Black Holo Foil Gel Mani

Hey Everyone!! Monday has got to be my most disliked day of all time. I dread Mondays. I think it is mainly because I spend most of my weekend at the kennel and haven't had much of a break. Friday I had a migraine but had to go to work anyway. It was quite unpleasant. Saturday I tried to relax so I stayed home all day and laid around then ran a couple of errands when C got home from work. Apparently I need more downtime than that because I am once again exhausted on this fine Monday and I would like nothing more than a nap. We also started Weight Watchers again so I would really like some food in addition to that nap. I didn't play very well and don't have much for an afternoon snack. Is it Tuesday yet?

Today I have a mani experiment to show you. I was hoping I could get nail foils to work with my gel mani. Unfortunately it wasn't a complete success but at least it wasn't a complete fail either. 

I used Fantasy Starry Holo Nail Foils Glitter Transfer Stickers #76 from BornPrettyStore. These sheets of foil was .99 and a great way to give foils a try without committing to ordering too much. I actually used twice as much as I would normally use because I had so many issues working with the gel and I still barely made a dent in the sheet. Design #76 is quite pretty and since the base of the foil is a black or charcoal color I figured I would use a black or dark gel polish. I was hoping a dark base would show off the pretty foil. 

I started with my left hand and used a black polish from Sally Hansen. I had the worst time trying to get the foil to stick to the sticky layer of the mani. I tried as many different tricks and techniques as I could come up with and nothing worked. In the end I had to use a clear polish and let it dry until it was tacky. The foil then stuck to that polish. I was able to do my gel topcoat to seal the foil in.

I didn't think that the foil was showing up as well as I wanted so I attempted a blue base for my right hand. Once again I couldn't get the foil to stick to the gel so I had to use clear polish and then gel topcoat.

I didn't get the effect I wanted but look at how pretty the foil is in the light. This mani actually reminded me of bowling balls for some reason. I really liked the look of the foil but that color spark was not as evident in regular lighting. It took a lot of bright light to really show the colors.

I didn't like the blue base as much but it was still quite cool looking.

I think the indoor shot above shows the look that really reminded me of a bowling ball. I really liked this mani but I did have some issues with it. 

The gel top coat had an issue on a couple of nails where it didn't cover the foil. I didn't notice it at first but then started to see a couple of spots where the nail was dull and I could scratch away at the foil. I was really careful about covering the entire nail with topcoat plus I had used a layer of Structure before the top coat. I am not really sure what happened to cause the issues.

Since I only had issues with a couple of nails I just applied a new layer of top coat on the problem nails and hoped for the best. It seemed to work and keep the foil from trying to escape.

I absolutely love nail foils now. They are fairly easy to use, though not quite as easy when using gel polish. They look really neat and add quite a cool aspect to your mani. I am definitely going to need to purchase more foils in the future.

My goal is to have a mani where the entire nail is covered in foil. I have yet to be able to get that result but I am determined to make it happen. Using a base that works with the color of the foil definitely helps. 

It was harder to tell where the foil didn't quite cover the black nails where as it was quite obvious with the blue base. I might have to look into the foil adhesive too. Using polish works quite well but I would like to see if there is any advantage to the adhesive. I am sure Elmers School Glue would work too.

You can purchase this and many other nail foils at BornPrettyStore. You can use coupon code JLG10 for 10% off. 

That's all for now :)

My first foil mani

Hey Everyone!!! That was a long break. Sorry about that. I am back! I might not be back with daily posts yet but I will definitely be posting more than the past few weeks. The house is still crazy with redoing the floors and moving everything around but life in general is not as stressful. 

This mani is from before the break both from blogging and of all my nails. Right now I am sporting major nubbins. In these pictures my pinky and ring nails were literally holding on by silk wraps and glue and finally gave out. I had cut them all down and all was well until they decided to break even shorter. It has been a long battle keeping my nails long especially with all of the time I spend at the kennel. Dog crates and muzzles do not treat nails well. Even with the gel manis I try to keep on there to protect them a bit. 

I had looked at nail foils for a very long time and loved the manis I saw people do using this medium but for some reason it took me way too long to try it out. I ordered two different foils from BornPrettyStore not long ago to give it a try. 

**Image used from BornPrettyStore.com**

They are .99 cents for a sheet and I decided I had to give it a try. I absolutely loved this mani. I took a ton of pictures of it because it was so very cool looking. I can't even remember how long I wore it before reluctantly removing it.

I started with a dark base that was an almost black teal. I was lazy and painted it over the red I already had on which is why you see red around the cuticles. Now I didn't order the foil adhesive because I just didn't think about it at the time. I didn't really need it but I did have to look up several places to find out how to apply the foils without adhesive.

Basically I cut small rectangles out of the sheet of foil. They were big enough to cover my entire nails but not much bigger so I didn't waste any. I ordered #18 which is a rainbow sheet. 

Honestly I wanted to do the entire nail in foil so it was a solid look instead of what it turned out as. Something Minx looking. Obviously that didn't work out but it was my first attempt. I tried using a top coat then waiting till it was almost dry to apply the foils. What I realized after trial and error is that I could apply the foil to the base color just as easily. I painted my nail with the base color then waited until it was almost dry. When it was almost dry I lightly pressed the foil to the nail and removed the clear backing. If I let the polish dry a little too much foil didn't transfer as well in those areas. It was a trial and error event but by the end it was pretty easy to manage.

If spots were missing some foil I went back over them and rubbed some more foil on. The sheet is roughly 12 inches long by 4 inches wide. I had plenty of this sheet left over for many more uses. The sheet comes folded into a square and packaged in a plastic sleeve like the picture above shows. They are really the perfect size for someone, like me, who wants to try foils out without committing to a whole roll. 

I am going over my next foil mani in my head right now. I think I might be trying the other pattern I bought, #76, tonight with a gel mani. I will see if I can get that to work together.

I thought my thumbs came out really cool so I figured I would show them this time.

The foils were really pretty and glowy.

That's all for now :)