Before I get to the pics, I want to thank the always awesome jbrobeck of Polish Insomniac for pointing me in the direction of the lovely gal who started it all: the creator of the "patchwork" manicure, Chloe, of Chloe's Nails. If you're drawn to this manicure the way that I am (especially if you caught my original post), you MUST check out her tutorial here, and some of her other patchwork manis here(!). Oh, and just because it's one of the prettiest works of nail art I think I've ever laid eyes on, check out her holographic konad mani here.
Thank you, thank you, Chloe, for the wonderful eye candy and inspiration. In fact, last night I was inspired to try some more patchwork manis of my own, and while they in NO WAY stack up to Chloe's little works of art, I still feel compelled to share them with you. One was almost a success, while the other was a big ol' fail.
Let's start with the almost success first! For this mani I used three discontinued shades: two of my old Rimmel Play Fast polishes, Pop Quiz (a peach sparkle) and Don't Touch (a brown with bronze shimmer). I also used OPI Mod Hatter, which I think was released in '07 or '08.
I was going for a soft, subtle look, and I really like these colors together. I just haven't mastered the tape removal yet, as you will see:
What do you think? Do you like this color combo?
OK, now on to the big fat FAIL. For this look, I used Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, Sally Hansen Sunflower, and OPI Brand New Skates:
(what is UP with the skin around my nails in this pic?? Eeek! Sorry.)
Yes, this is a mess. But what you can't see in these pics is how this mani looks in real life. Hidden Treasure is pure orange on my nails in real life--I mean, it might as well be an orange glitter. So the contrast of the yellow and orange work really well together. But still, I should have used a more opaque shade instead of Hidden Treasure because it just gets swallowed up by the other two polishes. Oh well.
So, have you busted out your scotch tape and tried a patchwork mani yet? If not, what's stopping you? Give it a shot!
these are so cool! the first one makes me think of neapolitan ice cream....
ReplyDeleteand now i'm drooling.
i acutally like the second one too, but i see why you're not happy with it.
these are way more work than i'm going to ever do on my nails- i never paint my fingers, only my toes- but i do want to try the syrup effect sometime.
You are getting sucked farther and farther intoo my world, and I am getting sucked intinto yours. I have worn makeup to work 3 weeks in a row! And I get up for work at 3:30am!
ReplyDeleteVery pretty! And I'm glad I'm not the only one that Hidden Treasure looks orangey/warm on! I want a flakie with that exact consistency that shows cooler colors i.e. pink/purple/blue!
ReplyDeleteI really love the first one! The second eh..there's just not enough difference in the colors, but I really, really want Hidden Treasure! I think you should totally do a tutorial on the patchwork mani, it'd be awesome to pics of you doing it!
ReplyDeleteI think your ability to jump right in with a new style and present it gives encouragement. It leads to feeling creative and making it fun instead of tedious.
ReplyDeleteI don't try to be perfect, but I do try to do my best. And with that said, the color combo on your first set is sweet. The second, just for fun, right?
You MUST be a MUA Nail Board lurker! LOL I am too. It's my addicton. The gals are SOO sweet and helpful. If you see me, say hi! I'm NailDiva87.
ReplyDeletebeautifulmonday: OMG, the neapolitan ice cream thing never even occurred to me, but you are so right! Great, now I'm drooling too. :)
ReplyDeletejbrobeck: That is so true! Hahaha! Shall we expect to see some lovely makeup posts from you in the future? :) And 3:30??? Ouch!
JenJen: Thanks, honey! You know, sometimes HT gives me the effect you mentioned (when I layer it over pinks or blues) but most of the time it's that orange, glowing embers thing. :(
Kimberly: Thanks hun! I think that Chloe does a great job of explaining it (did you see the link to her tutorial in my post)? But if you have any specific questions, let me know and I'll try my best to help. :)
Kimberly: Awwww, what an incredibly sweet thing to say! I LOVE trying to encourage people to have fun with beauty products, so that fact that you said that means the world to me. xo
Cynthia: Aaaah, well, I'm not on MUA, and it's kind of a long story but I'll give you the short version! I was on that site a long time ago(around 2002) and I think it's a great community, but I had to delete my account and stop cold turkey because I was spending waaaaay too much money on buying things everyone was raving about (I was really into bath and body at that time and ordering from etailers multiple times a week--it was baaaad). And now, since I have this blog, I kind of deliberately stay away from MUA because I don't want it to influence my opinion on products too much. If everyone's raving about something, it's hard for me sometimes to stay objective when I try to review it for Nouveau Cheap. Does that make sense? And also, I know from past experience that MUA is a time-sucker (it's so fun chatting with everyone!) and I would never get any work done in my life if I got back into that AND tried to post on my blog, twitter, facebook, etc. So even though I know a TON of you are on MUA, and I would love to join the fun, I just can't do it at this time. But never say never! Maybe someday I'll get back on. Hey, I said I'd never do facebook and then I caved and created an account for this blog. :)
But given your comment, I'm assuming the patchwork mani is getting a lot of buzz on MUA? :)
Thank you soooo much for the shout out!! You did great on these! I'm telling you, scotch tape, is my BFF when doing manis!
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that Hidden Treasure seems to work best on darker colors, so I'm thinking that it might have been cool to use it as a top coat over the entire first mani, instead of as one of the patchwork colors.
ReplyDeleteI thought of you this weekend: for some reason, Hidden Treasure just wasn't a hit at my Walgreens. Every time I stopped in, I would check if it was still there. It was. For months! Finally, this past weekend I stopped by and the display was gone. I was kind of surprised. During my shopping, I made the inevitable stop to the clearance endcap. There sat two bottles of Hidden Treasure, marked down to $3.24. Plus my coupon for $1 off any Sally Hansen nail polish that I'd been holding on to. That's $2.24+tax for a bottle of Hidden Treasure. You would've been proud.
ReplyDelete