Gradient Neon Stamping

This week I am celebrating my 4th year of blogging here on Secretary's Nail Art, and to celebrate with style I am trying out something a bit new in terms on nail art. 

Today I have for you a subtle splatter and neon gradient stamping nail art look. 

I am using polishes from Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection that I purchased for my own money a couple of months back. 

This collection is filled with vibrant neon polishes, and I have had so much fun playing around with them. Below you can see a picture of the polishes used today over Sinful Color - Snow Me White. 

Opulent Essences - Strawberry, Opulent Essences - Orange, Opulent Essences - Blueberry and Opulent Essences - Lime.

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection polishes used in this manicure. 

For the splatter I used a baby toothbrush and splashed some polish over my white base polish, Sinful Color - Snow Me White. I wanted a light spray of colour, so that it would look more like small specks over the white than those large splatters you often see features in nail art looks. 

Then I picked up my Bundlemonster BM-XL204, Beaching Nails stamping plate and put Opulent Essences - Blueberry and Opulent Essences - Lime on each half of the image before scraping 2-3 times lightly over in order to blend the colours to create a gradient effect in the stamping. I think it came out the best on the long finger, but I definitely think I am on to something here.

Just need a little bit more practise on gradient stamping. 

Subtle splatter with neon gradient stamping. 

About Opulent Essences:

Opulent Essences is a Vegan Friendly Nail Polish Maker from the UK. Behind the brand is the duo Sharon and Zoe. They are awesome, and so are their polishes.
Etsy Store
Instagram

If you want to see more nail art looks from this collection, follow the Label: Opulent Essences.


About Bundlemonster:
Started in 2009, sells an arrange of nail art products and stamping polishes. Located in Hawaii, sometimes shipping and taxes for us UK girls can get a bit expensive, but luckily you can get most of their products from Rainbow Connection UK .

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection Nail Art

My entire flat is filled with bags and boxes of stuff. Most of the nail room has already been packed down and is ready to go to the new place this weekend, to my new Nail Cave.
I am super excited about getting a bit larger room for my nail stuff, and not having to share it when we have visitors. At the moment, my nail cave is in the spare bedroom, but in the new house, we are swapping the large double bed we have for guests now, for a super comfy sofa bed.

Since moving is hard on the nails I have filed them a bit shorter, and made sure there is a nail file and plenty of cuticle oil ready for me at the new place. Cardboard boxes always dries up my cuticles.

I know I have already written a couple of times about how I move and travel with my nail polishes, if you want an update and a bit through post about different packing ideas and methods let me know. For the past 4 years I have moved  about 10 times across 5 different countries, bringing nail polishes with me on planes, boats, trains, cars and carried them on my back in a rucksack.
I have found some great ways to bring with me my entire collection which is now counting around 700 polishes, when I first moved to Wales from Norway I had "only" 150 polishes...

I wanted to show you two different nail art looks that I have done lately, between all the packing and arranging stuff for the move.

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection (neon polish)

First one is a drybrush look, which I did using the Taste The Rainbow Collection from Opulent Essences that I purchased a while back.

Neon Drybrush Nail Art using Opulent Essences Orange, Strawberry and Lemon over Sinful Color - Snow Me White

I used Sinful Color - Snow Me White as a base for this look and a drybrush technique using Opulent Essences - Strawberry, Opulent Essences - Lemon, and Opulent Essences - Orange.

I have been too hard on my nails when packing, so sadly this is the only picture I got of this look. It's still a pretty mani, so I wanted to share with you all.

Sinful Color - Snow Me White polish base and my food.

The next look I wanted to show today is a look that ended up as a total fail.
It's a fail because I decided to add some animal prints to the look, and had this fantastic idea of making "Cougar Nails". Sadly, the animal prints I decided to use, destroyed everything.

@opulent_essences Taste The Rainbow Collection using Strawberry and Orange for a gradient and some animal print stickers from Bundlemonster. The stickers turned the mani all gloopy, so this is the only picture of my gorgeous gradient.. #secretarysnailart #Bundlemonster #nailsticker #gradient #nailart #nailartaddict #nailartoohlala #opulentessences #neonpolish #neonpinkpolish #animalprint #neonorangepolish #neonpolish #indiepolishuk #indiepolish

A photo posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on May 18, 2016 at 10:15am PDT

Before Christmas I purchased some stuff from Bundlemonster, and I threw in a Surprise Bundle with Nail Art stuff. I had chosen to use the stickers (MP019) that was in this bundle of fun.

I applied them like you would with any other nail art stickers and seal with a topcoat. Didn't really think much about it, and let them dry for 30 min before adding another layer of top as the stickers where still sticking through the topcoat. Not long after the stickers started wrinkling, and turned gummy, and turned not just the topcoat and the stickers gummy, but the entire gradient underneath and the white undie as well(!)
It would not dry.
After 5 hours I noticed that it looked like it was sliding off my nails...
So I removed it all.
I was gutted, because I was so happy with my gorgeous gradient, and had not taken pictures of the steps. Needless to say, I was not in the mood to sit down and do another gradient.


What are some of your nail art related horror stories?

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Blueberry

This is the last polish in the Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection. Today I am showing you a nail art look using Opulent Essences - Blueberry.

For the other polishes in this collection head over here:
Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Orange

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Lemon

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Grape

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Strawberry

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Lime

Or you can check out my Live Swatch and Review:
Live Swatch and Review on the blog.

Live Swatch and Review on the Youtube Channel.

For this swatch I used 2 coats over one coat of Sinful Color - Snow Me White and UNT - peelable basecoat.  This polish is super glossy and you can actually build it somewhat on it's own to get a darker and more vibrant shade. 

If you choose to wear it without the white undie this will cover perfectly in 3-4 coats.

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow - Blueberry

I decided to switch things up a little for today's post, and instead of just doing some fancy stamping on top I decided to go for a marbled design.
I grabbed a large angled brush for this, and dipped one side in Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and the other in Opulent Essences - Blueberry - like you would when doing a one stroke mani.
I then used the brush to wiggle the polishes across my nails for this marbled look. 

Wiggle, Wiggle. 

Wiggle, Wiggle.

For the matter of documenting I did not use UNT basecoat for this look as I was expecting guests and needed my mani to last a long hiking trip in the mountain, bad weather conditions and the occasional grasping a tree-trunk or rock in order to follow the trail. I wore this look for almost 2 weeks with no chipping. 

Marble nails using Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow - Blueberry and Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

@opulent_essences - Blueberry marble nails. 😱 💙 I absolutely love these #marblenails #opulentessences - Blueberry made the job so easy, just tapped in the polish with a large angled brush and then in white and swirled on my nails. #secretarysnailart #nailartoohlala #nailart #nailartaddict #nailsoftheday #nailsoninstagram #nailsoninstagram #nails #manicure #drymarblenails

A photo posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Apr 19, 2016 at 9:48am PDT

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Lime

Hope you are not sick and tired of neon'd cause I have loads more to show. Today I am showing you another neon polish from the Taste The Rainbow Collection by Opulent Essence. If you are feeling the tug towards this collection, head over to the Opulent Essences Etsy store. They have so many cool polishes (!), I am sure you will find one that is right for you.

A huge bonus in my book is that they are Vegan friendly!

You can find a Live Swatch that I did over at my YouTube Channel for the entire collection, by following this link.

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow - Lime

This gorgeous neon green is lusher than an oasis, and greener than the greenest grass. Super glossy, your friends are sure to be green of envy looking at your nails. 

Sometimes my brain just comes up with these kind of things, it has to be written somewhere. 

My nails and my breakfast drink. I didn't like the Mango flavour so added some delicious wheatgrass and crushed gojiberries to it. @joylentshake #wheatgrass #joylent #joylentshake #handinframe

A photo posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Mar 20, 2016 at 3:51am PDT

Some of you, if you are stalking me on Instagram that is, might have seen this sneak peek at today's nail art. If you are not a regular stalker on my Instagram, and you hang out on that platform, I would recommend it.
Shameless plug over. Hehe.

For this nail art look I used 2 coats of Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection - Lime over 1 coat of Sinful Color - Snow Me White. Then I took Barry M - Chai, Barry M - Quick Dry - Pit Stop (horrible alone, great for stamping), L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine. Bundlemonster - BMXL204 (Beaching Nails), and BMXL202 (ChitChat Nails).

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow - Lime with BMXL202, BMXL204 stamped using Barry M - Chai, Barry M - PitStop and L'oreal - Sublime Platine

Take a deep breath cause this might sound complicated...

So all the nails was stamped using Barry M - Chai with the chevron design from the Bundlemonster - BMXL204 (Beaching Nails). Once that had dried, I grabbed my jelly stamper that I purchased from Nail Artisan UK (It is very soft, so works great for curved nails) and went in with the solid triangle image from Bundlemonster BMXL202 (ChitChat Nails) using Barry M - PitStop. Since I was already doublestamping I wanted to advance a little bit more.
From the same plate, Bundlemonster BMXL202 (ChitChat Nails), I went in with the outlined triangle using  L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine, and used that as an outline for the solid triangle that I did with Barry M - PitStop. Next to the triangle images on Bundlemonster BMXL202 (ChitChat Nails) is a full nail image with some triangles with horizontal and vertical lines through. I used this image, and isolated one of the triangles with a horizontal line and went in with L'oreal - 819 - Sublime Platine just below the previous triangle.

One coat of Out The Door Topcoat and the look was finished.


Below you can see the short live swatch that  did for my Instagram Channel. You can find a Live Swatch that I did over at my YouTube Channel for the entire collection, by following this link.

@opulent_essences - Lime. If you are looking for the perfect neon green polish for the Summer, be sure to check out this badboy. #neonpolish #neon #nailstagram #nailsofinstagram #indiepolish #ukpolish #supportindiepolish #supportindie #swatch #indieswatch #secretarysnailart

A video posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Mar 28, 2016 at 11:11am PDT

Candy Canes in Stockings

One of my favorite stocking filler is Candy Canes.
So I decided to do another nail art with Candy Canes as a theme.  I know I have already done two other Candy Cane looks, but I am sure you all have room for one more.

For a complete list over my Christmas themed nails so far this year.

This time I swapped things around a little, and used my franken creation; Secretary's - This is My Jam? as a base. I even did a swatch picture.

Secretary's - This is My Jam? (franken polish)

I am so happy with how this franken creation turned out. Just look at that lush red polish. Love it!
I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here if you are curious and want to give it a try.

I did my stamping using Cheeky - Jumbo Plate 6 - Happy Holidays and  Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

Secretary's - This is My Jam? stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White and
Cheeky - Jumbo plate 6 - Happy Holidays

I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs, I will continue to do one look each day until the 25th. The 25th I will take a holiday from all the nail art, and spend the weekend with my boyfriend.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Candy Cane

I pulled out all my stamping plates to find the perfect Candy Cane image for today's nail art.
Surrounded with stamping plates, I was eagerly looking for anything with stripes and swirls that would work for this delicious look.

Candy Cane - Picture by JuttBahi

First I needed the perfect polish for the look.

To get that I grabbed the much hated Ciate - Boudoir that I used for a previous look this month. since I didn't like how sheer the polish was I decided to turn it into something that I could use. I poured all of it in a full sized bottle, and cleaned out the Mini bottle in order to re-purpose it for another franken polish one day.

If you are wondering how to properly clean out nail polish bottles, take a look at this handy link.

I wrote a little 101 on Frankening, that you can find over here


With bottle cleaned out, and empty space in a full sized nail polish bottle, I grabbed StarGazer - 315, a gorgeous glass fleck red polish, and added some. Mixing wise it was 2 parts Ciate - Boudoir and 1 part StarGazer -315.
Together they make a lovely crelly red with glass flecks. It also stamps, so perfect for what I was going for today.

Thanks to the awesome ladies at PAA, and in particular Lori, this polish was named:
Secretary's Nail Art - This is My Jam?

For base I used Sinful Color - Snow Me White.
I used BM-205 (ring finger), BM-210 (little finger), MASH 43 (index), and CH4 (middle finger) for this look.

Candy Cane Nail Art using MASH43, CH4, BM205 and BM210

Which nail you do think look the most like a Candy Cane?


I hope you liked this look, be sure to follow me on the blog, Facebook, or Google + for more Christmas nail art designs.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

Midnight Kisses in the Snow

If you are one of those thinking that the look I created yesterday was a little too much work I am toning down the amount of stamping plates used, and keeping to only one plate. Bundlemonster - 323. Flying solo.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

I know I said I was going to stay clear of snowflakes, but it is hard. Specially when the snow is falling outside. That's right. There was a little glimpse of snowfall here today, so snowflakes nails it is.

I started out with applying two coats of China Glaze - Midnight Kiss to all my nails, and topped it over with 'Ard As Nails - Gold Holo. This is the second time this polish I being used this month, and I really love the extra holo on over these gold nails. If you are curious on how 'Ard as Nails - Gold Holo would look like on it's own, check out this post.

I then proceeded to stamp using Sinful Color - Snow Me White using Bundlemonster BM-323.

China Glaze - Midnight Kiss topped with Ard As Nails - Gold Holo and Bundlemonster BM 323 stamping using
Sinful Color - Snow Me White

Only 10 days left until the Nordic Countries are celebrating Christmas, which is on the 24th. I have sent out all the Christmas presents, and Christmas Cards, so now all I have to do it sit and wait for the day to come so I can cook all the amazing food, and eat all the cookies.

Tomorrow is going to be baking day over here, and a Finnish friend of mine is coming over to assist in the Christmas cookies baking. Traditionally we would make 7 different types of Christmas cookies, so I am aiming at getting at least 5 of them done by the 24th. 

I absolutely love these nails! What do you guys think?


For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.

HPB Presents: My Job

I know I don't often mention my job, but today's theme in the Hobby Polish Bloggers group is, "your job". I suppose that would require me to talk about it, a little.

As some of you might have guessed my job has to do about tech and computers. As I am not allowed to fully disclose all that I do, I can tell you this much. 

For this manicure I used China Glaze - Jungle Queen, W7 - Silver Suede, and Sinful Color - Snow Me White. I used Moyou London Scifi Collection - 06 and Cheeky - CH54

 China Glaze - Jungle Queen stamped using Moyou London - Scifi Collection - 06 with W7 - Silver Suede 

China Glaze - Jungle Queen stamped using Moyou London - Scifi Collection - 06 with W7 - Silver Suede and Cheeky - CH54 with Sinful Color - Snow Me White

I really love the end result, and my workmates though this was a well representation of what I work with. So there you have it, My Job.


How to have fun with the IT Department:

Excuse me, Sir.
I seem to have run out of ink on my keyboard.

Lean back and watch their reactions. Priceless.

An InLinkz Link-up

Mosaic Tiles

Contains affiliate link.  Contains product previously sent for reviewing purposes.

Long long time ago I bought some cool nail polishes from W7 at my local outlet store in Wales. I have used two of them, and for some strange reason I have not used this one.

I decided that the least I could do, would be to have a swatch of it on my blog. As soon as I got it on, I knew I had to do some nail art, and that is how this design was created.

W7 - Mosaic

I grabbed my striping brushes and made some random lines, making it look like mosaic tiles in a bathroom. Following on this vibe I rummaged around my stamping plates for something appropriate and found this little bird that I think fits the "mosaic bathroom" -vibe perfectly.

The bird was on BornPrettyStore Qgirl - 032 - (Bird Animal Pattern Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate Pattern #Qgirl-032) I stamped using my trusted Sinful Color - Snow Me White. 

W7 - Mosaic - stripes in L.A. Color - Splash and bird is from BornPrettyStore Qgirl - 032, stamped in Sinful Color - Snow Me White.

I was starting to run a bit low on Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and was getting a bit stressy over it as I have yet to find it in Northern Ireland, but luckily I managed to snatch with me 2 when I was in Finland a while back.

I have also done these nails using this plate:
Autumn Fields 
Colourful Fields

If you want to pick up this plate, feel free to use my code (RAMG10) to get 10% off your order.
Born Pretty Store also offers free shipping worldwide.

Bright Summer Flowers

I received this product of my own choosing, free of charge for my honest, non-bias review from the Born Pretty Store.

I wanted to do another bright summery design, it's been great weather here in Northern Ireland lately, and I wanted to celebrate with some bright nails as well.

I recently received some stamping plates from BornPrettyStore for review and among those was the Qgirl - 022 plate.
While I was organizing my stash of nail polishes and swatching sticks I came up with this great combination using Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow, Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black and L.A. Color - Splash. The Qgirl - 022 gave me just the image I had been wanting to use for this combo. 

Maybelline Street Artist - Boom Box Black:
Clear base with large and medium black and green hex glitters, small green bar glitters, and tiny round black and green glitters.

The lighting was acting up a little so here is a picture from last summer showing how Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow looks like.

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow

I was very happy to have several stampers for this design. It would have taken too long, if I had only had one stamper head. With more on their way I am quickly approaching 6 stampers (!), and a month back I only had 2...

Making decals is so much fun, and for this design it gave me the placement of glitter, just the way I wanted, without it interfering with the stamped image.

I stamped using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, filled in using L.A. Color - Splash, and dabbed some Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black around the flower. 

Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Yellow stamping in Sinful Color - Snow Me White, filled in using L.A. Color - Splash, and dabbed some Maybelline - Street Artist - Boom Box Black around the flower. 

 The Qgirl - 022 plate has a nice selection of flowers. I think most of the flowers on this plate will fit great for "scandinavian designs" (see what I mean here), but will also work great for more colourful displays like the one I did today.  The Chic Flower Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate Pattern #Qgirl-022 sells for $ 2.99.

If you will be placing an order, feel free to use my 10 % off coupon: RAMG10

There are plenty of products to choose from at their site, not just nail related items, and the prices are very affordable and they have free worldwide shipping.

Click the image below and you will be taken to their site.

Bring on the NEON

Today I have for you a very cool nail polish.

 The company I work with was going to a Summer Resort for the day to relax by the pool and just get to know everyone that works here. It was out in the middle of no-where. Obviously we where excited. There where large iron gates welcoming us (there where lots of mentioning of Hunger Games and similar movies), and when they open up we saw where we would be locked in for the next 10 hours. A small pool, a large party tent with a hired in DJ and a bunch for bartenders/caterers. 

I was wearing these awesome looking nails. And now I get to show them to you. since I stressed so much about having them done for the party, I was doing these at 3-4 am, and started at work at 10 am, since I really needed the rest, I decided to take the picture the following day. This picture above was taken at the party. Super Bright. So was my toes, but I will spare you the look of those. 

Without further ado, here is Claire's - Dizzy over Sinful Color - Irish Green (neon). 

Since I was working with a neon, I started out with one coat of Sinful Color - Snow Me White, then added two-three coats of Sinful Color - Irish Green, and finished off with two coats of Claire's - Dizzy. 

How are you incorporating Neon to your summer?

OTT Pink

Picture from Pinterest

I know it's not Wednesday anymore, but I was so busy with all the other posts that needed to go out. So it's a day late. It's also Mean Girls 10 year anniversary, at the end of this post, you will find Inlinkz with load of links to other girls that also wore pink on Wednesday. Be sure to check em out.

Today I decided to go completely OTT (over the top).

Credit: Fanpop

I used the new Barry M - Silk - Blossom.
If you have followed my blog for a while, you know I don't usually do this kind of stuff, but I decided to give it a try.
Nothing wrong in trying.

I started out with a french tip using Sinful Color - Snow Me White, and did some lines on my index finger. Over that I added Barry M - Blossom. I was wondering how it would look over the white, to soften the look of the intense white tips. I forgot to take a before picture of this step. This is with one coat of Barry M - Blossom.

Then I went in to add some rhinestones. Part of me really like this, and part of my find it really gross. So hopefully you will all be in between.

Rhinestone wheel from The Works for £ 1.99,-

What do you think?

Let me know in the comment section below. 

An InLinkz Link-up

EmOzean

Today I have for you swatches and some nail art with my newest franken polish. Actually I wasn't the one that made this franken, it was my boyfriend. I created a franken that day, and my bf thought I should use another polish to mix in with NYC - Bowery Black, so I had to mix another polish. You can see my creation here. 

My bf decided to call this polish for EmOzean, and he used the colour of my eyes as inspiration. 

I like how he played up "Emotion" and "Ozean" in the polish name... clever, I see what you did there. 

First I started out with Sinful Color - Snow Me White as base colour. I used two coats of that, then proceeded to add some circular stickers and painted EmOzean over. I finished off with some black striper.

Sinful Color - Snow Me White

Sinful Color - Snow Me White

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean with black striper

Sinful Color - Snow Me White and Franken - EmOzean with black striper

EmOzean was created mixing NYC- Bowery Black, Beyu - 377 (blue shimmer) and Depend - 245 (pastel blue)

Have you ever had a male (boy)friend suggest a franken for you?

The Easter Eggs Hatched

Today I have for you an Easter Egg manicure. I don't really celebrate Easter, but I love holidays, so I am throwing myself into this one as well.

Last year I did three different Easter manicures, all using the same background polish.
Field of Marigolds
Easter Nails - A skittle Adventure
Easter Nails

I have been on the lookout for a really good yellow polish for this years Easter manicure. I even bought a yellow texture! 
But even so, when it was time to do Easter nails again, I  am tempted to go for the same polish as last year. I managed to stay away, and opted for this B*O polish instead, that I bought from Born Pretty Store. It's called 62, and it's more like an orangey-yellow.

I used 3 coats of B*O - 62 for this manicure and finished it off with Sally Hansen - Sugar Coat - Sugar Fix. I also added some wings, eyes and beak using Nordic Cap - NP07, Sinful Color - Snow Me White (I have also bought myself a backup of this polish as it's running very low), and Wet n Wild - Black (I really need a backup of this, very soon)

Happy Easter Everyone!

For more Easter-manis click here.