Nude + Neon Love

I hope you are not tired of seeing my Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection. Today I have for you all another neon polish look. 

There has been a couple of comments about the wear-ability of neon polish, some of you have jobs that doesn't allow overly bright nails. Luckily, my job allows me to wear bright polishes, so I created a look that incorporates a nude polish to accommodate more for those occasions when we want to wear neon polishes, but have to tone it down a couple of notches. 

For today's look I used Opulent Essences - Strawberry, Opulent Essences - Grape and  Opulent Essences - Lime as well as a Claudia - 002 - Like A Dream. 

First I painted all nails with two coats of Claudia - 002 - Like A Dream, and added a quick dry topcoat, because today I am working with vinyls.

Using a rose vinyl that I had purchased from She Sells Seashells (say that 10 times, fast), I went in randomly with spots here and there using Opulent Essences - Strawberry and Opulent Essences - Grape.

A small detail brush and Opulent Essences - Lime did the trick when adding leaves under the rose. 

I just love how the rose turned out, and will definitely use the vinyl again. Gorgeous!

To complete the look I used BM 705 from the 2015 Secret Garden Collection to add some wording to the rest of the nails. In direct sunlight as seen below you can not quite make out the wording, and it gives a nice textured look to the nails, but in indirect artificial lighting you can totally see the wording. 

Nude + Neon Love using  Opulent Essences - Strawberry, Opulent Essences - Grape with nail vinyl and  Opulent Essences - Lime over Claudia - 002 - Like A Dream. 

Office appropriate neon and nude nail art look, I hope you liked it, I certainly did, and this was the first time I got to properly play around with nail vinyls, and I have to say I am liking it so far.

I just wanted to quickly add that I purchased this collection with my own money, and are not sponsored in any way.

I have been moving house the past couple of weeks, and I had left this collection out so that I could pack my polishes for the move and still have something to paint my nails with. Getting organised and sorted is taking a lot longer than I thought. If you are curious as to how my house is looking, and how I am organising things, check out my Instagram, I have posted a couple of pictures. 

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 .

Neon Watercolours

Today I have for you a nail art look that was inspired by the many festival outfits that I have seen so far this summer. 

Neon seems to go hand in hand with geometric shapes this year, so I decided to throw a little part on my nails and rock a Festival Ready Mani. 

I will be using Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection for this look, using Opulent Essences Grape, Opulent Essences - Strawberry and Opulent Essences - Blueberry (purple, pink and blue from the picture below).

Opulent Essences - Taste The Rainbow Collection

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

First I applied one coat of Sinful Color - Snow Me White to all my nails.

Then I dabbed some Opulent Essences - Strawberry and Opulent Essences - Blueberry on my stamping mat and squished my jumbo clear stamper over and gave it a little twist before pressing it on my nails. I repeated this three times on my middle finger and twice on my ring- and little finger. 

I wanted to do some gradient stamping with these shades and chose Uber Chic stamping plate 2-02 that I recently purchased. I think the diamond image works really well with this look. 

The smoosh base really makes these neons look like vibrant watercolours and I just love how it looks. 

Neons and Diamonds. 

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

About Uber Chic Beauty:

Uber Chic Beauty is the leading Indie Stamp Plate Maker, and the company and their leader Brittany is located in the US. It can be a bit expensive for us UK girls to get our hands on the plates if ordering directly from Uber Chic Beauty, but luckily you can get the plates from Nail Artisan 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 - Strawberry

Opulent Essences - Strawberry has been quite the hit on Instagram. Sharon & Zoe, the girls behind Opulent Essences, even  shared a little video that I had compressed from the Live Swatch that I did over at my YouTube Channel 

A video posted by Dina Ramse (@secretarysnailart) on Mar 28, 2016 at 1:00pm PDT

I have therefor decided to do a nail art using Opulent Essences - Strawberry first.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry

Whenever I get my hands on a new polish, the first thing I always wonder about is whether or not they stamp. That's why I grabbed Opulent Essences - Lemon and Bundlemonster - ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and BM-219 and tested this theory.

I did not stop to think about what I was stamping on top, I think I should have done that, because I would have realized that stamping neon over neon might not be the smartest idea. Never the less, I did. So that you don't have to.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry  with stamping done using Opulent Essences - Lemon and Bundlemonster ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and BM-219 as accent. 

It was incredibly hard to capture on camera, with the neon stamping on top, to the naked eye, it looked really cool. I decided to change things up a little, to get a nail art look I would be happy with.
I grabbed Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition - Yellow and went back over the Opulent Essences - Lemon. I repainted the accent nail and placed some golden studs instead.

Opulent Essences - Strawberry with stamping done using Opulent Essences - Lemon and Barry M - Superdrugs Limited Edition over with Bundlemonster ChitChatNails - BMXL202 and golden studs for accent. 

I am super happy with how this look ended up. The golden studs give this a bit of an edge, and I think it pairs excellent with the stamping image.