Pink Wednesday: Artificial Sweetener all glittered up

Orly is a brand I’m somewhat torn about. Some of their nail polishes are to die for, others are, well, plain.

Artificial Sweetener by Orly is one of the plain ones. It’s a somewhat stale creme pink, rather warm color.; I used two coats. I wanted to like it, because it looked very pretty in the bottle, but it doesn’t totally work for me. Until I realized that it doesn’t work for me, I needed to wear it twice. Actually, I have to wear all the polishes at least once until I can decide if I like the color on me or not – how do you try polishes out? If you have any suggestions to speed up the process, let me know!

To take the boring out of Artificial Sweetener (a somewhat very fitting name, if you ask me – it looks sweet and artificial, doesn’t iot?) I decided to paint my ringfinger nail in one of my frankens. It’s a shimmery white polish with a pink hue, filled with holographic, pink and white glitters. It covers in two coats (which you see here).

Nameless, again

Today I have another great franken for you! I say great because I think it is – but feel free to judge yourselves. I am always excited to read your comments!
This one I made on a whim and I am blaming myself for not writing down what I used, because I would like to recreate it! The thing with glitter bombs like this is that a full mani is very visible with regards to how quickly the bottle empties. I think I might get 10-15 full manicures out of this franken, which seems so little!

Anyhow. As you can see, the base of this franken is pink (you know me!), with tiny pink glitters. In it I put large turquoise and light blue hex glitters, smaller violet and silver hex glitters, and even smaller and fewer black glitters. I am wearing two coats of the franken on it’s own.

I am still playing around with my lightbox settings, so please let  me know which pictures you prefer, the slightly over lit ones in the bottom of this post or the slightly darker ones above?

Girly Purple

 

Today I’m showing you another franken I made some time back. I like frankening, but I am super careful about advertising them, because some of them look so gorgeous in the bottle and turn out horrible on the nail. I love the amount of glitter bombs out there by various indie polish makers, but I am also very cautious about buying some of them, as some, not all obviously, are made quickly and not tested long enough. So I only post my frankens after wearing them at least once before, which means at least a couple of weeks of them resting untouched in my polish vault. This particular unnamed franken is one of the ones I’m happy with (I make about 10 finished frankens when I sit down and get creative, and usually one or two make it in my nail polish vault, as the other ones have issues with bleeding or curling glitters, etc), so I wanted to share it.

I used 2 coats of Revlon Girly as a base. Girly is a pastel lavender polish with intense silver shimmer provided by the silver particles in the polish. It dries to a somewhat brushed metallic steel look, this is the best I can describe it. It looks like our kitchen counter  

The franken polish itself is a sheer purple (yes, you heard right! I made something purple!) jelly, interspersed with blue, silver and pink hex glitters in various sizes. There are also occasional bar silver glitters in there, but not many. I haven’t worn it on its own, but I assume one would need many coats for it to be opaque. I used two thin coats for the pictures below, and I had no problems applying the glitter, as the base of the polish is rather thick.

What do you think, do you like it?

 

Name me, please!

Today I have a request to all of my now 600 (YAY!!! Thank you so much!) readers – I need a name for this polish of mine!

I recently discovered the fun of mixing glitters and color pigments together, even though I have made some quite ugly looking polishes. This one however is one I liked, so I had to wear it right away. You know how much I love green, but you don’t know yet that my favorite flavor of chocolate and ice cream is mint – and mint was also somewhat my inspiration when I made this polish. In Vienna, we have a chocolate flavor called ‘ After Eight’ (like the candy), and the ice cream is white with little chocolate bits and swirled into it is mint syrup. I love that ice cream!

So this is what I came up with:

 

Above you see two coats of my franken in daylight. The pictures below are made in the lightbox, which makes the polish look a little bit softer. The green shimmery base is filled with differently sized white glitters and small green hexagons. There is also the occasional light blue bar glitter, but they don’t show up very well in the base, they just add a bit of sparkle here and there.

 

So, what do you think? Do you have any ideas for names?

When there was a time, all the purples weren’t enough

Sometimes I feel like the polishes that are available aren’t enough – that’s when I decided to sit down with my nail polish freak group, B., T. and A., and we make our own polishes. Most of the times we make something, the polishes turn out nice in our heads, but the realization of the color we think of is different than what we wanted it to be. But sometimes, it’s just what we want them to be like, and the polish I am going to show you today is one of them.

My super sweet swap partner M. (who I’ve been swapping with constantly for over a year now) loves purple and glitters. There are so many glitters available now and so many purples, but I wanted to make something for her that is available only once, so I made her this purple polish with large golden and smaller blue hex glitters. I don’t like using existing colors, so I made it from scratch. I used two coats for the pics below.

I’m happy how this turned out, and I think it is indeed something different! It’s a bit bumpy of course, because if the large glitters, but a layer of topcoat will seal it nicely and make it an even surface. In different light, the purple looks almost blue.

Do you also create your own polishes sometimes?

It’s Frankenstein! No, Franken-time!

Hey everyone! Today I’m happy to be able to proudly introduce you to my franken, Happycalypse.

I came up with the name when I was (jokingly) preparing a bag, Sheldon-style, for 21. December 2012.
(I don’t believe in any of that world-ending stuff, I’m more convinced that, at mankinds current usage of the earths’ ressources, we’ll kill each other off sooner or later anyways. I just hope not to live to see that day.)
In any case, I thought that if there’s an end, why not make it a happy and colourful one? So I decided to name my newest franken “Happycalypse”.

It consists of a black jelly-ish base (Apocalypse!) with a dozen of glitters and shimmer pigments in there. For the little extra, I added some string glitters and some hex-shaped holograpic glitters (happy!). I used two coats, and was amazed by how good coverage was. I had to pat myself on my shoulder for that.

above: daylight. Below: artificial light, no flash.Below: flash

Actually, I shouldn’t call this a franken. I made it from scratch, so technically this would be a custom polish or an indie polish. What do you think about the terminology here? And what do you think about my Happycalypse?

little work, great effect

Color Morphing Topcoats – todays’ discussion topic! What’s their future, where are they heading and what are their social, economic and moral impacts?
 *just kidding*

I quickly mixed together all three Color Morphing Powders to make one amazing  topcoat after I received the pigment from More Nail Polish. I started off with a black with subtle shimmer polish from Australis, it apparently came in a set of 3 so it doesn’t have a name. It only says “paint pot” in the bottle. Thanks again for this awesome polish, Amy!
Here is two coats of the unnamed beauty:

Then I layered the multicolor topcoat on the black polish:

Above: daylight, below: artificial light, no flash

I think the topcoat is subtle enough to be elegant, yet sparkly enough to be amazing. Also, it adds meters of depth! Do you own color morphing poweders or topcoats? Have you played with them yet? What do you think of them?

My 311-followers-Giveaway is here!

Thanks everyone for reading my blog. I have started off as an experiment (would anyone even be interested in what I have to say about nail polish?!), and I can proudly report that I have spent way too much time and money on nail polish – just joking! Can one ever spend too much time looking at bottles of pretties??

Well, actually, I can happily report that I have stopped biting my nails, and I have met  a LOT of nice girls to share my hobby with. Some of them are Austrian too, and we have even met in person. I don’t want to offend any of my new blogger friends, but Anna from Candy for the Betches and Michi from MichiSchaaf’sBlog  have especially captured my heart

Before I start boring you and you decided to just scroll down to enter the Giveaway, let me remind you of the prizes.

Prize No 1 is my Franken Collection Seas of the World. You can see my swatches here. Please remember that I custom made those polishes and they have been lying in my “Giveaway-Drawer” for two month now, so you’ll have to shake them up before you use them.(i’m sorry I forgot to take a picture of the wrapped bottles!

Prize No 2 is my Franken Collection Holidays. That’s the colourful collection! You can see my swatches here. Please remember that I custom made those polishes and they have been lying in my “Giveaway-Drawer” for two month now, so you’ll have to shake them up before you use them.

Prize No 3 is my Franken Collection Cocktail. Rember that’s the one with 5 polishes and a “on the rocks”topcoat? See swatches here. Please remember that I custom made those polishes and they have been lying in my “Giveaway-Drawer” for two month now, so you’ll have to shake them up before you use them.

I will add a fourth prize consisting of my all time favourite polishes if I reach 456 followers on facebook during the Giveaway time!

Here are the links to follow me (to follow via email, click the email button on the right top corner of the page!)

https://www.facebook.com/goodlack

https://twitter.com/#!/Goodlacknail

http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/2560359/good-lack-nail

Congrats that you’ve made it all the way down here! The Giveaway is, as always, open to all followers, old and new, national and international, big and small (but you must be above 18years of age), fanatics and hoarders, ….!

I will close this Giveaway on 31st of December 2011., and the winners will be drawn in the new year! Now, quickly, go enter!

 

EDIT: GIVEAWAY now CLOSED

frankentime! Seas of the world Collection

Hi everyone! Today I want to show you the last of the 3 collection up for grabs this coming Giveaway. The Holidays Collection can be seen here, and the Cocktail Collection you’ll find here.

First up is Atlantis. Not per se a sea, I still think this is a fitting name for this polish, and it also fits the collection. I used 3 thin coats for this polish – you’ll need to fish around a little to get all the large glitters and glitter stars on your brush. This medium blue polish has an amazing pink flash, which hides normally, but comes out in artificial light!above: daylight, below: artificial light

Next is Bering Sea, a dirty alga green, with a prominent golden flash and sparsely scattered holo particles, inspired by sunrays reflected on the surface of the sea. 2 coats. above: artificial light, below: daylight

This beauty is called Carribean Sea. Its a dark blue jelly, that you can easily layer over any kind of silver, gold, light blue, white, whatever colour to achieve different effects. It is also packed with stringy glitter and other shapes of glitter, because the Carribean = fun! Here it is shown alone, 2 coats.above: artificial light, below: daylight

Next up is a polish called Mariana Trench. Just like Atlantis, the Mariana Trench isn’t a sea, but it is in a sea (let’s not dispute the existance of Atlantis, ok?!). The Mariana Trench is super deep and therefore also pitch black – but not everywhere. I imagine that where the light hits, you can see the funniest animals living in the Mariana Trench – so there is my polish, dark grey with a hint of teal, packed with small glitter that shimmers red to orange, depending on the light. Like all the small fish in the Mariana Trench! 3 thin coats.above: artificial light, below: daylight

Another sea: The North Sea. I remember the North Sea to be dusty sea foam green, seldomly still, and never deep blue, always too busy for that. Well, there you have my north sea polish: a dusty sea foam green, with the tiniest hint of a holo effect. 2 coats.above: artificial light, below: daylight

And the funniest one from this collection, if anyone asks me, is Yellow Sea.It’s not a polish to laugh at – not this way funny, but yellow always makes me smile. It’s such a happy cheerful colour! I used 2 coats, but now that I see those pictures, I could’ve used a third. above: artificial light, below: daylight

 

 

So, what do you think about the Seas of the World Collection? Do you franken yourself?

frankentime! Cocktail Collection

You all know what the picture above means, right? There is another collection of frankens packed and ready to go to the winner of my soon to be announced 311-facebook-fans-Giveaway!

Shall we take a look at the polishes? I find this collection exciting because there are 5 polishes and 1 top coat to go with all of them. The top coat is called “On the Rocks” and I’m showing you one picture of the Cocktail Polish alone and then one “on the rocks”. Fun, no?

Appletini, 2 coats. Green with a golden shimmer.

Raspberry Daiquiri. Berry Jelly with a lot of holo glitter (as used in the Kleancolor Holos).

Swimming Pool, two coats. A pale blue creme polish with some subtle white/iridiscent glitter.

Tequile Sunrise. Pink polish with yellow & orange flakies. 2 coats.

Watermelon Punch. A very bright red (sorry for the bad picture!) with subtle shimmer. 2 coats.

 

What do you think about my cocktail collection? Do you like the idea of the “on the rocks” topcoat?