Tag Archives: A England

The Lazy 15: Galaxy Nails…..I don’t get Galaxy Nails!

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Hullo again. And here I am, again one day late posting my mani! I honestly did try to post this morning but the server was down on my host site seemingly. But am happy to see that everything seems to be working now:)

Continuing with The Lazy 15 Challenge, it’s manicure number 5 – Galaxy Nails.

I must say I have no idea as to when the ‘galaxy nail’ craze kicked off, if indeed it ever did. Still being in my lacquerhead infancy, it’s not a nail art style that I’m familiar or know anything about. I must say, but for this challenge, it’s also not a style of nail art that appeals to me so I would never have attempted it on my own.

I did no research in preparation for this mani, a fact that is probably utterly evident. Obviously being a (normally) avid reading of nail blogs, I’d seen a few galaxy nails but not really been that impressed by them. That’s not to take anything away from the skill of those bloggers but simply that the style doesn’t really appeal to me. Anyhow, when it came time yesterday to do my own I just kind of guessed at what was involved and had a bit of a play.

Lazy 15 – Galaxy Nails

I decided to create an A England galaxy, so I started with a base of Camelot over my usual base coat of OPI Nail Envy Matte. I then took a dotting tool and did some dotting on each nail in Lady of the Lake. It then struck me that a bunch of different sized purple dots looked nothing like a flipping galaxy so I got a bit of sponge and dabbed at the purple dots to flatten them and mess them up a bit.

I then got a fresh bit of sponge and dabbed on some Morgan Le Fey across part of each of my nails. I then applied some dots of various sizes using China Glaze White on White since A England doesn’t make a white polish.

I then repeated the sponging but with Lady of the Lake, Tristam and Dragon, dabbing a little bit of each colour in one or two spots on each nail. I then dabbed a very long, thing tipped brush into White on White and proceeded to try my hand at some freehand painting in the forms of ‘twinkles’ over one or two stars on each nail…not the most effective use of freehand I grant you but still a first for me.

Finally I loaded a sponge piece with yet more Morgan Le Fay and sponged away in order to soften and ‘hazy up’ the look. I then whacked on some Lilacquer Hong Kong Girl and attempted to clean up my cuticles since they’d been victims of multiple drive-by sponge attacks!

Lazy 15 – Galaxy Nails

As you can see, the clean up wasn’t perfect. And if my cuticles look red and sore in places that’s because they are!:( Between the weekend’s marbling efforts, normal polishing and a bit of overly zealous cuticle pruning, they’re a bit over it and I can’t really blame them.

I’ve noticed lately on Instagram a couple of Galaxy Nail manicures where clouds have been painted over in part, as if you are looking through evening clouds up into the night sky. Given the dodginess of my freehand ‘twinkles’ I decided not to attempt anything more complicated.

As you’ve probably gathered from my comments above, I didn’t really enjoy the process with this one. The final outcome was ordinary and I expected as much. Really, it was a relief to remove this manicure as it just felt like a big old mess.

So what’s the take away from this for me? I’m afraid it’s ‘I don’t DO Galaxy Nails’. And I’m ok with that. I gave it a crack and I’m pleased that I did. Not every nail art style will be to everyones’ taste:).

And whilst I’ve struggled recently to keep on top of my RSS feed and so I’ve not had a chance to see what others in this challenge have done for this one, there are bound to be some stunning efforts. You can access the inlinkz for the blog of each lovely lacquerhead taking part in this challenge by clinking on the links to either of the blogs listed below:

http://nails4dummies.blogspot.com.au

 http://phoenixnails28.blogspot.com.au

xx


The Lazy 15: Dotted Manicure

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Hullo again. I’m back for another Lazy 15 post. And today we’re doing dotted manicures:)

Dotting tools hey? Simple enough implements in themselves. But in true LacquerCareFactor tradition I found the seemingly simple act of dotting some polish onto a nail actually much harder than you may have first thought.

Now today’s mani is again one that if had I more time on my hands I would probably have scrapped and started again but in the ‘warts and all’ spirit of this challenge I’m putting it out there. And thank you those of you who suggested I’m perhaps a little tough on myself. You’re really sweet and very kind. But learning is a plus so I’m not unhappy with my efforts in that respect.

Here I started with a black bottom of A England’s Camelot. What I had in my mind was glossy black with bright, clear and very defined dots. Sadly my choice of polishes didn’t quite live up to my imagined mani. For the red dots I used A England’s Perceval. A gorgeous polish in its own right. And quite opaque which was what I was after. But the first learning for me was don’t have too much polish on the dotting tool because a couple of the dots were overly full and so spread into each other. But aside from that I was actually reasonably pleased with Percival as a choice. Next I overlaid dots of A England’s Holy Grail (v1) and sadly, as you can see from the pic below, the original formula is not as opaque as Perceval so it just didn’t work as well.

Dotted Mani

I had initially thought to use St George and Lady of the Lake and in hindsight perhaps I should have. But then I quite like my dotted, unintended homage to the German flag:)

Again, any tips anyone has for successful dotting I would love to hear them.

Am also still trying to track down the inlinkz HTML code so I can include links of the other girls and guy participating in this challenge.

Until next time

xx

The Lazy 15 Challenge: Tape Mani

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Just wanted to post to say a) I’m still alive and b) tell you about a new challenge that I’m going to try to do.

I’m appalling I know having not posted for either Polish Us Pink or Holothon lately but work has taken over my life of late plus haven’t been feeling that great. But I am going to tempt fate by committing hot a new nail polish challenge called “The Lazy 15″. Clearly my kind of challenge:).

Now it’s called The Lazy 15 because it’s a challenge for those of us who are completely intimidated by the thought of posting every day for a month like some very talented overachievers in the Lacquerhead world do. I’m actually very excited about it because it will force me to try a number of techniques that I’m fascinated by but terrified of.

Here’s the run down of the manis required as part of the challenge:

 

Now, technically it started on Friday (it’s now Sunday here) so I’m running a bit late but meh. I figure I may not be perfect on timing but the main focus for me is to actually try things that I’ve not tried before.

So with that intent in mind I’m going to post my tape mani now. Now I’ve done a mani with tripping tape previously so for this mani I took a broad interpretation of ‘tape’ and used french manicure tape instead of straight stripping tape. Here’s what I came up with.

 

Butter London Slapper and A England Excalibur

I’d been wanting to try this sort of reverse moon mani for a while. This is Butter London Slapper underneath with a top coat of A England Excalibur. I expect that there are many out there who are skilled enough to free hand the top colour but I’m not, hence using the french manicure tape as a template. Unfortunately the french manicure tape I got was quite wide so the curve wasn’t as curvy as I had in mind.

Butter London Slapper and A England Excalibur

So there you go. Butter London Slapper is the most gorgeous colour by the way. My pics here show it as more blue than it is in person. In person it’s a bit greener. So bright and vibrant. Perfect for summer. And Excalibur made for a lovely one coater although I struggled to reduce the brush marks.

If you would like to join the Lazy 15 Challenge it’s not too late, just hop on board. Below are links to the blogs of the great girls and guy taking part in this challenge.

A England – Bridal Veil: queue jumper extraordinaire

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The A England adoration continues….:)

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’m away in Hobart for the week telecommuting for my job from my parents’ dining room table. My mother fell and broke her hip about four weeks ago and has been in hospital until today. So I came down to Hobart where my parents live to just be about for the week and to help out with cooking and cleaning etc. So I won’t be posting much at all this week. If I get desperate I’ll spam myself with iPhone pics of my nails:) So apologies in advance for that. I felt like I was just starting to get on a role with the blogging thing and now this. But oh hey, this is just a bit of fun after all.

Anyway, shortly after I posted swatches of A England Lady of the Lake I ordered another couple of A England polishes, including this one – Bridal Veil. It arrived with a few other polishes, including my (latest) Cult Nail purchases and it was a beauty.

I may be a complete knob-end but I tend to nut out what I’m going to wear next in advance…not all the time but a lot of it. Anyway I had my next mani planned until I saw Bridal Veil. It’s what I like to call a queue jumper. Well ok, that term is possibly a little harsh since, in the Australian media at least, it’s a term used disparagingly and rather unfairly against illegal immigrants and boat people. I don’t mean it in any pejorative sense here. Simply that Bridal Veil was shimmering away subtly with the finest multitude of micro sparkles and that was enough. I was sold.

A England – Bridal Veil

A England – Bridal Veil

A England – Bridal Veil: I love that this pic shows the multicoloured micro sparkles in the bottle

A England – Bridal Veil

This is two coats of Bridal Veil, with Nail Tek II ridge filler foundation and a top coat of Seche Vita. You could get away with just one coat but I struggle with the concept of one coat. For me, a second coat is about fixing up what you buggered up on the first coat.

I do own a black holo by Chemistry so I will have to see how these compare. But Bridal Veil was lovely to wear, applied really easily and dried quickly. I had some tip wear by second day but that’s standard for me.

I think there are a couple more holo polishes from A England that I’m lemming for. How about you?

Mani-faces of Manglaze Nail Design Contest

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to A Lacquered Affair who, together with Shoppe ElCletcticCo, is hosting a Mani-faces of Manglaze Nail Design Contest.

Now I’m not big on ‘Giveaways’ personally. I don’t like them as a means of building readership. I’ve always taken the view that people will either get me or they won’t. The process of that nutting itself out is a purely organic one and nothing that I do will change that either way. I apply that view to this blog-thingy too. So I won’t push or promote a ‘Giveaway’ like that here.

But I make exception for offering of prizes for excelling in a contest involving some particular skill or creativity. Particularly when it depends on skills and abilities that I simply don’t have. Amongst those skills and abilities are particle physics, acrobatic gymnastics, cello playing and nail art. I’m pretty confident I’m never going to master any of those:). Plenty of folks out there will and do, however. A Lacquered Affair herself is pretty flash with the nail art (case in point) and so it strikes me that she is pretty well qualified to be hosting a nail design comp. So please, check out the comp she and Shoppe ElCletcticCo have organised, if for no other reason than to perv on the gorgeous matte-ness of everything Manglaze and check out Lego Crook Man’s little mate:)

xx