Ulta3 Pale Dahlia + OPI A Grape Fit

Hello!

Firstly, apologies for my ravaged cuticles. I've recently begun swimming before work a few days a week, and the chlorine is playing havoc with my skin. Might be time to finally splurge on a jar of Lemony Flutter!

Today's manicure is a konadicure with Ulta3 Pale Dahlia and OPI A Grape Fit.

As with Soft Hydrangea, Pale Dahlia was a PITA to apply, even more so. This was four ridiculously gloppy and uncooperative coats. I think a dose of thinner is required here. The shimmer in this is more noticeable than in Soft Hydrangea, but I'm not totally in love with the colour - I don't think these pale, fairy floss pinks really suit me. I stamped over with OPI a Grape Fit to try and hide some of the unevenness in the polish, which I think also made it look nicer. A Grape Fit is not a great stamping polish - as you can see it's very sheer and kind of patchy - but I actually liked the look, it looks sort of soft and antiqued.

Unfortunately I badly dinged two of the nails on my right hand about half an hour after doing this while trying my hair up (I think the four coats of PD were still soft) so this came off the same day I put it on.

Robyn x

Work Appropriate Stamping!

Hello,

Today's post is in response to a request from issta from mel my issta, that I post some Konadicures.

For those not in the know, Konad is a brand which makes a whole bunch of nail art stamps. They're a really easy way to get designs and pictures on your nails without having to rely on a steady hand or wicked brush skills. Lacquerized has a fantastic tutorial on how to Konad your nails, so I'll just show you my efforts. :)

For this manicure I needed to do something work appropriate (my work stipulates "neutral colours" and actually prohibits "multi-coloured nail art" but I made it subtle :) ) so I used colours really similar to each other. The base colour I used is China Glaze Dress Me Up from the Hunger Games Collection. It's a mauvey sort of pinkish beige (yes my skills of description are amazing) creme which is opaque in two coats. For the stamped design I used China Glaze Poetic from the Romantique Collection. Poetic is a rosy metallic chrome. Konad does sell polishes for stamping, but a lot of "normal" polishes are good for stamping too - chromes, metallics, dark cremes, and anything which would be opaque in one coat. For this manicure I used a design from plate m73.

Konading takes a bit of practice, but once you've gotten used to it it's actually really easy, and takes way, waaayyyy less time than painting on nail art. Win!

 - Robyn x