Vite to seal in the studs.  I used studs from a Color Club Nail Art kit that I found on sale at Winners a few weeks ago.  I got a lot of compliments on this one!

Artificial light

With an effect I added before posting to Instagram

 Second, I have a mani inspired by Sammy at The Nailasaurus from Day 2 of her 'Week of Geek'.  For this one I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'White On' and 'Cherry Red', as well as a mini OPI that I can't find a name for.  I realized when I was getting my polished together to do this that I don't actually own a plain black polish (besides my Konad Special Polish).  This one took me 3 hours. *Hangs head in embarrassment*.  In my defense, I was using tape to get perfect lines and so I had to wait quite a while between steps.
Excuses.

With one coat of Seche Vite

I don't think I'll ever take a picture like this again. It looks like a spider and creeps me out.

I didn't get to post yesterday because I spent the entire day running back and forth from the dance studio to the theater for rehearsals and competitions.  Results?  Our lyrical group got 1st place, and our jazz got 2nd, both out of 7 groups competing.  Our lyrical also got the highest group score overall in our level. :)
That's all for right now, as I'm off to paint my nails with Orly 'Fowl Play' that I received in the mail a few days ago and is as of yet untried.  More will be posted tomorrow!