Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. A Blogger Collaboration post

I'm a little late to the party but since this is for a good cause I decided to contribute anyway.

A couple of years ago we had an 18-year old boy working with us in the film archive for two months. We pride ourselves of being an open minded work place (one of the archivists suffers from Cerebral Palsy) and to be working with us turned out great for him. Some of the job functions are rather repititive and systematised and furthermore we are a happy and caring bunch of people who want all our coworkers to feel at home. He suffered from Aspergers Syndrome and wanted to see if he would eventually be able to master some kind of job position suited for him. When he left us he expressed that being with us had made him decide to apply for a dedicated high school that specialises in working with youths suffering from Aspergers. Us being open minded helped him on his way and that is why autism awareness is important - if we "healthy" people stay open minded we are more likely to help the "less healthy" in finding something that is meaningful to them and will make their life a little less difficult.

Since blue has been chosen as the colour to signify autism awareness nail bloggers are donning their blues to support the cause.

I've seen Reciprocal Sponge Gradient manis floating around on nail blogs and thought I'd try it but just do it a little differently. Therefore my tape stripes are asymmetrical but I think they ended up being only so-so:

I've had some Kiko's sitting in my untried drawer and three of them were blue so the decicsion on which polish brand to use for this mani was an easy one to make.

 

I apologise for the rather poorly clean-up. I'd forgotten to wrap up my fingers so I ended up with nail polish all over - and it being highly pigmented blues you can imagine how easy clean-up actually was :P

Kiko 339 Cornflower, Kiko 385 Pastel Blue, Kiko 337 Periwinkle Violet.

Autism Facts:
Autism Spectrum Disorder ASD is a range of neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restrictive, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior.  Autistic Disorder sometimes referred to as autism is the most severe form of ASD while other conditions along the spectrum include a milder form known as Asperger Syndrome.

Although ASD varies significantly in character and severity it occurs in all ethnic and socioeconomic groups and affects every age group.

Males are four times more likely to develop ASD than females

Some common signs of ASD are:
Focusing on one item and excluding all others for prolonged periods of time

Become both withdrawn and indifferent to social interaction

Failure to respond to one's name or make eye contact

Many children follow patterns of twirling, rocking and even destructive behavior such as banging their head or biting.

Children with characteristics of ASD may also have conditions such as epileptic seizures, Tourette's Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, and Fragile X Syndrome which causes mental retardation.

Because ASD varies in severity and symptoms it is not uncommon for it to go on unrecognized.

Currently scientists do not know exactly causes ASD although it is likely that both genetics and environment do play a role.

Some therapies and treatments have helped with the severity of symptoms in some individuals, sometimes symptoms improve with age, but as of right now there is no cure for ASD.

To support Autism Awareness Month some of my fellow bloggers have banded together to get the word out and Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness!

Untried Sunday

It's been a while since I showed you my untrieds so this week I'm going to show you two in one :D

As you know Dandy Nails is one of my favourite indie brands - in my top three actually - and this polish really is the epitome of a marvellous glitter bomb.

What you may not know is that my favourite high end brand is Dior. I have yet to come across one that is not nail polish perfection - and this is no exception.

Behold Dior Gris Perle topped with Dandy Nails Like Disco Lemonade:

I love the tapered flat paddle brush in the new Dior bottles though the brush in this one is the broad normal one.  It is of really high quality and very easy to work with, and the polish itself is really opaque, I put on two thin layers for this mani.

Like Disco Lemonade is an awesome glitter bomb in a clear base and it has so much going on. Green and orange micro glitters, black squares, holographic hexes, all making this polish unique in my collection. I've got more complicated glitter bombs than this but the combination in it is outstanding.

As usual it was a polish that was easy to work with, I didn't have to use the dabble method to get good coverage from one layer - actually I don't have to dabble any of my Dandy Nails glitter bombs which is one of the reasons why this brand is in my indie top three.

And here are a couple of close-up's of the two beauties:

 

I think this combo is awesome and lends something great to both polishes. What do you think?

If you want to know what's on my ring finger you can tune in next sunday for another Untried Sunday manicure.

Stamping Saturday

I recently started on a new polish adventure - I have started stamping. I was fascinated by it when I first got back into nail polish in 2009 but it wasn't until I purchased some Essence and Dashica plates last year that I gave it a try - and what horrible tries they were, two of them are featured in my 52 Week Challenge, you can see them here and here. And today I totally blame the stamper that came with the Essence plate. Which was absolutely useless. See, I also bought an XL stamper when I did my plate shopping at Dashica - and for some unexplainable reason I didn't use it.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to give stamping another chance after I'd been told how big a difference the XL stamper makes. And I have to say it really does make a difference, the images transfers more clearly and it is just easier to handle than a regular stamper.

Well onto my first stamping experience since those fatal stamps last year.

I wanted my two Enigma colours to last a little longer so they got stamped with some beautiful Dashica designs.
 
Here is delightful Ambrosia:

This design is large so I've only got a very small part of it stamped on my nail. And that is the great thing about Dashica's XL plates, they have a mix of big and small designs, so whether your nails are small or large you'll get something to match their size. This plate is Dashica XL Spd 35.

I used Essence Stamp Me Silver!! for this stamp

And on to the awesome Divinity:

 This design is from the Dashica XL SdP plate 32

I stamped with BarryM Watermelon Gelly - the Gellies are great for stamping!

 I've got tiny nails, so as you can see some designs just doesn't fit - but I do them anyway when they are as pretty as this.

I am so gonna continue stamping, it is really great for us nail art challenged polish fans :D

Ninja Polish Enigma Collection: Ambrosia

So last week I showed you Divinity, one of the Enigma collection polishes from Ninja Polish. For some strange reason I also bought the other polish that was released together with Divinity, Ambrosia. Why is it a strange reason, you ask? Well if you've followed me for some time you know I'm not a fan of red polishes - and this one is most definitely red.

Orange leaning red, but red none the less. Seeing a few swatches of this somehow made me want it, and want it real bad I did.

The shimmer in it is gorgeous and gives it that fiery look I simply cannot resist these days.

Application was a breeze. The polish was wonderful to work with, no consistency issues, gave full coverage in two layers and dried very fast.

Love, love, love this - and remember: I am NOT a red girl!!!

If you haven't bought any of the Enigma polishes I urge you to go to the Ninjas and try one of them out, they are totally gorgeous - right now Ambrosia is the only one in stock.

Ninja Polish Enigma Collection: Divinity

Here is something extremely beautiful to feast your eyes on:

I have been lucky enough to get my hands on two of the polishes in this collection and they are just...WOW. And they are one of the reasons for me not being here. It has taken absolutely an infinity to choose between the 80!!! pictures I've taken of the two polishes - and then to crop and finish them for publication here...Gah!!! But finally they are ready for your viewing pleasure.

First up is Divinity, a tribute to the much elusive Unicorn Pee polish aka Clarins 230. But unlike 230 which is known to need A LOT of layers to achieve full coverage you'll get it with only two layers of Divinity. Lo and behold the gorgeousness:

The polish was VERY easy to work with, but did dry semi matte so I topped it with a layer of nails inc. kensington caviar top coat.

I don't own Clarins 230 so a comparison is out of the question (still kicking myself for not buying it three years ago when I found it on evilbay for 30 $).

 The colour shift in this is amazing and these pictures aren't showing you half of the epicness of this polish. That's how hard it is to photograph.

 I decided to make a couple of close-ups, and apologies for the slight unfocused pictures, but even photographing and editing fails will be shared here ;)

What do you think of Divinity?

 

You can buy the Enigma Collection at Ninja Polish - and you should - but at the moment Divinity is sold out.