Day 11: POLKA DOTS

It's time for polka dots, Halloween-themed on Day 11 of the 31 Day Challenge.

I used two coats of Zoya Snow White for the base and alternating rows of dots of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Black Out, and Zoya Jancyn.  Very simple for Halloween.

Day 10: GRADIENT nails

I've known what I wanted to do for Day 10, gradient nails, of the 31 Day Challenge since I visited my parents earlier in October and picked up a couple of Butter London polishes.  A gradient with Rosie Lee :)

I used three coats of China Glaze Innocence as a base then sponged Butter London Rosie Lee on top.  I love this.  I've never done a design like this before and am head over heels with how it looks.  My fingers feel so sparkly I love waving them around, hehe.

For some reason it's really hard for me to see pale polish near my cuticles until after I take photos and enlarge the image so please excuse the mess.

Day 9: RAINBOW nails

Day 9 of the 31 Day Challenge and today it is rainbows!

I was inspired from this photo I saw on Pinterest:

Source: mlt93.blogspot.com via Kristen on Pinterest

but I failed to visit the blog of the photo to see how they'd achieved this look.  I just assumed the lovely rainbow gradient was done through sponging.  I broke out my best rainbow colors and sponged away, two colors for each nail and approximately two coats of each color.  It was my first time sponging but it was really easy to do!

The colors I used were Zoya America, Zoya Jancyn, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Zoya Shawn, Zoya Robyn, and Zoya Mira.  Can you tell I have a lot of Zoya polishes?

I'm thinking the two polish colors too harsh of a look and I should have gone with three colors for each nail.  It turns out the look on the photo I saw was achieved by a brush so once this challenge is over I'd like to go back and try to recreate her design.

Day 8: METALLIC nails

So...I've missed a few days for the 31 Day Challenge, but the rules say "if you miss one, pick it up the next day."

I left off with black and white nails making today metallic nail day.  My original idea was to try a newspaper manicure but with the periodic table of elements.  I was hoping I could print off a copy of the periodic table, use the newspaper technique, and it would work magically.  It didn't.

Is it that the paper to ink ratio is different for home printers versus newspaper?  Could I just be inept at the whole newspaper technique?  Has anyone tried printing off an image and transferring it to your nails before?

My Day 8 design wound up being very simple, just a swatch of China Glaze Platinum Silver.

I usually use this color for stamping but had never solely painted my nails with it.  I'm not loving the streakiness of this formula - definitely meant to be a stamping or accent polish.

Day 7: BLACK AND WHITE nails

Day 7 is black and white nails day for the 31 Day Challenge and since Halloween is fast approaching, black and white to me screams ghosts.  It's also apparently monster day for the Polish-aholics Anonymous group on facebook and ghosts are considered monsters right? Eh, it's close.  :D

For this I used three coats of Zoya Snow White for the base, three coats of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow top coat (I'd heard thicker resulted in better glow...) and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Black Out for the eyes and mouth of my ghosties.

They are quite plain in the daylight:

Perhaps the scariest item here is the fact that my cuticles are in desperate need of moisturizer! ...and maybe the dents you see in the white polish.  But since the focus here is supposed to be their ability to glow in the dark the dents and dings don't really matter when the lights are out.

Once you turn out the lights they go wild:

Sorry I couldn't capture a better photo.  I took several and this was the best that I had.  I'll take any suggestions you have for capturing a better glow-in-the-dark photo with my Canon PowerShot.

Day 6: VIOLET nails

Another simple design for violet nail day on the 31 Day Nail Challenge.  For this day I used Butter London's HRH, a glorious royal purple with a red base and a hint of metallic shimmer.  I think this is my favorite purple and a great color for fall.

Sadly this polish is really thin on me and it shows every bump and ridge I have.  :(

Day 5: BLUE nails

I wish I could wear this color for more than just a day.  It took me four tries to get to a point where I was satisfied with how this was looking.  I wanted to try Wet and Wild ColorIcon Believe Me It's Real but every time I applied it to my nails I didn't like how it turned out.  This nail polish is really think and it was difficult for me to control the application amount.  Thick as it is I could still see visible nail line and my stained nail bed peaking through - it didn't look pretty.

I finally took everything off and used two coats of Zoya Dove for the base.  With two coats of Believe Me It's Real on top I'd finally achieved a look I was happy with.

My left hand had a thinner coat of Believe Me It's Real:

And my right hand had a thicker coat:

Believe Me It's Real is such a nice glitter polish.  It has small diameter blue glitter suspended in a clear base with larger hexagonal purple glitter thrown in.

Macro shot:

I don't want blue day to end!