Fancy Friday #42: Love is in the Air

And my second Valentine's day mani is part of the Fancy Friday challenge - if you need to recap why this is a darker version of a Valentine Mani you can go read my little rant here.

As I wrote in my last Fancy Friday challenge I wanted to try the fan brush gradient with regular polishes so I did that as a base. I started with a layer of China Glaze Pelican Gray and when it'd dried I used the tutorial at Neverland Nail Blog I talked about last week using Pelican Gray, YSL Gris Orage, and Dior Gris Montaigne. The look can best be seen on my ring finger on the picture below:

It became the perfect base for the rest of this mani I think, I'm just bummed I totally forgot to take pictures of it. I love that the effect is so subtle that you hardly realise it is a gradient.

I used MoyouLondon Princess Plate 10 for the girly skull and heart doodle stamp and VividLacquer plate VL007 for the kissy lips - and like my other VDay mani I also used Leighton Denny Indulgence as stamping polish here.

And La Pièce de Résistance: Elevation Polish Yeti's Broken Heart - an awesome glitter topper with a wide variety of white matte glitters and heart shaped glitter in white, black and purple. Add a little bit of holographic micro glitter pieces and you got a killer polish. I think it is a brilliant polish with a slight nudge to all the Valentine frenzy...

 

Lastly here are all the polishes together that I used for this manicure:

China Glaze Pelican Gray, YSL Gris Orage, Dior Gris Montaigne, Elevation Yeti's Broken Heart, Leighton Denny Indulgence

Ugens Fælles Fredag udfordring er Love is in the Air - det er Valentins dag og det fejrer jeg ikke ;). Jeg kan ikke rigtig få armene op over en begivenhed som er blevet indført af rent kommercielle årsager, en dag som vi aldrig har haft tradition for at fejre før i Danmark. Og nej, vi fejrer heller ikke Mors og Fars dag i den lille familie ;). Men det skal da så ikke forhindre mig i at lave en Valentinsmani med et twist - min base er en grå gradient i stedet for en lyserød eller rød lak, som jo ofte bliver brugt i den sammenhæng, og så har jeg valgt en anti-valentinsdagsneglelak til at toppe et par af fingrene: Elevation Polish Yeti's Broken Heart.

Nostalgic Lacquer As If!

I finally found a solution to my frustrations...letting my hubby teach me how to use Gimp :D

One of the earliest indie polish brands to emerge was Nostalgic Nail Lacquers. Erin, the mastermind behind it is a woman after my liking, all sorts of cool 80's and 90's movies and tv shows are her inspirations.

Way back in May I got in on a preorder of Nostalgics and here is the first of the seven I ordered.

As If! is part of the Totally Buggin' Collection and is a clear base glitter polish with white, two shades of pink and black hexes in different sizes, white and black bar glitter and if my eyes are not deceiving me...white shreds.

It is a bit thick but that is to be expected to get proper suspension and you do need to work a little to get a nice even layer. I used the dabble method that kitties from More Nail Polish uses (scroll down to the end of the post for the video tutorial) though I used a lighter hand to get the result you see here - and still some of the glitters seemed to stick together. But you know what? I really don't care 'cause I think this looks awesome!

With flash

For this I used YSL no 39 Gris Orage/Stormy Gray as base colour and I think As If! looks gorgeous this way.

I've been experimenting with my watermark and I'm still not quite satisfied...I changed it after I'd edited these pictures.

 You know I'm not a fan of pink polish but this really is amazeballs.

And by the way if you haven't seen Clueless yet, you need to watch it IMMEDIATELY, not only is it a way funny movie but also one cool Jane Austen adaptation. I will be sure to post some more of my Nostalgics, but hopefully my next post will be something Challenge related ;)