Hit The Bottle Messy Mani

Hello everyone!

I hope you're having a good weekend. 

I'd just like to mark a little milestone before I get into this post. Last week marked the one year anniversary of my very first blog post! I did kind of forget about it because I couldn't quite remember the date - which is a little disappointing - but I am having a mini internal celebration. I feel I've come a pretty long way in just a year, but I also know I still have a long way to go.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff - nail art! I recently made my first purchase with Hit The Bottle Polish, so of course I went a little crazy when I found out they were only $3.95! I was hoping to do a swatch-like post of them before posting a mani, but I just haven't had time. So instead, I'll be putting my two cents in at the end of this post. I'll list all polishes I used in this mani, as well as products below. 

I've decided to call this a messy mani because I was just trying out the colours and seeing what I could do with them, but they turned out pretty good and so I decided it needed to be shared.

Hit The Bottle Messy Mani

For this design I used these polishes:

Drunk Tank Pink by Hit The Bottle

Sparkling Cyan-ide by Hit The Bottle

Tipsy Grasshopper by Hit The Bottle

Paint The Town Violet by Hit The Bottle 

Celeb City by Sally Hansen

Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

I used these stamping plates:

BP - 92

BP - 109

BP - 43

BP - 152

BP - L042

I also used these products:

Large clear stamper

Plastic scraper

Camo Coat by Celestial

Mani Saver by Best

Cotton balls

Paper towel

Hit The Bottle Messy Mani with Celeb City

For the base of this mani I used Celeb City. I was going to use white, but I really wanted to test out the pigment of these polishes. I then applied Camo Coat around each nail for easier clean up. Using plates 92, 109, 43, 152 and L042 (with paper towel slightly under them), I placed small amounts of Sparkling Cyan-ide, Drunk Tank Pink, Paint The Town Violet and Tipsy Grasshopper onto the design I had chosen. I then scraped the polish a few times to remove excess polish and to blend the colours together. Using my large stamper, I picked up the image and transferred it to the nail. After each stamping I dipped a cotton ball into acetone and, with the help of my mani saver, I cleaned each design as I went. I did this with four different patterns on all nails except my ring finger. For this one I used one pattern multiple times with each different colour, one at a time, and placed them over each other on the nail. Once I was done, I removed the Camo Coat and applied  Kwik Dry Top Coat (none of the photos are with top coat).

Hit The Bottle Messy Mani with Sparkling Cyan-ide and Tipsy Grasshopper

And that's all there is to this mani!
I really enjoyed this one because I love the idea of using several colours in one stamping design, but I haven't had much success with it in the past. All of these colours go together so well, I'm going to have to do another one of these. 

As promised, I will give a mini review of these stamping polishes. These are the first coloured stamping polishes I have purchased. I was very excited to find this Australian Indie brand and from what I can tell, they work really well. Silver is a light colour to stamp over, but I feel like the colours are so pigmented that they'd work over anything. These colours in general are really awesome as well. I am completely drawn to pastel polish and I was not at all let down! I was very pleased and will definitely be purchasing more of these. I might still do a full review of these when I buy more, so let me know if you'd like to see that.
If you would like to check out their massive range of stamping polish, you can do so here: http://www.hitthebottlepolishes.com.au/ 

Hit The Bottle Messy Mani

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Hit The Bottle. I was not paid for this review, nor was I sent anything for free. All opinions are honest and my own. 

What do you think? 
Will you be trying a multi-coloured stamping mani?
Let me know in the comments. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Crackle Topped Nail Art.

Hello lovely people!

Well, today has been a bit strange for me. I didn't get out of bed until about midday, so my whole day has been thrown out of whack... which is why this post is a little later than usual, unfortunately.

This week I have an experimental nail art that didn't quite go to plan. Even though it's not what I had pictured in my mind, I am still willing to share because it's still a fun design, and where's the fun in not sharing failures?  

For quite a while I have been chasing some crackle top coat. I finally got my hands on a few bottles from a cheap shop, only to get them home and find that they were very old and no longer the quality they once were. One had been sitting in the shop for so long that when I opened the bottle, the brush came loose from the cap and was stuck inside the semi-solid mass of polish. As you can imagine, I was devastated! I tried a fair bit of polish thinner, but that only helped enough so that I could remove the brush. So, I was quite lucky with the one I used for this nail art.
I also happened to pick up a few other colours that I just had to put together. Keep reading to see the polishes that I used and how I achieved this design. 

Crackle Topped nail art with Crackle Finish Pastel Purple 

For this design I used these polishes:

Matte Mint Green by BYS Cosmetics

Matte Fairy Floss by BYS Cosmetics

Crackle Finish Pastel Purple by BYS Cosmetics

Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

No tools were used for this design. 

Crackle Topped Nail Art

I started with coats of Matte Fairy Floss for my base. As pastels by BYS are usually sheer, I thought it best to put the darker colour over the top. Once dry, I painted Matte Mint Green over half of each nail. I was quite tempted to just stop there because these colours together look absolutely amazing side by side, but I carried on. I then applied a very thick coat of crackle finish pastel purple and allowed a long time to dry (you can see the cracks start to form as it dries). As you can see, most of the cracks are in the center of the nail because that's where the polish is the thickest. Once I was satisfied and thought it was dry enough, I applied my Kwik Dry Top Coat. 

Crackle Topped Nail Art with Matte Mint Green

That's all for this one. I was hoping for the cracks to be larger and show more of the colour underneath, but this stuff is quite unpredictable. It also wasn't as opaque as I had hoped either, but I think that could have something to do with the age of the polish. All in all, I don't think it turned out too bad, but I think next time I'll stick to simple colours. 

Have you tried crackle polish?
What was your experience?

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. 

Thanks for stopping by!