Ooh I am catching up now, only a couple of days behind and one of these challenges was actually today!
The first challenge was Vampy for #30daysofcolourchallange, and although I know Vampy is normally dark red, I had a polish that I really wanted to use. This polish certainly should not have sat untried for so long, the very dark and beautiful A England Incense Burner. In the bottle it looks like a dark brownish shimmery polish, and perhaps not as wow as some other A England polishes but once on the nail it is gorgeous and out in the day light it really is WOW. It is a dark brown but with a gorgeous glowing shimmer to it and a deep plummy purple duochrome shift and I am pretty certain it counts as Vampy! It applied well, a bit streaky on the first coat but perfect on the second.
I think you can see a hint of the plummy tones on the photos but I have a new laptop and the colours are rubbish - it looked good on my phone so I think the pictures are pretty colour accurate.
I decided to add some red anyway, to be sure it was properly vampy and I wanted to use a new plate that I bought from
Nail Artisan. Alex has only recently started up but she is stocking a lovely range of stamping plates and polishes, so I think I am going to be a frequent customer. Anyway, last week she posted that she was now stocking Yours Cosmetics Sascha Gossen plates and of course I had to order them! They are really sweet little plates and for this mani I used YS01, which is mostly a lace plate. I stamped the lacy image using A England Rose Bower. This stamped really nicely and the plate is perfect. Unfortunately no matter what I did I could not get the camera to see what I could see. Contrast with stamping is definitely something I need to practice more - with hindsight a more solid red rather than a holo would have been more sensible, but you'll have to take my word for it, it was pretty!
Finally, today's challenge for #clairestelle8sept was Fave Song. I don't really have a fave song but I certainly have a fave band, R.E.M. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011 has been in my car CD player since I bought it in 2011 and is rarely switched for anything else!
I have seen them play live twice and both times the lasting memory for me is when the crowd hold up their lighters in the darkness, such a powerful image and that is why I have flames on my nails today! I used Messy Mansion MM27 and SV by Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops over the vampy nails and am pretty pleased with the way they turned out.
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| A England Incense Burner |
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| A England Rose Bower and Sasca Gossen YS01 |
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SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops
and Messy Mansion MM27 |
