That one time ... Watermarvel

I think it is important to report the "not so successful" attempts every now and then.
Specially when you can identify what went wrong in the process.

So this attempt started the same way as all the other:
Polish goes in water, spreads, drag needle over, dry over night.
Yet, it turned out quite different.

IsaDora - 179 - Winter Rose
W7 - 140 - Buff
ESSIE - Little Brown Dress

close up few minutes after it was made

15 h later, it looks like this

I could still make a nice manicure out of it, so it wasn't completely ruined, but it baffled me that it turned out so differently. As I hadn't had any failed attempts at all using this technique I wanted to find out what went wrong.
I asked the girls at Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook, and the suggestions ranged from water contamination, to temperature drops, and even air contamination. One suggested it might simply be the polishes I choose.

So I went to the scientific method, and worked on eliminating one and one of these theories.
By using the same polishes in the same order with new water, and with a lid, the problem still occurred. So it could not be air- or water contamination. Though, this was a very good bet.
As I had used the same water all week, there was a possibility that water contamination could be a factor. I would lift the decal out of the water, and make a new one right away, so the water was never changed. However this had not, and continued not to be the problem, so it had to be something else.

I then decided to use the same polishes but to swap out one of them. As I am not the biggest fan of IsaDora - Winter Rose, that was the polish I decided to swap out. This attempt had no errors and can be found following this link:

Vintage Wood - A watermarble adventure

I was twisting and turning on the decal. It wasn't much to work with, and it had gaps here and there. Some of it simply crumbled away when I took it out of the water.

 It's not my best work, hehe, but I made it, kinda, work.

Graffiti Nail II

I wanted to do something different and fun with the graffiti nails I did, so I thought why not add stamping over it. After a long discussion about what plate to use, and what colour. I landed on  Cheeky - Top Of The Class plate, using W7 - White.
W7 - White didn't really deliver on the manicure department, but it sure works well as a stamping polish.

Let's have a look at the Before picture:

And the After pictures:
I used Maybelline - 140 as a basecolour, dabbed the foil over. Then I added a coat of Gina Tricot topcoat, before stamping ( I had been wearing the manicure for a week before I decided to stamp on it)

I wore this for another three days before I got bored with it and needed change. What do you think?

Graffiti Nails - TGR foil review

I found this foil in a TGR shop in Norway, there was a set of 4 foils for Kr. 10 / £1.
They don't need any special foil glue, like the other foils got, so I just had to try them out.
For about a pound its pretty cheap, but would they work? Would it be cool looking?

I didn't think much about it, until I started unpacking and found them in a small plastic bag in one of my trolleys. I pondered upon it for a while and decided to give them a try. The set game with a three metallics (gold, blue and pink) and one multicoloured one. The multicoloured one kinda looked like oil-spill.

How to use:
The instructions are pretty easy. Apply nail polish of choice, and when it gets tacky add foil. To whole nails, or just parts.

I decided to dab it on my nails to create a random effect like graffiti. I used Maybelline - 140 as base colour for this design.

I wore this for a week, and it was as pretty as the day I applied it.
For the record of all things foil. I used Gina Tricot Basecoat and Topcoat for this manicure. They had a 3 for KR 99,- (about £ 10,-) sale while I was in Norway and grabbed a few to try.