Indie Polish

Okay we touched the other day on things to have fun with polish. I mentioned Indie Polish which is not a corporate polish but made by independent people. I have to say I am slowly moving into learning about this part of the Nail World and so far I have enjoyed it a bit. Today, I got my second ever bottle from a company called Cosmos Lacquer. I had to come and share this awesomeness with you! It is called The Galaxy and it definitely brings to light everything from the galaxy all to your fingertips :).

Okay so to explain the photo, I started with my basecoat and put one coat of Essie Mojito Madness. I let this dry super well. I dabbed (yes when you like certain types of glitters dabbing is okay you don't always have to brush it on!) on a layer of The Galaxy over it. I hope you can see how special this polish is. As Cosmos has brought us the stars and moon to our fingertips with a holo glitter effect. (Will get more into what are holos in a future posting).

As you can see, depending on your light the glitters show up as slightly different effects. It polishes on super easy even for a beginner. And you don't have to worry about fighting the polish to getting the glitter even and feeling like you get a fair layer on your nails. Just a perfect topper for your polish and I honestly don't think there would be a bad color to put it on top of!

If you want to grab this polish it is available at her store on Etsy, Cosmos Lacquer


Disclaimer: I did purchase this polish, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Nail Polish Words

I have posted before about terms that I have seen used but I thought since I have become more aware of them I would do a new post on them. Now we do not have the new camera yet but I will put pictures in of examples just bear with me until we get it :) .

Okay so let's talk manicure tools first --

For me, I use a File to get the dirt and grime (gently) from under my nails, a cuticle pusher to help keep them in shape, a 7 sided buffer because it is easier to keep up with than anything else (I use the Medium Grit to level out my nail ends to a square shape as that is least breakable on me) (I use even out/smooth nail/shine on the nail itself to make sure there are no bumps or grooves). I also have a pair of tweezers but that I use for nail art not for pre-work.

To prepare the nails and make sure they stay healthy I keep a bowl on hand which I put olive oil in (warmed in microwave) to make sure the nails stay moist. I also have Jojoba oil (you can purchase cuticle oil with it already mixed in or buy it pure and mix it yourself) mixed into some cuticle oil and a cuticle cream that I use.

Now is the fun part, to decide what art are we going to do. So many choices and only 2 hands to polish! You can choose to do what is called a Drugstore polish or you can choose Indie Polish. Now an example of drugstore polish is Orly (picture below), Sally Hansen, or one of the many many others. Or even China Glaze (can be found at Sally's). Basically Drugstore means the polishes you can walk in a store and purchase off the shelf.

Or you can go with an Indie polish as shown below with Cosmos Lacquer's Hoofbeats.

Okay so we are at the point we have decided polish but are we going to go simple and just polish or should we embellish and explode the universe. I love to make the galaxies come alive so I tend to go overboard with a LOT of my polishes. Soooo many choices if you go this way. You can choose to do some dots (there is a previous post on this) with dotters

you can choose to play with brushes and make freehand designs or your own french manicures (like I did)

you can do stamping! (yep on nails :) )

or even tape.

These are the ideas I have fiddled with so these are the ones I am going to stick to for now. In future posts I will show you more ideas.
Now that you have a basic idea of what you might want to play with it is time to get started but with WHAT?! A good basecoat. I have learned that a popular one (and I like it too) is Orly Bonder. You can purchase this in the store. I get mine at CVS. Super easy and convenient.

Okay now you got your basecoat on. Let it dry. Then have fun with whatever your design might be! I can't wait to see what you come up with....

Now a good finisher for most designs is a good topcoat. This is one that I use and it does have high reviews. It is called Seche Vite and is available from Sally's store and online.

Now you might ask what about the polish that jumped off my nails? Well, I have been looking for a brush I was told to buy. It seems like this brush is much more different to find than the Death Star! It might even be harder to find than the TARDIS at the rate I am going. I was told a nice eye shadow brush would work wonders. For now, I am using a q-tip for clean-up but it is a fiasco as q-tips like to shed more than Chewbacca!

Mind you this post is in no way complete but it is a beginning to a beautiful opening of Nail Polish. I hope I haven't overwhelmed you. I just want to make sure you are able to get as good a start as possible. A lot of the nail tools in this post I was able to purchase from Amazon at very reasonable prices. If I can answer any questions, as usual just ask :)

Tape Marble

Well thinking is fun. When it comes to polishing, thinking can bring all sorts of things to mind! Last week, I talked about water marbling. One thing that can be a problem with water marbling is the MESS. Huge huge mess. Another thing is time and polish. It takes a lot of polish and a humongous amount of time. Well my lack of attention popped in and I said hmm how can we make this easier. Now I didn't want to be bothered going online to search or youtube it (though I am fairly certain this idea is out there somewhere). I started fiddling. What I do best is think and fiddle. I spent all week going through my polish and try to find pretty ones that might work for this idea brewing in my brain. Well today it finally popped together. I got out my WnW Megalast I need a Refresh-Mint and put that on (over my bonder base) let it dry super good. Then I pulled out my trust Color Clubs (remember these are my favorite polishes!). I grabbed Wham Pow, Twiggy, and Poptastic. At the same time I grabbed my scotch tape, scissors and my lip balm. Now you are probably thinking what in the world am I up to?! I used the lip balm to coat my fingers around the nail not touching the nail (easier clean up this way). Then I made sure I had some nail size pieces of tape which I cut down a bit with scissors and placed them off to the side for easy access. Then the fun began! I placed a drop of each CC I picked out in no particular order making sure not to over do any color. I covered the nail gently with the tape and lifted. I got a marble pattern without water or needle! Yaya less than 5 minutes and perfection. So I continued to do this on each nail. And I am going to put up two pictures. One is before cleaning (inside), and one is after cleaning (outside). I am putting an outside picture this time so you can see how pretty it looks. An easy simple marble for your nails without the hassle. I am looking for ideas on what you would like to see. Remember this is a beginner's blog so I would like to help you out on your nail journey as I learn my way in the nail world!

before cleaning

after cleaning 

First rule of Polish Club

I have been trying to figure out what to do next. So many options!!! Plus Doctor Who has sent us on a Wibbly Wobbly conundrum with Finale in two days. Well here is what I decided. Water marbling!! Yep, you heard me. I ventured into water marbling. Now I have two pictures with different color patterns to show you ideas of all the niftiness you can do with this. *NOTE* If you are afraid if getting messy this is NOT for you. You will make a mess it will look awful at first but do not fret it looks beautiful when done. Just do not go into it with pre-conceived notions. Have fun! Remember that is the first rule of nail shine :) For this (and remember I am distracted easy so no video endurance required) you will need a bowl or room water, some toothpicks, some fun polishes (I like china glaze for this as this don't dry fast), petroleum jelly or tape. First thing first - tape around your nails making sure not get your nails in the process. Now if you are like me, I am allergic to tape, use the jelly instead, and do not get the nail or the polish will not stick to it. Make sure you coat all the fingers well around the nail and under the nail too plus other side of fingers. Put your base coat on (I use Orly Bonder). Then you put your bottom coat down. For the black and white pattern shown here I used a white bottom which is CG White on White. (as you can tell I didn't finish cleaning yet)

In the bowl of water I put a few drops of the White on White (CG) mixing with Liquid Leather (CG) until I felt it was enough. I took the toothpick and created a design in the water (polish should be sitting on top as it is stronger consistency than water). Then I dunked my finger in letting it sit for a couple of minutes. I blew on the water to help dry the polish. When I felt it was finished I used the toothpick to clean up any excessive polish out of the water twisting the polish around the toothpick. I then repeated this process one by one for each nail. *NOTE you will use a ton of polish and again you will create a disastrous mess.* When you are finished with all the nails, all them to dry thoroughly. I let it sit for a good 30-45 minutes before I did anything else. After drying you can cover with your top coat (I use Seche Vite) and let it dry thoroughly. Then clean up begins. If you use tape, you just gently peel it off of each finger (another reason I hate tape) using a q-tip or make-up brush to get any areas missed. If you used jelly, you can wash your hands with soap and water and get the polish on the jelly off. Any excess polish is easily removable with a q-tip or small make-up brush and polish remover.

This pattern was made using more than 2 polishes. I used CG White on White as my bottom Coat. In the water each nail I changed intensity as I was trying to make it look like a storm coming in with lightning. I used CG Argo (the green color that is lightly in it), CG White on White, CG Deviantly Daring, and CG Immortal (grey color).

Above all, Remember the first rule of Polishing: HAVE FUN!

Nail Art as a Voice

Last post, I explained that I like to use my new found freedom of polishing as my voice. It is hard to miss nails done up pretty with designs, letters, decals, or pretty polish. Also, last post I stated that Lupus was not the only thing that I bring awareness to in May. Let me first start off with a quote.

"When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras”. This is something that is taught in medical school. Always go with the simplest solution because that is usually what it is. But what happens when it isn't? For 27 years, I was that person that was mistakenly thought of as a horse, when in fact I was a zebra. It took a doctor all of 15 minutes to tell me what it was because he thought outside the box.

You see I have a rare collagen defect. I have a disorder known as Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. My knees bend backward 19 degrees (think of an archery bow and you have my knees). My fingers can overlap on top of each other. The list goes on for over-flexibility. But it doesn't stop there. My skin is stretchy and very pale and you can see my veins sitting under it in a lot of areas. I bruise almost instantly from anything. I do not walk anymore from this and one of my other disorders. I have multiple degenerative discs that are getting worse. I have begun to have osteoporosis already and barely in my 30's. I have 2 valves prolapsed in my heart (meaning they are leaking out instead of sealing shut when the blood comes through). I have a pacer in my stomach to make sure I can eat due to another complication of this disorder. I faint a lot and get dizzy plus my blood pressure stays abnormally low and my heart rate stays abnormally high or drops dangerously low due to another complication. There is no cure. I didn't know I had this when I had children even though I knew something was wrong. One of my children has this disorder though not to the same degree and I pray to God every day it does not disintegrate to this level for him. My other son developed a syndrome similar yet more dangerous than mine. There are other parts to this but I won't go into it now.

You ask why bring this up on a nail polish post. I will explain why. My nail art is my voice. The symbol for EDS'ers everywhere is the Zebra. My Jedi bless her heart knows my journey in life and she is starting her own line of polish. She took it upon herself to create a Polish for those of us on this Journey. I put it on yesterday and I cried. She hit the nail on the head with it. It is everything I would imagine a polish to be for us Zebras. A touch of this and a touch of this. Bits of black and bits of white. I placed it over my neon Color Clubs because as Zebras we are all colors. We define no boundaries. We are all bright spirited. I hope you enjoy Hoofbeats as much as I do. I will cherish this polish. She has made more bottles to sell and is going to make a donation once they sell to EDS Network C.A.R.E.S and I bless her for that. For this organization gives only to research. On that note I (again no camera sorry!) give you Hoofbeats layered over Color Club (different neons).

Lupus Awareness

Okay I come today out of a bit of seriousness. Coming up in May, is Lupus Awareness. This is a disease that I along with many, many other are affected by. The symptoms range across the board from the well known butterfly rash to lesser know central nervous issues. The type they have me diagnosed with is CNS Lupus which is a rarer form of this disease. It doesn't matter "type" though. All that matters is we need to learn more and realize that so many suffer in silence. Being in nail art now has given me a voice (one that truly helps since my "real" voice doesn't always like to work right). I did a post for April showing Autism Awareness. I will have another May Awareness post but for now, I am focusing on Lupus. It is a silent disease it is not seen by anyone but the person that has it. You may think the rash we have is just a bad sunburn. In fact, would you believe doctors say in theory we are "allergic" to the sun? I just went out with my kids for a few hours and had to take allergy meds when I got home for hives from the sun. It is a disease that is overlooked because the symptoms are so widely ranged and go across the board. It is a "mimic" disease. It means it sometimes is first diagnosed as something else. Sometimes it takes years to correctly figure out the diagnosis. Doctors suspect now with me I had it at least 7-10 years before they pinpointed that I truly was ill.

 Now after all that I want to share with you my voice for Lupus Awareness. As everyone knows I am the Padawan. I am very new to nail art and wanted to do something special for Lupus. So I thought and thought, I finally turned to my Jedi and asked her opinion. We considered decals. I said that might be an option. Then I said no I did that for Autism. I want this different. I said I know let me spell out Lupus in polish. How can people miss a woman in a wheelchair with the word Lupus written on her nails?! So I got out my Orly Bonder, my CC (Color club ya know I love this brand!) Puccilicious as it is the closest purple to the Lupus butterfly at least to my color blind eyes, my new CG (China Glaze) White on White, my whole pack of brushes, and my new bottle of Seche Vite topcoat (considered one of the best topcoats btw!). And sat down to get to work. I placed the Bonder on first and let it dry real good. I put a good coat of CC on. And screwed up my thumb (not a good polish session if a glitch doesn't occur!) so I got my remover out wiped it off and started that nail over. After the glitchy and all the other polish dried super well, I went through all my brushes and decided on a super thin brush. I poured a little bit of polish into the cap I use for my jobs like this (easier than it coming out gobby onto the brush ;) ) and first did a thin outline for the first letter. I then went over it slow but sure and filled it in. I followed along and took time doing each finger slow but sure with the same premise, a thin outline then a fill in to get the right pop look. I let them dry real well so they do not bleed at all. And when you think they are dry let them dry another 10-20 minutes (hint from my Obi). Then I topcoated it to give it that perfect look. Here is a photo of my Lupus Awareness. I hope it gives you inspiration and an idea to have fun with your polish! Polish can be a voice even when we don't!

Mishmash Polishing

Sorry I haven't posted. Had some upset in the household with my health and my 3 yr old dog is very ill. I am going to show you a couple things I have accomplished in the last 24 hrs out of boredom. I am also going to include my son's polish choice. He is 12 and he is all boy but he loves his polish. So as I am on my journey with my Obi and Jedi (mini-Obi earned her saber ;) ), my son is also learning. He is also learning that he is bucking trend as it is not "normal" for a boy to like polish. I will refer to his as my Apprentice. So on Monday I found an awesomely gorgeous polish from Color Candy (CC) called Twiggy. It is a Lime Green. I fell in love. I know what love at first sight is now :) Last night my son wanted polish done. I said well go pick (picking for an ASD child can be overwhelming especially when the polish covers the dresser top). He comes back with four. I said okay which one. He goes um NONE. I said okay try again. So he comes back with 2 black. So he got one hand in one shade of black and the other in another shade of black (yes black comes in multiple shades). Here is his photos now.

He doesn't sit still well but he doesn't mind that mom isn't the perfect painter.

After he was finished I realized I had one of my nail brushes nearby and I really liked his black nail paint... But I still really enjoyed Twiggy (lime green). I thought hey how about a streak down each nail. This was created by orly bonder, CC twiggy, Maybelline Essence, and Rimmell T/C.

Yep I landed with cat eye's. Go figure! I decided to go ahead and do the other hand as well.

Now we move on to today Wed the 24th of April. I talked to my Jedi and I needed some distraction due my baby still very ill and not home. I said okay I got all the polish out and I got all my brushes. Is this a dangerous combo? She laughed and said uh oh. Well I would break it all down for you but to do that would take a whole different post. Let me just say if you are bored and got polish. HAVE FUN. Try something be brave. The worst that can happen you grab the polish remover and start over. So this is now my left hand. I don't have a good photo of my thumb but it has crackle on it. If you have never done crackle, it is a MUST TRY! So fun. Put your favorite polish on let it dry real good. And pick a different color crackle/shatter to cover doesn't have to be thick. It does break up as it dries. You can cover it with a topcoat if you want to make it shinier. But anywho here is my Mishmash of the left hand of fun :) Remember polish is like art.. Your nails are a clean slate. Just keep the oil on them Put a coat of base and then play! :)