Gnarly Gnails

Teal Tuesdays - Black/White/Tealicure

Tuesday, October 09, 2012
By Missy
12 Comments

Hey!!
It's me again! Today you get a three-fer of me!
But anyway - it's Tuesday, so you shoulda known this was coming!

The basis of this mani were some Spiderweb Water Decals I received to review from KKCenterHk. These come in a pack of 20 decals, enough for 2 full manicures or much much longer if you only use them as accent designs! How cute are these?!?! They come in white or black and retail for $2.82

The water decals are super easy to use - you just cut off your design from the sheet, remove the plastic piece on top and drop in water for like 10 seconds, then the decal just slides off of its backing with your finger, press your finger to your nail and it's on! Then top coat as normal!

My base gradient is done using Wet n Wild/Fergie Miami Spirit and Zoya Dovima.

I don't care for spiders or spider designs, but these were pretty cool!

You can click the links near the top of the post to visit KKCenterHK and pick up some of these water decals for yourself! Make sure to use the code GNARLYGNAILS to save 10% on your order!

Challenge: Digit-al Dozen Theme Week

Digit-al Dozen Halloween Week Day 2

Tuesday, October 09, 2012
By Missy
16 Comments

Hey ya'll - welcome to Tuesday at Gnarly Gnails!
Hope you're having a grand week - I have an interview today, so that's exciting.
We're on Day 2 of the DD Halloween Theme Week.
I knew all along one of these days I would want to rock some candy corn nails - I had some different ideas on how to set mine apart but finally settled on a watercolor candy corn design.
The kind where you drop your blobs on the nail and then place a piece of plastic wrap over it to spread it out. It's nothing like a watercolor but for lack of a better definition, thats what I call it.

I love how these turned out - nice and abstract but you are still able to tell what they were meant to be.

My base color was Orly Au Champagne. Then after that dried I painted on my nail with a super blobbed up brush, a stripe of Au Champagne, a stripe of Sinful Colors Citrine and a stripe of Color Club Almost Famous. Then I took a piece of plastic wrap and smooshed it over the nail to spread the polish out, lifted it off and voila!

Finished with a coat of Butter London Matte Top Coat!

Hope you enjoyed my Day 2 Halloween Nails - now go check out what the other 11 ladies did:

Brand: A Rhyming Dictionary

Swatch & Review - Shaggy Man II by A Rhyming Dictionary

Monday, October 08, 2012
By Missy
12 Comments

I've got something special going on this week - 4 days of A Rhyming Dictionary reviews and swatches!
These are super cute polishes with a very cute story behind them!
Morgan, the owner of A Rhyming Dictionary, graciously sent me a few polishes to review for her and they are all so lovely and unique I couldn't say no! Let's get to checking these guys out:

Today's Swatch is Shaggy Man II:

A Rhyming Dictionary calls Shaggy Man II "Matte pastel hexes with a subtle pearl shimmer" - its got a nice array of pastels in pink, aqua and lavender with a lovely silvery shimmer.

Here is our man of the hour in the spotlight!

My layering combo here is a base coat of Illamasqua Raindrops - which you can see on its own HERE.

My swatches here show 2 coats of Shaggy Man II over Raindrops. Raindrops does already contain a silvery white flakie, so some of the shimmer you see here is not from Shaggy Man II, but I did like how well their different shimmers meshed together.

Why am I such a sucker for matte pastel glitters? I love them soooo much, they have a gorgeous translucence, it reminds me of mother of pearl type finishes, or oyster shells. This is topped with one coat of Out the Door topcoat,

Like any good swatcher, I can't show you a swatch without doing it in matte as well - so here you go!

This combination of glitters that Morgan has put in this polish not only play very well together, but are the perfect combination to go over so many different base colors!

Shaggy Man II was definitely high on my list of favorites from the polishes I received from A Rhyming Dictionary. A full size polish of this shade will run you $7.50, which in my opinion is a steal for an indie polish! You can get it HERE.

Challenge: Digit-al Dozen Theme Week

Digit-al Dozen Halloween Week Day 1

Monday, October 08, 2012
By Missy
10 Comments

It's that time of the month again - no not THAT time of the month! Time for the Digit-al Dozen week long theme challenge!
This is a group of 12 awesome girls I know who get together once a month and knock out some mani's based around a theme - fittingly for October we are doing Halloween stuffs!
Let's get right to it, shall we loves?

Say what?! I gotta bunch of crazy eyes on my thumb!

So in all nail seriousness, this is a base of black, then I painted on weird little halloween shapes in white - a ghost, some bones, a spiderweb and funked up skull. The I topped the black on my thumb with a coat of 212Sephora (it was close by and getting mostly covered up so I just grabbed the first dark polish I could) and attached tiny googly eyes!