Robson et al., 2012

Sophy Robson for Houses of Holland

Sophy Robson, the queen of nails and monarch of manicures, have a silly amount of impressive nail designs on her conscience. One of the many manis are my all time favourite multi-coloured design she did for Daphne Guinness, which you by all means should check out here.

Anyhow, earlier this fall miss Robson made an intriguing neon tie-dye design for Houses of Holland. And to continue with the good news, she released a video tutorial for it! You can see it here.

So, for this mani, I tried following her tutorial. After a few hours with that mani, I could resist to add some glitter in the form of dots and an accent nail.

Products used:
China Glaze Pool Party

Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

Nails Inc Chelsea Square

Nubar Hot Yellow 
Depend #035

Dior Blue Denim
China Glaze For Audrey

Pick 'n' Mix

Pick 'n' Mix

A little of this, and a little of that. Lately, I often have a hard time choosing what designs to do and wear. For example, a water marble is always fun, but is it do-all-ten-nails-fun? Hardly. 

The result is a pick 'n' mix, or a "all nails get to be accent nails today!" mani:

Shh, say nothing and no one will notice the chipped glitter on the index finger... DAMMIT

Products used:

Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

H&M Nailpolish Pink (57587)

Nubar Hot Yellow 

Isadora Wondernail #103

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

All That Glitters - Spottie Dottie Dark

Loose craftglitter from Panduro

+ a few hex brew mixes on the middle finger.

Inspired by a textile

The Fox and the Grapes

This freehanded accent nail manicure is inspired by one of my favourite textiles: "Surt sa räven" designed by Kerstin Boulogner and produced by Swedish textile company Almedahls. The Swedish proverb "Surt ,sa räven" ("Sour, said the fox") refer to the fable about the fox and the grapes, though the grapes have been translated into rowan berries in the Swedish version. So, there you have it, tiny foxes and beige rowan berries:

 

Lower left picture courtesy of Almedahls

Products used:

Essie Case Study

China Glaze White on White

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Chanel Holiday

Water Marble (I)

Yellow & Black Water Marble

I've been staying inside the whole weekend due to a flu, and what's better to do if your sitting still anyways than a time consuming water marble? I don't do marbles very often as the clean up is so tedious. Even with scotch tape all around your fingers before dunking them into the marble I find you need a lot of time to clean up the skin closest to the nails. Maybe I just don't have very good taping skills? Anyway, I'm glad I took the time to do these. The dots are made with a needle after a layer of top coat. I always seem to smudge dots like these if I do them before.

The observant reader will notice that the index and little finger designs are slightly different in this picture...

...comparing to this. I accidentally got some paper stuck on those when blowing my nose, and, eew, had to re-do them promptly.

Products used:

Nubar Hot Yellow

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Depend Quick and Shine Top Coat

Froggy (I)

Poison Frog

Lately, I've been thinking about frogs. It started out when I accidentally made a few dots on a green polish base, which made me think about poison frogs, which naturally in turn made me google "poison frogs". One of the first picture results that came up was the frog seen below: Zimmermann’s poison frog (Ranitomeya variabilis). How great is that for manicure inspiration?

So, I decided to try. For this gradient I used a blue base (Isadora Wondernail Bel Air Blue) and a neon yellow (Depend #35) on top. I love using neon yellows on top of blues instead of using neon greens - I find it makes more electrifying neon greens and smoother gradients.

This gradient was done using a piece of a kitchen sponge, and was sponged 4 times before a smoothing top coat was applied. The black dots (Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris) was done with a tooth pick, but any kind of dotting tool or pointy thing found around the house would suffice.

Products used:
Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris
Depend #35
Isadora Wondernail Bel Air Blue