St. Patrick's Day Nails: Mutagen stamped with MM04

Hello everyone!

To make these St. Patrick's Day Nails, I started with a green multichrome called Mutagen from I Love Nail Polish. I used 3 coats and top coat. Then I used Konad: SN Black to stamp the pattern from an image on Messy Mansion's stamping plate MM04. Because I have small nails, I could use different parts of the image like this. The first photo above is taken before top coating the stamping.

Photos:

First a few photos of Mutagen on it's own, then more pictures of the finished manicure, and the plate. All the photos below are with top coat. Lighting: shade, sun, Ott- Lite, LED lamp. No under water photos this time.

Used:

I Love Nail Polish (ILNP): Mutagen
Messy Mansion: MM04
Konad: SN Black


MM04:

I bought MM04 because of this image only, and I can't understand how someone can draw such an awesome design. Now that I have the plate, I also like many of the other images. I love the hands holding a heart, and the clover images. The plate has a lot of images that are perfect for those who celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they can of course be used any time of the year. I didn't hold the stamping plate straight on the photo above, so the images in the front appear larger than they really are. The plate is very well etched, as usual with the Messy Mansion plates. Sadly there are some tiny holes in my dear perfect soft stamper, so if you see some green dots where it was supposed to be black, that's why. If my next stamper is of the same quality, I will be more careful with it.


Mutagen:

This multichrome is a very vibrant green that changes color depending of the angle of your nails. It was difficult to photograph this polish. It looks even "greener" in real life. LOL. ILNP describes it as a mirror- like chrome. Mutagen is from ILNP's growing “Ultra Chrome” collection. I have the old version of Mutagen. Now they also have a holographic version called "Mutagen (H)". Mutagen is similar to, but not a dupe of Enchanted Polish: Hey Jude. Mutagen is less colorchanging than I had expected, but because of the vibrant green color and the mirror- like chrome effect, I love it.


What's your favourite multichrome nail polish?


Lani

GOT Polish Challenge: PURPLE. Old and newer blurple- aubergine- purple with silver Pueen 49 stamping

Hello everyone!

I wanted to use my vintage Estée Lauder polish and some other purple- aubergine- blurple 1,5-  a few years old polishes. With the stamping the difference between the polishes doesn't show much, but luckily it showed better on the photos. :-)

I'm not sure how old the Estée Lauder polish is, but probably 10- 15 years old. The glue is still where the name probably used to be... There's not much left in the bottle, and I had to use a little thinner. I would describe the color as a dark purple with a little grey and brown mixed in, and a lot of gold/ bronze shimmer. You can see it on my middle finger. I have showed this bottle before when I showed my tiny vintage nail polish collection. You can find it here.

I've written a list below, with all the products I used, and which nail polish you can see on which finger.

Gina Tricot, Nfu- Oh, Estée Lauder, OPI, Deborah Lippmann, China Glaze, Pueen 49

Used:

Duri Rejuvacote -base coat
Gina Tricot: #102 Cabaret - thumb
Nfu- Oh: #51 -index finger
Estée Lauder: no name - middle finger
OPI: Every Month is Oktoberfest - ring finger
Deborah Lippmann: Let's Go Crazy - pinkie
Stamping plate: Pueen 49
China Glaze: Awaken -silver
XL stamper
Lint roller - to remove polish from the stamper
Scotch tape - to remove polish from the skin
Brush dipped in acetone - to clean cuticles

Sadly I have not showed swatches of these before, other than Nfu- Oh #51 over a blue polish. You can see it here. I've used Nfu- Oh #51 several times for nail art. And the OPI has been used for layering here and here.

I tried to remove the stamped polish from my skin with scotch tape, as seen on Wacky Laki. Removing stamped polish from the skin with tape, and removing it from the stamper with a lint roller has saved me a lot of time.

Below you can see the other GOT nails. I was too late to add my thumbnail.

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

GOT Polish Challenge: Valentines - Lavender, white and MM31

Hello everyone!

For this Golden Oldie Thursday, I picked OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender. This OPI is a few years old, so no vintage polish today. Then I stamped with Konad SN White and the same stamping plate that you saw in my last blog post; MM31 from Messy Mansion:

As you see, this full nail image is also very detailed, and perfect for both tiny nails like mine and for those with long nails and wide nail beds. I used the purple rectangular stamper again. I have very curved nails, and this time I tried to roll the stamper sideways. It stamped perfectly, but then I managed to get some white polish on the index nail! :-( I tried to remove it, but now that I look at the pictures, I see that there's still some left...

I've written about Lucky Lucky Lavender and showed lots of photos earlier here. I have no idea why it's currently my most viewed blog post.

Here are the Valentine's Day nails I've made so far:

Valentine's Day nails 1: Heart of a Vampire
Valentine's Day nails 2: Purple holo with red hearts
Valentine's Day nails 3: Black holo+ holo glitter+ black hearts
Valentine's Day nails 4: Black/ white rhinestone hearts+ 3 Halo Hues
Valentine's Day nails 5: Hearts with Sweet Dreams
Valentine's Day nails 6: Hearts with Gold and Raindrops
Valentine's Day nails 7: Black Hearts & Sparkling Venus

Valentine's Day nails 8: Love is Love - Pastel Rainbow Hearts

And below you can see which old nail polishes the other participants used for their Valentine's nail art.

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

Love is Love - Pastel Rainbow Hearts- Valentines Day nails #8, NPC's Valentine's Day Nail Art Challenge, and #31Nails2014 Day 19 Rainbow

Hello everyone!

I was invited to Nail Polish Canada's Valentine's Day nail art challenge! :-) You can vote for me here by choosing my blog url; nailphotosbylani. I've already seen some very beautiful entries, so I don't think I can win, but I do have many hearts on my tiny nails. Lol! How many hearts do you see?

I must admit that I was inspired by the discrimination against homosexuals and lesbians, that happen many places, but that we've heard so much about now before the Olympics. I think people should be treated with respect no matter who they happen to fall in love with. Love is Love.

Rainbow nails was one of the challenges in the 31 day challenge I tried to do in January. So now that I've finally done day 19, I only have 5 manicures to do for NAILS Magazine's #31Nails2014 Challenge! Sadly, I have only showed a few here on the blog. But if you are on facebook, you can see my #31Nails2014 photo album. I will also share them on Instagram soon. Please follow me on Instagram! Btw, have you seen that NAILS Magazine now have a new 31 day nail art challenge for February?

This manicure was also made for the Sunday challenge in the facebook group Adventures In Stamping. I've never made a manicure for 3 challenges before. :-)

And also I have my own Valentine's Day nails series. This is number 8. I've included links to the ones I've made so far at the end of this post.

PRODUCTS USED:

Duri Rejuvacote (as base coat)

Pastels:
Nailstation: Guimauve (pink)
Nailstation: Agrume (orange)
Nailstation: Lightening Lemon (yellow)
Mi-Ny: #56 Klimt (green)
Nailstation: Gomme (blue) -used here in NPC Holiday Challenge
Gina Tricot: #47 Lilac me (indigo/ blue purple)
Linda Johansen: Violetta (violet/ red purple)

Sponge & dotting tool (for the gradient)
Messy Mansion: MM31 (stamping plate & palette)
Konad: SN White
Purple rectangular stamper
XL stamper (for the thumb)
Seche Vite


Nailstation, Mi-Ny and Linda Johansen are cruelty- free. I thought Gina Tricot was cruelty- free too, but now I couldn't get it confirmed...


I bought Nailstation, Linda Johansen, and the XL stamper from Norway Nails - The purple rectangular stamper, and MM31 from Messy Mansion.

WHAT I DID:

I used all the pastels horizontally on my thumb. On the other fingers I tried to make a diagonal pastel rainbow gradient; Index: pink, orange. Middle finger: orange, yellow, green. Ring finger: green, blue, indigo. Pinkie: indigo, violet. And then I stamped white over it with my new absolutely gorgeous Valentines stamping plate MM31 from Messy Mansion.

Click to enlarge

MM31:

I really love this stamping plate. The designs are awesome, and as you see, the images are so detailed that I can use them even though I have tiny nails that are very short, and the full nail image size is big (2,2 x 1,7 cm). So thank you Messy Mansion for making a stamping plate for all nail sizes!

STAMPERS:

It's also the first time I use a rectangular stamper. It was soft, but not as soft as the XL stamper, but easier to position, and the purple surface made it easier to see the white stamping polish. I also tried my new purple replacement head for the XL stamper, but it was harder than I had expected, and I couldn't make it work. So I guess I have to prime it. And it's the first time I use Duri Rejuvacote. After reading about it on the Messy Mansion web site, I really hope to get healthier and stronger nails. That, and using gloves when doing the dishes and housework, will hopefully prevent them from breaking so that I can get long nails again...

MY VALENTINE'S DAY NAILS:

Valentine's Day nails 1: Heart of a Vampire
Valentine's Day nails 2: Purple holo with red hearts
Valentine's Day nails 3: Black holo+ holo glitter+ black hearts
Valentine's Day nails 4: Black/ white rhinestone hearts+ 3 Halo Hues
Valentine's Day nails 5: Hearts with Sweet Dreams
Valentine's Day nails 6: Hearts with Gold and Raindrops
Valentine's Day nails 7: Black Hearts & Sparkling Venus


Lani

GOT Polish Challenge: BLUE and #31Nails2014 #18: Inspired by your favorite piece of clothing

Hello everyone!

Today I'm combining two challenges, so I'm using a blue vintage Dior nail polish (for the GOT Challenge) and was inspired by my blue silk top, which is my favourite piece of clothing (for Day 18 in the #31Nails2014 Challenge). Before publishing this blog post, I had hoped to make all the nail art for day 6- 17 and to have written about it here on the blog, but the submissions for the GOT challenge close today...

I'm probably using my favourite blue nail polish for the last time... :-( The bottle is nearly empty, so I really hope I'll find a dupe! Christian Dior #489 Cobalt is one of my oldest nail polishes. I've written about Dior Cobalt here, and about my tiny vintage nail polish collection here. If you know how old this bottle is, please let me know. My guess is that it's from 1993. So although I've showed this polish before, I had to take some last pictures of it on it's own too. And none of the photos show how beautiful this polish is.

2 coats, no top coat:  (IRL it looks shiny.)

With top coat:

Sadly there's not much daylight here this time of the year. I wish we had daylight in the afternoon. In the artificial light, the shine doesn't show. And the days I could take photos outside, it was snowing...

This is the first time I'm wearing Cobalt with nail art. I just used some Joby rhinestone stickers. I like them and they don't cover to much of the polish. And sealed with a generous coat of Seche Vite they stayed on.

Products used:

Christian Dior #489 Cobalt
Joby Nail Art: #351 Gemstone
and IsaDora #600 Clear as base coat and Seche Vite top coat.
and a false nail for my broken pinkie nail

Now I'm curious about how many are participating, and what they made for these challenges. If you want to, you can take a closer look at the blue nails and the other old blue nail polish bottles, by clicking on a thumbnail below.


Lani

#31Nails2014: #5 Rhinestones

Hello everyone!

The theme for day 5 is Rhinestones. And I had to ask Nails Magazine if it was OK to use these huge nail decorations. Lol! Although you can't see it behind all the foil and rhinestones, I have used some nail polish for this manicure too. First, I applied base coat, and silver nail polish, then nail glue, and nail foil, and after that I placed my stones. I hope you miss seeing tonns of photos! Lol! :-) I love photographing manicures like this. It was hard to only pick 12 photos. Which picture do you think I should share on Instagram?

   

If you feel some kind of Déjà vu, you have a very good memory, because although I haven't showed you this stage of this manicure before, you might have seen stage 4 (very bold sci- fi "Pepper Potts Nails" made for Polish Days in June), stage 2 (Holographic nail foil, and how to use it), and stage 1 (the beautiful silver nail polish). This is stage 3, which is without the glitter french tips.

Products used: 

IsaDora #600 Clear (fast drying base coat)
Pieces: Silver (silver foil nail polish)
N.NAIL Shiny Silver Nail Foil Transfer [NNAIL-E24] (nail foil +glue)
N.NAIL Drop Shaped Rhinestones Nail Art 6mmX8mm-Iridescent [NNAIL-DRN694] (rhinestones)
a Q- tip
scissors

What I didn't have when I made this mani, was a good top coat for nail foil. Next time I'll try Picture Polish: Revolution as top coat. It's cruelty- free, and I've heard that it works over foil without damaging it.

The nail foil, glue, and rhinestones can be bought from KKCenterHk, but the foil is sold out at the moment. If you want to buy something from KKCenterHk, feel free to use my 10% coupon code; "Nailphotos by Lani".

What's your favourite nail foil? And which of these pictures do you like best? I need help deciding which photo to share on Instagram for this Nails Magazine challenge. (I'm not on Instagram yet.)


Lani