Orly Gumdrop with Konad disk m51 and violet pearl special polish.

Going to see Kick-Ass in the cinema is an opportunity to make themed nails, and honestly, I’m not going to let a chance for super hero nails pass me by.

Left to right:
Kick-Ass: 1:1 mix of Orly Wandering Vine and Blue Collar, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky
Big Daddy: China Glaze Liquid Leather, Happy Go Lucky
Red Mist: China Glaze China Rouge, Liquid Leather
Hit-Girl: China Glaze Grape Pop, Konad disk m64 + violet pearl special polish, Color Club Vintage Couture

Running short on fabulous ideas, the manicure for the evening’s Changeling: The Lost game is a simple one.

The base is Orly Mint Mojito, and the chevron tips were painted freehand with Orly Wandering Vine. This manicure only lasted for a couple of days, because, as always, Seche Vite + Wandering Vine means crazy amounts of tip drag.

The nail art brushes I ordered off of eBay arrived, and naturally I was eager to try them out. It was suggested that I do smiley faces, which I thought was a brilliant idea—yet when I sat down to paint, my nails turned into Easter eggs instead.

Easter eggs that look to be painted by a hyper-active kindergarderner, because it turns out that painting nails freehand is really hard.

The base polishes here are, from thumb to pinky: Orly Mint Mojito, Orly Crush on You, OPI A Grape Fit!, Barry M Yellow, and Orly Mirror Mirror.

The patterns were painted using various Konad special polishes, as these are thicker and dries more slowly than regular nail polish. So despite appearances, that is not white-out, it’s white special polish. Really.

Finally, the whole thing was topped with China Glaze Matte Magic to give it a more proper Easter egg look. The manicure was looking pretty bad even before I did that, but the Matte Magic nearly melted down and smudged the special polish—the blue especially—making the whole thing look even worse.

And now, despite spending over two hours on this just last night, I’m going to remove this horror from my nails. Shudder.

I want to eat my fingernails. This glittery blue makes it look like I have little pieces of candy stuck to my fingers in the best kind of way. I was almost dancing when I saw how nicely this combination turned out.

One and a half coats of Orly Blue Collar—I say one and a half because this polish is so close to being opaque in one coat, I only needed to go over a second time to fill in a couple of bald spots—and one coat of Nfu.Oh 37.

Happy multicolour glitter joy!

A random choice that turned out exceptionally well. Very subtle, yet a lot more interesting than plain grey nails.

Base is Orly Mirror Mirror. Pattern is from Konad image disk m57 and made with silver special polish.

I’ve gone to our Changeling: The Lost sessions with green nails for a while now, occasionally with Changeling-inspired nail art. This particular manicure is inspired by the Hedge, with silver butterflies and thorny vines on a dark green base.

Base is a single thick coat of Orly Wandering Vine. The vines were made using Konad image disk m61 and princess special polish in sour apple, and the butterflies with image disk m25 and silver special polish.

I would have preferred smaller butterflies with different looks, but at this moment m25 is the only disk I own with a butterfly. (I lie. There is a smaller butterfly on m66, I just hadn’t noticed.)

Saturday’s manicure got a single little chip while washing my hands, so brand new manicure it is.

The base polish used is Orly Crush on You, and thanks to Seche Vite I could do the base manicure—including removing the old one—in a single episode of Chuck. With the base dry, I added the tiger stripes using Konad image disk m57 and black special polish. To give it a smooth papery appearance, I added China Glaze Matte Magic as the final layer.

I wanted to do an all-orange manicure, but despite all the photos I had seen of Orly’s Crush on You look nice and opaque, it was still translucent even after two thick coats. I simply refuse to do three. As if this wasn’t enough, the polish just refused to go on right, spilling everywhere, and when I thought I had finally tamed it … I’d swipe my fingers against something. Not a good nail day. After much frustration and removing an almost finished manicure, the compromise is this:

The base is Orly Mint Mojito (green) and Orly Crush on You (orange). The pattern was made with Konad image disk m64 and special princess polish in coral blue. The little beetle is from Konad image disk co1 and made with black special polish.

I’m not a big fan of glitter nor mattes, but the combination can look quite interesting. Since I have both things in my little collection, it had to be tried.

Base is China Glaze Liquid Leather (black) and Orly Charged Up. I added a layer of Nfu.Oh 50, and finished with China Glaze Matte Magic.