 | I have something fun today! Not super cool nail art fun - but educational fun! Boo...educational!?! Well....NAIL-acational! If you know me decently enough, you probably know I have an affinity for Matte Top Coats...so today I decided to show you a comparison of all of the ones I currently own! |
Butter London - Matte Finish Top Coat
American Apparel - Matte Top Coat
Hard Candy - Matte-ly In Love
Cult Nails - Wax That Top Coat
NYC - Matte Me Crazy
MASH Nails - Matte
Let's get this Matte Top Coat Comparison underway!
To conclude...
If you want a flat, matte finish, your money is on:
Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love (Discontinued)
And if you want a more satin, semi-matte finish:
I found all of the flat top coats to be pretty much identical, and surprisingly enough, I found the same to be true of the more semi-matte formulas to also be near dupes of each other. At least all close enough that you dont need all 6 of these. But I do!
Monkey See Monkey Do Monday Featuring: PSHIIIT!
- Monday, June 04, 2012
- By Missy
- 7 Comments
Today's MSMD is based on a mani by someone I have been wanting to feature here for awhile on Monkey Day.
She is super talented and her photography skills are bar none to me in the nail blogging world.
I'm talking about PSHIIIT, she runs a french nail blog and every post she writes is like a work of art.
When she posted THIS mani a few months ago I immediately pinned it and knew it was something I wanted to recreate!
Here is her version:
And now here is my spin on it.
(FYI - I hate using striping tape in the mani, I prefer to use it as a guide for tape mani's - so in lieu of that I opted for a Peach and Gold Matte Mani):
And of course, one before I added the matte top coat!
Polishes used:
Julep Sasha (peach)
Color Club Antiquated (gold stamping)
Hard Candy Matte Top Coat
Don't forget to enter the Gnarly Gnails 300 Follower Giveaway!
Ends 6.15.2012 and is open Internationally!
I apologize in advance that I had every intention of doing the "Homage Month" that was going around Tumblr at the beginning of the month. Unfortunately I lost my computer and had issues getting pics uploaded and next thing I knew the month was more than half over and it was not worth it. Lo and behold, some of the exceptional ladies at the Purple Crumpet Fairy group had devised Monkey See Monkey Do Mondays, which is essentially the same thing, only done once a week! I love it!
Here is my inspiration for this week:
This awesome mani and tutorial can be found HERE.
Hope I did it justice, I've been obsessed with the idea of black and nude lately, and when I saw this mani I knew I wanted to recreate it in those colors...
I used Color Club Nomad Nude, Fingerpaints Black Expressionism and Hard Candy Matte Top Coat.
Check out these other Monkeys!
Dressed Up Digits
The Crumpet
LeSamowen
The Clockwise Nail Polish
The Manicured Monkey
Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Maquiclub Girl
Macabre Manicures
Polish Crazed
Toxic Vanity
Beauty Bumbles
The (mis)Adventures of a Wanna Be Martha
Polish Lover
Geeky Owl
Angelina's Nails & More
Tales of Knit and Nails
PishPosh and Polish
Fanning the Fumes
Dressed Up Digits
The Crumpet
LeSamowen
The Clockwise Nail Polish
The Manicured Monkey
Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Maquiclub Girl
Macabre Manicures
Polish Crazed
Toxic Vanity
Beauty Bumbles
The (mis)Adventures of a Wanna Be Martha
Polish Lover
Geeky Owl
Angelina's Nails & More
Tales of Knit and Nails
PishPosh and Polish
Fanning the Fumes
I'm Down with Brown AKA My Love for Santorum!
- Sunday, April 22, 2012
- By Missy
- 14 Comments
I knew when I ordered Manglaze's Santorum last month that it would change my life.
So, all jokes aside, it's awesome. And I had an idea to use it with gold. So what I did was taped off my nails in a fishnet pattern with striping tape, painted some nails with Santorum and some with Orly Luxe and then variated by sponging the opposite color over the tape.
This last one is a Matte shot, I always go both ways!
And we're back with the 52 Week Challenge!
- Thursday, April 19, 2012
- By Missy
- 11 Comments
Took a little hiatus from the 52 Wk Challenge due to the other challenges I had going on, mixed with my loss of laptop and yadda yadda...but now we are back with it!
This weeks challenge is "Dotticure"
We all know this one, no googling necessary.
I have been wondering for a few weeks now (especially now that I seem to be obsessed with gradients) how it would look to do a holo sponge gradient. I can tell you now that it is AWE-SOME.
Here are my assistants for the day:
Catrice Heavy Metalilac
Color Club Fashion Addict
Color Club Wild at Heart
NABI Dk Purple Magnetic
Dotting Tool
We had matching Irises so of course I had to do this!
How gorgeous, right? The shimmer of the holos just makes it blend the colors to pure perfection I tell you.
Had to matte it before I removed it, looked great this way too!
Granted, this technique does not show any of the holo factor, but I think it looked so smooth it wasn't even needed.
This was done with a sponge gradient technique, I wet the sponge, painted two stripes, one of each color (the Color Clubs) and then bounced it on my nail that was prepped with Catrice Heavy Metalilac.
Once dry, I dotted with the Nabi Magnetic Purple and used 2 coats of Seche. Even after I matte coated later, this was still bumpy, those Nabi's are thick stuff.
I can't even stand how much I loved this mani.
It reminded me of Star Wars, Darth Vader, Light Sabers and a rocking Black Lambskin Chanel Handbag all rolled into one. Hope you enjoy as much as I did!!
Please visit my other Terrifically Teal Teammates:
Here is what you'll need:
Base Coat (I used a strengthener first, then a base), Light tan/Cream color, Black, Matte top coat, makeup sponge, star stickers, striping tape (and not shown, tweezers and scissors and either a dotting tool or paintbrush)
Start with nail strengthener.
Apply base coat, I use CND Stickey
Apply your cream color. I used Essie Barefoot & Topless.
Here is 3 coats of Barefoot & Topless (no cleanup here, sorry!)
Now you wait. Because I used 3 coats of the Essie, I did not want to add a quick dry top coat as another layer, and I had time, so I waited. I waited about 2 hours. If you don't have the time and either don't mind the extra layer of polish or didn't use as many coats of polish on your cream shade as I did, I would for sure suggest you use a quick dry top coat to speed this along. You want to make sure your polish is very very dry, because next you will be taping off and don't want your base polish getting pulled off!
Next you will need to get out your stars and striping tape.
The stars can be found at any office supply store in the labels section.
The striping tape I got off of ebay.
Apply your star sticker to your pinky, I like to do most designs slightly askew/off center.
Make sure it's stuck down good so no polish seeps under.
Get your sponge!
Get your black polish! The more pigmented/opaque the better. I used Finger Paints Black Expressionism.
Apply a few drops of polish to your sponge, like so.
Dab the sponge once to get the excess color blob off.
Sponge on your black over the entire nail until it begins to get tacky. Don't overdo this step or your black polish will begin to pull back up. If this happens, no big deal, just apply a little more to the sponge and re-sponge the nail until you get the coverage you want. You want it to look sponged and not full coverage, that's what gives it that vintage look when some of the light base shows through.
Remove your star sticker, use tweezers if necessary.
Apply your striping tape to make a few pinstripes. Again, make sure its tacked down on the nail good so that no polish seeps under.
Sponge it up!
Remove your striping tape.
Take a dotting tool or end of a paintbrush and make some polka dots on your middle finger, like so!
Next do another striping tape situation for the index finger like you did for the ring finger.
Apply a couple of off center star stickers to the thumb and sponge!
Remove those stars - voila!
Now is when you will want to clean up with a paintbrush and some acetone. At this point, do your other hand, mix it up. I did one nail on the other hand black with
cream dots to change it up a little. Black with cream stripes would be cute as well. After you've done both hands and cleaned up both hands you should be dry enough to
top coat. Make sure you give the color time to dry, as you can see in a few places I didn't wait long enough and my black smeared.
I used Hard Candy Matte Top Coat. I did 2 coats for thorough matte-ness!
And here is what you get! It takes time, but it's worth it!
Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
