Sunday Stamping with Indies - Enkelini

Sorry so late.. but it's still Sunday, at least where I am! I did two challenge manis to make up for it.

I decided to use Enkelini holos for both looks.  If you haven't tried her polishes yet, you are in for a treat.  I did have some VNL with the lighter holos after 2 coats, but they are some of the brightest and vibrant colored holos I've tried. 

Lainey Lou.  Juicy orange holo.  It's so rich!

 

I then stamped the arrows in Finger Paints Black Expressionism and plate Mash-37.  After some topcoat and drying time, I used a piece of clear tape to cover that part of the nail and paint the other half with a gorgeous maroon - Mahogany Row.

Then I reversed the direction of the stamp and used Finger Paints Paper Mache to stamp white arrows.  I wasn't even thinking about why I liked these two colors together, and then I realized - Hokie Colors!  I'm a graduate of Virginia Tech, and these are my school colors.  Subliminal after effects, 20 years later...

For the second mani, I used Enkelini Pimp My Pink.  This is probably the brightest pink I own - certainly the brightest I can ever remember wearing.  It's not neon, just BRIGHT.  Very girly, candy-pink.  I paired it with some bright pink lipstick, too, and felt pretty hot.  Gotta do something to dress up my nubbins...  yeah, my nails have always been short, but a few broke, and it seemed the only thing to do was take them all down.

Five Fingers, 5 letters in my name!  Striping tape and a modified hole reinforcement, and I made some letters.

  I then used Finger Paints Black Expressionism and the Mash-46 stamping plate to create this:

I wish I had known how to do this in high school, this would have worked so well in the '80s.

I don't usually mix stamping with other forms of nail art - it was a challenge to think about how to incorporate the two!  What would you have done?

If you're interested in seeing more from Enkelini, please check out her Facebook page.  She has an Etsy shop, and is also selling polishes through Color4Nails.

Green Season with holos

I have a lot of green holos now, and it seems that no two are exactly the same! 

Urban Outfitters Green Holo, a stunning rainbow over pale sage green:

Piper Polish Lime Green Dream, a subtle scattered holo over an icy jade green:

Enkelini, The Grass is Greener, a bright grass green with linear holo:

Above The Curve It's Because I'm Green, Isn't it, a forest green with a subtle linear holo:

Piper Polish Peace, Love & Rainbows, a darker forest, mossy green with a stronger linear rainbow.

 All together now, in the same order as above, from thumb to pinkie.  (UO, Piper LGD, Enkelini TGIG, ATC, and Piper PL&R)

Even indoors, you can see some strong linear rainbows, and some deep colors.

I decided to do some reverse art by leaving the holo and painting a shape around it in black.  I used China Glaze Angel Wings as a gold holo detail.  I like the ornament the best.

I also did a little striping nail art.  This is all 5 colors striped next to each other on each nail.  I really liked this, and it just took a striping brush, and a somewhat steady hand.

Are you celebrating the season with holos?  

Deck the Halls, and the nails!

Right-hand realness today!

Look at that shine!  Mentality Euphoria, from their Brilliant collection.  I love their holos.  I wanted to use this as a base for a wreath design inspired by Flaunt Me.

I knew I'd need a little help getting that half-moon shape of the wreath, so I used hole reinforcements over the DRY polish.  I also like to stick the reinforcements to my skin first to take some of the stickiness out.

I painted on a dark green holo called Peace, Love, and Polish by Piper Polish, and then dotted in Enkelini The Grass is Greener, a bright green holo.

Using the same dotting tool, I used China Glaze Adventure Red-Y for the holly berries in the wreath.

For a finishing touch, I mixed Adventure Red-Y with China Glaze Call of the Wild to make a maroon-ish color for the bow.

Are you decking your nails this holiday season?

Christmas Lights!

Have you seen this mani from Galactic Lacquer with her Christmas lights?  It's amazing!  I wanted to do my version, but of course I didn't have any teardrop rhinestones!  So, I took it a slightly different direction.

I started off with a black background, because I love how the lights look at night.  This gorgeous black holo is Midnights Rainbow by Enkelini.

Even inside under regular lights, you can see the rainbow, and the color also stays true.  That's my fave kind of holo.

I used nail foil glue to stick on the nail art accessories.  I saw that some bloggers were using string, and I thought about the laser strands I got from Dollar Nail Art, and decided to use that.  I love how the strands looked like they were imbued with light already... but oh, were they hard to use.  The strands don't want to stay bent, so I had to be very patient with the curves and hold each strand until the glue dried.  Patience is not my specialty.

I love how the colored rhinestones looked like Christmas lights, though.  If I decide to do something like this again, I will probably paint the string on! 

Are you putting lights up this year?  Are you putting them on?

Indie Posers

As someone who came to the nail polish game late, I missed out on a lot of the cool polishes.  While I have found some on Ebay and the like, I am so loving the trend of Indie polish makers duping favorite polishes.

I have found a few Indies that are supposed dupes for Clarins 230/Fantasy Fire.  I don't own either, but they do seem to resemble what I've seen in pix.  See for yourself:

First up, a new-to-me brand called Enkelini.  Lucky You is a beautiful polish with a purple base and red/purple shimmer.  I don't think I used any undies with this polish. 

Darling Diva Polish has two polishes that are like Unicorn Pee.  The first is Ringer.  Ringer is sheer, so I started with some undies.  L to R:  Revlon Indigo Night, NY Summer Hot Sky Blue, Revlon Royal, and Sinful Colors Black on Black.

On my thumb is three coats of Ringer alone, the others have two coats of Ringer over the undies.

Revlon Royal is a popular undie for Fantasy Fire, and it looks great under Ringer, as well.  The black undies make Ringer turn more red and gold - what a difference!  Beautiful!

Dangerous Driver is DDP's Ringer as a holographic polish.  I've shown you this before, but thought I'd include it with this post, too.

I've also shown you Girly Bits Shift Happens, but it's also supposed to be a dupe.  I have it here over black, which brings out the red and gold, like in Ringer. 

What do you think?  Are they all dupes for Unicorn Pee?  Do any of them really capture the beauty of the original?  I really like them all, but I still want Fantasy Fire...