Holographic Purple Rectangles: A post inspired by art. All of it.

So despite our incredibly slow response time to their emails the very kind people over at KKCenterHk still were nice enough to send us something to review.  I ended up choosing the Laser Purple Rectangle Studs.  1)Because they looked cool and 2)Laser purple.  You have to get it if the word laser comes before the colour. Common knowledge.

These are purple, holographic, 5mmx3mm studs.  For some reason in my head I thought they would be bigger.  But I was actually happy they were smaller.  They xome with around 50 studs per package.

I knew I wanted the design to be simple, and let the studs do the talking.  So I was inspired by all that geometric art I've been seeing lately.  I painted my nails first with Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, then I taped of the corner of each nail and pained it with Sephora by OPI's Just a Little Dangerous.  Finally on the corner of those squares I places the studs.  And topped it of with topcoat(which I was worried would kill the holo, but it didn't.)

I really love the look.  For me at least it works well for valentines day without being sappy.  But still girly.  Well as "girly" as I get.  My actual Valentines Dan manicure will be interesting.  Trust me.

Anyways, if you haven't already you should totally check out KKCenterHk's website. They pretty much have all things you could think of if you love the nail art!  And you can use our 10% discount code 'varnishedvalkyrie'.  Woot.

Product was sent for honest review

Studded, Purple, Holographic Goodness aka Badass Chic Nails

Oh man.  I would have posted this earlier BUT I have feeling pretty gross all day.  It was one of my best friend birthdays.  And I overindulged in happy water (And meat...we went to  Korean grill...that has nothing to do with the drinking but it was fraking good).  And sent more than a few inappropriate texts before passing out.  That was my Monday (Granted it was a holiday so I feel a little less like a sad person).

Anyways let's get our faces back on track.  Yesterday I posted swatches for Sephora by OPI's Just a Little Dangerous.  I wore it for a day like that knowing I was going to bling it out for my friends birthday the next day.  Purple is her favourite colour and I wanted to make sure it was good and dry for when I put tape on it.

I figured this would be the time I use my OPI DS Original!  Having bought it dusty hunting in Montreal (but that's another story).  Recently on Nailside I saw she did a studded mani.  Which was funny because I had had actually been thinking of doing one but using microbeads.  So after I saw that I knew I HAD to do it.

I used tape and did the v-gaps, then I covered it in a coat of clear nail polish and carefully placed the beads one by one.  Finally I sealed it in with two coats of topcoat* so the beads weren't going anywhere.

I love it!  It turned out badass chic.  Is that a term?  If not it's MINE! I'm just sort of kidding.  And this was one hard polish to capture on camera.  Let me just say even the best photo I took pales in comparison the epicness it radiated in real life.

*I have heard that using topcoat can sometime dull the effect of holos.  Let me just say that after covering the holo with a coat of clear polish AND two coats of topcoat the holo effect was just as strong.

 Without the microbeads

 Microbeads without the flash

 With flash

 Bad sunlight photo but the holo looked stunning!

 

Dicking around with the camera settings.  I thought this was neat!

Outside

Sephora By OPI - Just a Little Dangerous

Nostalgia time!

So when I started getting into nail polish this was the first polish I ever bought after looking it up first. Since then 95% of my nail polish I buy is only bought after I have seen a swatch. 

Just a Little Dangerous is a pretty aubergine polish that flashes pink and light purple shimmer.  And despite how dark it is most of the time you can tell it is Purple.  I used 3 coats for this.  I probably could have used 2.  But this is one of the few bottles of polish I own that's pretty much half finished.  Because it's been uses so much it went on a tad goopy with the first coat.  But a bit of thinner fixed it.  While I love this colour, my only negative is the polish seems a tad dull under indoor lighting.  I don't know why.  Oh well it's still a beautiful colour!  Tomorrow I'll post how I made it into a badass mani for my friends birthday today :)

 Indoor flash 1

 Indoor flash 2

 Indoor no flash

Natural light

London 2012!

So as you know the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics are tonight.  I will not be watching it because I have a rehearsal to go to.  At least it's not the all important closing ceremony featuring TAKE THAT!

Even though I'm not a huge sports fan I decided I wanted to do Olympic nails.  Originally I did the Union Jack in gold, silver and bronze.  But the shades that I had in each were BLAH together.  So I ended up with this.  On my left hand medals using microbeads. And London 2012 written on two of my fingers.  On the other hand I just painted my hands the colours of the the Olympic rings and added glitter.

And you know what?  Since I don't care all that much for sports I wish everyone participating the best of luck.  I hope you all win :) Even though most people there will in fact lose... #REALITY.

I used Essie - Moon Struck, China Glaze - White Ice, Sephora By OPI - Just a Little Dangerous, Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue, Orly - Hook Up, Essie - Pretty Edgy, Essie - Fishnet Stockings, OPI - Black Onyx, China Glaze - Medallion, acrylic paint and a roller ball pen for the text.

Hunger Games Nails Aka A Whole Lotta Whip Pan

Sort of.

This is going to be a quick post because I have to go out in 8 minutes!

Anywho, just for the record I have read the first book... It was ok.  And I have never seen the movie.  I'm sure I will one day. These nails are based on my friends description of the film. Which was "Lots of whip pans and a guy dressed up as a rock.  Which is the best part of the film".

So I tried to make my fingers look like a forest kind of would in a whip pan shot. And I did a rock with eyes for my accent nail.

Sorry the pic is kinda blah.  I took the pics quickly.  If you wanna know what I used just ask.

 1 minute to spare!  Gotta run!!!

How many coats of polish do you think this took???

5?  10?  15?  30?  If you guess those you were wrong.  Actually if you guessed anything that wasn't 53 you were wrong.  Yes that is 53 coats of polish (and would the base coat sort of count as 54?)

I was seriously bored, schoolwork was done, it was too late to go out and start anything so I had nothing better to do with my time than to do this.  To be honest I had actually thought of trying this before.  Just layering as much polish as I could just for the heck of it.

 

What I'm trying to say is if you have a dream.  Just go for it.

                                     

Most useful post ever.  You're welcome.

Don't worry real posts coming soon.

ETA:  This took over 2 hours to do and I actually stopped because the polish started to make me feel ill.  I had it on for just over 3 hours and it was super easy to remove because it NEVER dried.  I used a tissue to take most of it off.  And there's everything from creams to full on chunky glitters in there.

Feminist Porn Award Nails

So this manicure is kind of old (almost a year to be exact).  Anywhoo, last year we went to the The Good For Her Feminist Porn Awards. Which in short is an awards ceremony that highlights videos that woman had a hand in the production, writing, direction, etc. Also the videos depicts genuine female pleasure and It expands the boundaries of sexual representation on film and challenges stereotypes that are often found in mainstream porn*. First off let me say I had a killer outfit.  I wish I had taken photos.  Second I did take photos of my nails (I think this is when the addiction really started to rear it's ugly head).

Side story.  When we were there I saw the most beautiful human being on the planet sitting in front of me.  Seriously, he was like some ethereal, androgynous, divine being, carved by Aphrodite herself.  I kinda wanted to reach out, touch him, and say "Do you know how beautiful you are?".  You guys would completely understand where my crazy was coming from had you seen a photo. But I'm not that crazy.

Back to nails.  I based this manicure of the dress (that doubled as a top that night).  I bought it years ago at a clothing show and it's probably one of my favourite items of clothing. I added a picture of a larger part of it.

 

Pinky: Sally Hansen Rockstar Pink.

Ring: OPI Step Right up and some random unknown pink.

Middle: OPI Sparkle-icious.

Index: Sephora by OPI Just a Little Dangerous and Essie's Matte About You.

 

There is a bird in the middle of the dress!!! Why have I never noticed you!!!

* Pretty much taken from their website because they word it better than me.

In other news I only have 9 toe nails now.  I tore one off completely :D... seriously though... ow.

ETA: We realized that we have said on different occasions that we are actors. And looking back on this post it might appear like we may do adult films.  So we decided to add this. We do NOT do adult films, and we will NEVER do them. We are open minded and don't scorn or have any ill feeling towards people who do.  But it's not something we would ever do. - Kas & George

Sephora by OPI - Break a Leg Warmer

This is the only polish I was interested in from Sephora by OPI's Urban Ballerina collection. And boy oh boy was I glad I bought it!

First off when it comes to polishes in general I find that (at least in my case) if there's any formula that's gonna give you application problems it's gonna be glitter or cream based polishes.  I find if any polish is ether going to be goopy or get goopy over time its going to be one of the two.  Let me just say that the formula for this is FLAWLESS.  It applies like butter (if you put butter on your nails, and it was a really good polish, and not butter). It goes on opaque in 2 easy coats and evens out beautifully.

Break a Leg Warmer is a true medium to dark gray.  And I love it because it's just gray.  Not grayish blue, or grayish green.  Just Gray. <---- Imagine that said by Jack Mcfarland from Will & Grace.  If you watch/watched the show you'll get why.

This last picture is actually quite old.  And I had been wearing it for a few days which is why it's scuffed up and such.  But I really like wearing Break a Leg Warmer wit Milani's one coat glitter, Silver Dazzle.

Richard Chai Inspired Nails

It's times like these where I wish I had a super amazing camera.  This looks MUCH better in person.  Like the blue is less bright and the shimmer is less pronounced.  I almost wasn't going to post it but what the hell.

My inspiration for this was an outfit from Richard Chai's 2012 fall/winter collection.

I used Sephora by OPI's Break a Leg Warmer,  OPI's Miami Beet, Butter London Big Smoke, Ruby Kisses Steel Magnolia and paint.

Fun Times Out Nails

So I won't usually post 3 post in one day but i couldn't help myself.  I really liked the nails I'm currently rocking for a night of dancing and sloppy fun!

I went cray-cray with the striping brush.  I used Clair's snowball, and Sephora by OPI's Just a Little Dangerous for the accent nails.  The stripes were made out of paint.