Konad Flowers

Hey everyone!  Well, my semester officially started last Tuesday so I'm getting back in the groove of school.  I don't know why but I'm not feeling very motivated this semester.  Maybe it's because I got to spend some quality time with all my pretties over break and now I'm spoiled.  Seriously though, my classes sounded interesting when I registered (one of them is required anyway) so I was excited before.  But now I'm just feeling "blah" about my courses.  Hopefully it passes soon!

I have a simple Konad manicure to show you today.  It took me a long time to do this one because the Shany plate wouldn't cooperate and give me a clear image.  It should have taken 15 minutes but ended up taking almost an hour and wasted a lot of Konad Special Polish.  The upshot is that the image I used is duplicated on another plate and it looks like the duplicate is actually etched deeper so I'm wondering if that one will work better.  I'll have to try it sometime and let you know.  In case you're wondering, this flower is on both the Shany SH01 and SH05 plates.

This is 2 coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then I used the blue Konad Special polish and Shany plate SH05.  I finished with 1 coat of quick dry top coat.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

Thanks for reading! :)

L'Oreal Blue Marine + Sally Hansen Glass Slipper

Today's manicure worked out better in my mind than in reality.  I imagined layering Sally Hansen Glass Slipper over L'Oreal Blue Marine and getting a beautiful result.  In actuality I ended up barely seeing the flakies over the glass flecks in Blue Marine.  But, it's still a pretty color so I decided to show it to you guys anyway.

This is 3 coats of Blue Marine, 1 coat of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper, and 1 coat of quick dry top coat.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

Thanks for looking! :)

Sally Hansen Haute Chocolate

Hello everyone!  I wanted to show you an older polish that is a go-to favorite.  I'm pretty sure this one has been discontinued.  Luckily I have a backup bottle because I really love this one.  It's a deep, chocolate brown shimmer.  This is 2 coats of Haute Chocolate.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

I hope you enjoyed it.  Thanks for reading! :)

NOTD: Purple Gradient

Hi!  Today I'm wearing a purple gradient and wanted to show you.  I used Aloha Girl Maui Luau, Sinful Colors Let's Talk, and Essie Sexy Divide.  I used LA Colors Art Deco in black for the stripes.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

Thanks for looking! :)

OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ

Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ is one of my all-time favorite polishes.  I never expected to love it as much as I do.  I purchased it on a whim one day and as soon as I wore it, I loved it.  It's such a simple color without any bells and whistles, but it just looks fabulous.  I think the name is odd though - I've never actually seen purple barbeque sauce - have you?  I feel like it should be named cherry glaze or something that would match the description better.

Anyway, this is 2 coats of Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ.  I used Shany plate SH10 and LA Colors Electrified.  I finished with a coat of quick dry top coat.

Photo taken in artificial light.

Photo taken in artificial light.

Photo taken in artificial light.

Do you have a favorite go-to polish that always looks great when you wear it?

Thanks for reading! :)

Twitter Account

Hi everyone!  I wanted to write a quick post letting you all know I'm on Twitter now.  I just set it up so there aren't many tweets yet, but it's up and running for those of you who prefer to interact via Twitter.  My user name is PulchPolish because Twitter has a character limit and the whole title wouldn't fit :(.  Follow me if you'd like!

Happy manis! :)

Galaxy Nails!

Hello everyone!  I've been experimenting with galaxy nails lately and wanted to show you what I came up with.  It was really fun to do Nebula Nails, and I wanted to try another design like that, but not nebulae because I already did those.  So, I spent one afternoon messing around with several colors and different designs and finally settled on this.  The fun part of galaxy nails, nebula nails, space nails, etc. is that they're pretty abstract and complex so you can make pretty much anything you want using practically any color!  Talk about letting your creative juices flow!

Photo taken in artificial light.

What I used:

For the galaxies (from left to right):
Borghese Stellare Notte
OPI DS Signature
Sally Hansen Slick Slate
OPI What's With the Cattittude?
Wet n Wild Blue Wants To Be a Millionaire

Save these for the very end of your mani:
Rite Stripe in White
Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat

I started with 2 coats of Stellare Notte.  Once that dried, I used a small paintbrush to apply DS Signature in a spiral pattern.  Then, I applied Slick Slate in the same spiral pattern over DS Signature.  I kept doing that with all of the polishes until the pattern was comprised of several layers, with many colors peeking through.  The trick here is to do it with imperfections.  I just used the brush to sort of "blot" color onto my nail rather than use full strokes so that it looked like a cloudy mass and so all the colors could show.

Once I was satisfied with the galaxies, I used a bobby pin to dot on some stars using the White Rite Stripe.  I finished the look with a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

I like this look, but it took a lot of experimenting to come up with this.  And I'm still not sure if I like the stars.  I feel like it might look better with smaller stars.  But when I was working on them they looked like they were missing something without the stars.  I guess I'll have to experiment some more! :)

Photo taken in artificial light.

Photo taken in artificial light.

Also, I need to update my reader, so feel free to leave me a comment with your blog URL.  If you'd like to be added to the blogroll let me know as well! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

News: China Glaze Magentics

I just saw this on the China Glaze Facebook page and had to share. I'm very excited for this! When they post more details I'll update you.

From the China Glaze Facebook page:

COMING SOON - China Glaze Magnetix! Featuring six rich, beautiful shades using magnetic forces to create the coolest, high tech designs!

Photo courtesy of China Glaze.

More Fun With Konad

Good morning everyone!  I've been experimenting with my new Konad kit lately and have been messing around with my regular nail polishes trying to figure out which ones work best for stamping.  I ended up with this look.

This is 2 coats of Jesse's Girl Wild Thing.  I used Island Girl Aloha Heat to stamp the design from Shany plate number SH20.  I finished the look with a coat of quick dry top coat.

Photo taken in artificial light.

Photo taken in artificial light.

It's definitely fun to play around with different looks and try different color combinations.  I have so many ideas floating around in my head.  I just need to find the time to try them out!

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading! :)

My First Konad!

Hello!  So, as you can guess by the title of this post, I finally got a set of Konad stampers and plates.  I've wanted one for over a year, but I knew it would turn into a black hole of time wasting and "experimenting," so for my own good I decided not to purchase one. 

Well, this year for Christmas hubby and I proposed the idea for both of our families that we do a Secret Santa, in which everyone draws a name and only buys gifts for that person.  We hoped it would help keep everyone's budgets in check, as well as cut down on the madness of Christmas shopping for several people.  In order to facilitate the process, we started a wish list so everyone could ask for specific things and their "Santas" would have an idea of what to buy.  Well, lucky me - hubby drew my name for BOTH families! :D  Yay!  He did such a good job and got me everything on my list, including the Konad (which I added at the last minute, not really expecting anyone to buy it).  He also got me a set of 25 Shany plates, which I did not ask for.  So he must have done some research to figure out that I would need more plates.  He did such a good job!  :)  Well, I spent a good part of New Year's Eve day messing around with my new Konad set.  Like 4 hours.  Yeah... black hole of time wasting and "experimenting."

This is nothing fancy, but I wanted to show it off since it's my first "real" mani using Konad.  This is 1 coat of base coat and 2 coats of Color Club Voodoo You Do.  The design was stamped using Shany plate SH20 and Sally Hansen Metallic Momentum.  I finished the look with 1 coat of quick dry top coat.

Photo taken in natural light.

Photo taken in natural light.

Thanks for reading! :)

Color Club It's A Hit!

First, I want to say Happy New Year to everyone! :)  Hopefully 2012 has some great things in store for everyone.  2011 was a pretty good year for me, so I'm hoping 2012 is just as good.

I have another glitter to show you from the Color Club Backstage Pass collection.  This one is called It's A Hit!, and it has large lavender hex glitter and square microglitter suspended in a clear base.  This polish was a total pain to apply, but the results are amazing so I don't care.  The huge pieces of glitter were stuck together in several layers, so as I was brushing it on, they were spreading out while remaining overlapped.  It's like they cut the glitter in sheets and they never separated or something.  It made the polish annoying to work with, but at the same time there was plenty of coverage on the nail.  I ended up with a lot of glitter in the middle of the nail and had to place the glitter on the rest of my nail using the brush.  Luckily the clear base is pretty thick, so I only needed 2 coats of top coat to even everything out.  One problem with the large hex glitter is that they don't lay flat on the nail, so the edges just stuck out off the nail creating a sharp bump.

I layered It's A Hit! over 2 coats of LA Colors Electrified.  I really loved this look since it was SO blingy.  My sister called them "mermaid nails."  And my nails were at that awesome stage where they're long but haven't broken or started to get a weird warped shape.  That stage only lasts about a day and then they get ugly and I have to cut them.  :(  I don't know if that happens to anyone else, but it drives me nuts when my nails start doing weird things so I just sport nubbins for a couple weeks.  But that's the fun of having natural nails, I guess!

Photo taken in artificial light.

Photo taken in artificial light.

So do you have a New Year's resolution?  I think my big one is to be more stress-free this year and stop letting the little things bother me. 

Thanks for reading!  :)