Another one from the vault, one inspired by the many fantastic visuals of the Big Bang "Fantastic Baby" video. I wasn't that keen on the music when I first saw it as kpop is not really my thing, but the style was out of this world.
Let's see if I can remember all the colours I used for this.
Index
A-England - King Arthur (base), Camelot (black) and Stargazer - 232 (silver) stamping with at least one Βundle monster plate.
Middle
The dark base is Galahad by A-England, the thin shiny stripe is Le chat CM - Ashy Green, the tiny triangle is by a greek brand called Erre Due and I suspect the thick stripe is For Audrey by China Glaze.
I am not even going to attempt the ring finger though I recognise a couple
Little finger (not Petyr Baelish)
Etude House (white), A-England - Camelot and Seventeen 533.
The video follows, but if you're not used to kpop , listen at your own peril!
That's it from me and T.O.P.
I really felt like doing something freehand
this year for Christmas and I wanted it to be sparkly as well. Morgan Le Fay, a
beautiful shimmering polish, over black was my starting point and then I added
little colourful details here and there.
direct sunlight
artificial light
artificial light
All polishes used for this manicure are from
A-England (non affiliated link)
Base: Camelot
Designs: Morgan Le Fay, Perceval, Order of the Garter, Holy Grail (old version)
Top coat: The Shield
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas/
Happy Holidays! XxX Elysse
The discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 had a huge impact all over the world. The tomb was almost intact and the findings were so rich and beautiful that the newspapers were full of news on the subject. Even now when we think of Egypt one of the first images that comes up is the golden mask of Tutankhamun. Add to that the 'curse of the Pharaos' and the audience was captivated!
Such an event influenced the fashions of the day as one would expect. With that in mind I was examining the pictures of the artefacts from the tomb to find patterns on them that one can find in 20s clothes, jewellery and decorative items. Ancient Egyptian style without the hieroglyphics if you like. Can you spot them on the items?
The base colour is the most royal of golds, A-England - Holy Grail (the original formulation) and the blue on the middle finger is LeChat CM - Navy. The rest were done with acrylic colours and all topped with Seche Vite which unfortunately cause some major shrinkage at the tips.
My favourite fruit is a type of grape that grows in Ancient Olympia, where my parents come from and where I spent every summer of my childhood (and yes, technically I am an Olympian, though not so much of a godess). They are black seedless grapes and usually you can fbuy them sundried as currants, but I always preferred them fresh as they have a gorgeously sweet taste and their smell is intoxicatingly summery. I also love their texture. They look like they have this pale lavender dusting that if you touch it you see the deep purple of their skin. They are an aesthetic and gustatorial pleasure! Here is my attempt at it!
My fourth entry for the 'Lazy Days of Summer"challenge, the flip flops. This was a real challenge as I really don't like flip flops. I went for something more traditional than flip flop and west for a geta-like design. The base colour is Etude House Matte 1 - Black tea.
For my 'flag day' theme of the Lazy days of Summer challenge I decided to not do the obvious thing and go for a national flag, but instead go nautical. The first time I found out about this peculiar nautical language was when I was little and watching MacGyver on tv. It's a pretty colourful way to communicate, isn't it? You can find all of the flags here.
This is actually my second attempt to do this challenge. The first one was so much of a fail I had to re-do it. I decided to do it with acrylics using my left had, just to get a bit of practice. The base colour is Mavala 167 Cyclades Blue. It doesn't get more summery than the blue colour of the Cyclades islands! I hope you like it!
Dear reader,
I suggest you press play and let your mind wander far far away to a land of myths, folklore and legends, the land that A-England draws inspiration from.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I purchased the Jubilicious set of polishes from a-England and today I am going to be reviewing them. There's going to be plenty of pictures, a lot of descriptions and a lot of love in this post.
The Jubilicious set includes Order of the Garter (originally from the Legend collection), Morgan Le Fay and Perceval(originally from the Mythicals collection). Deciding to get these was quite a risk for me as I don't easily like shimmer polish and metallic reds are were a big no-no for me. I have another couple of their polishes which I absolutely adore and I knew I would love Order of the Garter, so I took the plunge and I am so glad I did. I can't stop looking at my nails!
I also overcame another pet peeve of mine by using different base colours for a mani. I like stamping and designs, but accent nails and different coloured nails(e.g. skittle, ombre manicures) usually make me feel very uncomfortable; not so much this time. The designs I chose to do are emblematic of the UK, a fleur-de-lys and a Tudor rose; I know Tudor roses usually have 5 petals which would have been difficult for me to do, but I found a reference for four petalled ones.
As always, I didn't practice before attempting this. Every time I want to do a difficult design that I should practice drawing at least one of twice before attempting it on the nail, a Californian voice in my head says "Duuude, life's too short! It's time to rock'n'roll!" and I just go straight at it.
OoG, MLF, P natural light
All of them have the buttery, applies-itself quality that they've become famous for. What I came to love more about them though is their uniqueness. A lot of thought has gone into them and that is something most apparent when you're dealing with shimmer polishes. Shimmer in a polish changes the colour quite dramatically and the colour and pigmentation of the base can make a shimmer fly or die. I'm happy to say we have some amazing fly-ers here!
Order of the Garter (OoG) was the only one I was certain I would like. Its gorgeous blue colour and subtle blue-green shimmer made me go back again and again to the website trying to decide whether I should get it or not. I'm glad I waited and got this set in the end. OG's base colour, surprisingly, is not a clean-cut blue, but a light greyish blue, a periwinkle that leans more blue than violet. It's not very pigmented and requires 3 thin coats for full coverage, but that is a very good thing in this case as the light base allows the shimmer to show through from all 3 layers thus getting a gloriously complex blue polish! Oh, and it doesn't give you lobster hands in case anyone is worried.
Morgan Le Fay (MLF, only one letter short of 'milf' which the legendary Morgan probably was) is a sheer shimmery topcoat. When used on its own you'd probably need 4 coats at least for a not-so-visible nail line and it will look whitish shilverish with tiny occasional flashes of pink and green. When used over another polish, somehow it looks frosty light blue. To recap: when you want to have fairy like fingertips, use it on its own; when you want Ice Queen fingertips, layer it over a darker polish.
Perceval (P), the one I thought I was not going to like, but became my favourite of the set. As I mentioned before, I don't like metallic reds; they are too Alexis Colby for my taste and I already have a metallic red I regretted buying in the past. Perceval is a horse of a different colour though and most of my pictures failed to capture it accurately; it's not a true red, or a vermilion like the legendary Perceval's armour was supposed to be. It has purple in it and it's one of those polishes that appear darker on the edges, 'lit from within'. Frankly, as soon as I applied it, it reminded me of a crimson rose; it has that amazing rich rose colour that changes with every angle and a soft velvet look. As if that's not enough to love it, in low light settings it has a certain glow about it which makes it even more amazing. I throw my glove at anyone who thinks Perceval is 'just another red'.
If you managed to read through this post, bravo! You must be a knight of NI! Now for the pictures.
Ps-I think I will fall victim to Jubilove after all. If I had it. the fleur-de-lys would have had a Holy Grail line across instead of red, and the rose would have a Holy Grail centre. Merlin would have to wait for his turn. Why didn't I think of that earlier?
Natural Light
Direct sunlight
Direct sunlight with flash
Direct sunlight
Mine! Mine! Mine!
Thumbs up for MLF looking blue over black matte
Base colours are more true to life in this. Perceval I love you!
On the sample you can see how OoG evolves with 1,2 and 3 layers. The '4' is irrelevant.
I went a bit abstract this time. I've been too stressed to sit down and think of a design, I just wanted to make something. It looks a bit like a swamp at dusk, but it's fine! I started with a dark blue-ish grey (nails inc - Duke of Wellington Place), then dotted it with a golden olive (China Glaze - Peace on Earth) and then added details with a blue/teal/lavender multichrome polish (Leighton Denny - Your Planet or Mine). It's a shame the sun wasn't out and I couldn't show the other colour shifts in Your Planet or Mine. It really brought the whole thing together and made it interesting. I'm glad I thought of adding it because I was one step away from calling this mani a failed experiment and removing it.
Natural light (cloudy gloomy weather)
Artificial light
I'm also thinking of making a lightbox. I'm tired of this glare in my pictures! It's annoying.
This is Eleonora di Toledo, one of the great ladies of the Renaissance, wearing one of the most important dresses in the history of art made from a fabric that was extremely hard to make (it required six different processes to make it), expensive (real gold thread amongst other fine raw materials) and politically significant; the epitome of a 'statement dress' if ever I knew of one.
I have loved that portrait and that dress since I was very young when I used to see it in a book my uncle had given me from the Uffici Gallery in Florence. I saw the portrait again recently and really wanted to recreate part of the design on my nails. The end result is not fantastic, it looks a bit tribal instead of soft and organic, but I am pleased with it since it's only the second time I've used brushes and acrylics and going from cats'whiskers to a renaissance pattern is a giant leap. I've also learned a lot about the sort of brushes I need to get/make. I am really enjoying the learning process and a difficult pattern like this is a pleasant challenge.
With my non-dominant hand I tried to make a netting with pearls like the one she had on her hair and at the top of the dress.
I also managed to pleat a 5-strand braid!
The breakdown
Base colour: OPI Skuls and Glossbones
the black colour is acrylic
Golden colour: Ciate - Gold Digga
Pearls: one drop of Jessica - 687 Au Natural and one drop of OPI - Kyoto Pearl on top.
The Maneki Neko (招き猫), the Welcoming Cat is a common Japanese sculpture, often made of ceramic, which is believed to bring good luck to the owner. Each cat has a different meaning according to colour.
It's been frosty yet sunny these days and the bare tree branches look so nice with frost on them. If only the pavements weren't so slippery and dangerous! I hate having to walk around when there's sleet. I'm not used to it at all and as a result I walk around like an old duck, looking at everyone else who, being more northern than I am, walk normally. How do they do it? Is it a superhuman skill? Ugh...
Btw have you noticed the Google Doodle today? It's for Charles Dickens'200th birthday! Yay! I hope people turn to reading more of his books this year. I was reading earlier in a British newspaper that kids these days lack the attention span for reading his books and if that isn't a sad thing, I don't know what is.
Anyway, I shouldn's stray off on other topics too much or at least that is the purpose of this blog. Back to the mani! It's a blue skies&branches&snow theme! I used China Glaze - Flyin'High as a base, Le Chat Cm 04 Brown Nail Art Polish for the branches, Etude House - WH702 for the snow and Seche Vite Top Coat.
It's geeky time! Following a discussion I had earlier with some friends I was reminded of one of my favourite characters from an animation horror series, Mononoke(モノノ怪)'s Kusuri Uri (薬売り), the Medicine Seller. He is a sort of mysterious psychic detective and amongst other things that add up to make this character amazing, he also sports purple nails and I haven't done purple nails in quite a while so ...
I didn't want to do plain purple though so I did an accent nail where I tried to paint freehand a pattern from his kimono. Here it is:
The breakdown
OPI - Parlez-vous OPI?
The greenish background is a custom mix of equal parts of Misa - Dirty, Sexy, Money and OPI - Mermaid's tears.
H&M - Moody model (the teal)
Etude House - yellow
The red was a custom mix of Ciate - 138 Snatch and a bit of white. Green cancels red sο it really needed something to make it stand out and a little bit of white was just it. I also picked an orange-based red becuase I didn't want the addition of white to make it look pinkish.
Too bad the top coat dragged the design a bit! I hope you like it!
