Shark Fin Nails

I won't say a lot about these but I just had to share my nails for Shark Week. Everyone is doing the same look with a open mouth shark. I kind of wanted to do something a little dark and not the norm.

When I googled shark fins I came across a few photos where it had just the fin visible with a nighttime background. Instantly I knew it was something I wanted to try.

My sharks are the white tipped sharks. I like how they have this white little cap on top of their fin. The great white will forever be my favorite thanks to Jaws but for the sake of this look I wanted to do a lesser known shark.

Each nail shows less and less fin, it is supposed to look like the shark is submerging underwater. The look didn't quite turn out how I had imagined in my head but it is pretty darn close considering this was my first attempt.

With glossy topcoat

It is hard to explain what I did to achieve this look. I went back and forth with Color Club's Bell Bottom Babe and Opi's Eurso Euro with a sponge to get this night sky/water look. The rest was all acrylic paint. Once done I added a regular topcoat to seal in everything but I decided it would look better matte.

Polishes used: Duri Rejuvacote, Opi Eurso Euro, and Color Club Bell Bottom Babe as base colors
Top coats: Inm Out the Door and Essie Matte About You

Hope you all are having a wonderful day

-Samantha

Whimsical Tangerine

As soon as I saw the bottle for Rica's Squishy Tangerine I knew that it would be the first polish I would use for nail art. I didn't want to do anything that would take away from the color of the polish itself.

After I scrolled through all of my stamping plates I decided to go with my tried and true Winstonia 2nd generation collection.

While stamping I tried to tilt the dandelion more and more with each nail. I like how it looks like they are floating down from the air.

Polishes used: Duri Rejuvacote and Rica Squishy Tangerine as base colors
Stamping: Plates W205 and W212 with Rica White Out
Top Coat: Inm Out the Door

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

-Samantha

Rica Squishy Rainbow Collection Part 2

Today I am posting the second set of colors from the new Squishy Rainbow collection by Rica. You can see my first posting here. The first set I posted were all in the reddish family. Today is a bit more random.

Hands down Squishy Tangerine is my favorite color from this collection. As soon as I saw the bottle I just could not wait to apply it. It is this gorgeous peachy shade. I liked it both with 3 coats on it's own and over the white base. I will definitely be doing some nail art with this.

Squishy Lime surprisingly has this microshimmer to it. I was not expecting it since all but one other are plain. I haven't really decided if I like it or not. This polish is amazing over the white base. It turns it into this bright pastel shade of green. It will be great for leaves or stems using the leadlight technique. It is pretty bright on it's own with 3 coats.

Squishy Blueberry is really the only one that I felt like if it didn't go over white that it was pretty hard to see. Even with using 3 coats it is pretty sheer. You could possibly build it up a little bit more with a few additional coats.

Squishy Lemon is the other color that has a microshimmer to it. It is so faint you wouldn't see it unless you had it under bright light. Lemon is the most opaque color out of the bunch. You can see looking at how much pay off you get with just one coat. This is another one that I both like it on it's own as well as over white. For some reason I really want to use this to paint pineapples. I foresee that mani in the near future.

Like I mentioned in my previous post the formulas on these are very different from your typical jelly polishes. They are thicker which allows you to have better control of where you apply it, resulting in less flooding of your cuticles.

I did use my usual Duri Rejuvacote base coat but I left off a top coat. They have a very nice gloss on their own. I would recommend using one just to prolong your mani.

Unfortunately right now the collection as a whole is sold out but you can still buy individual polishes. Be sure to periodically check out her store for when they are available again. If you are a big fan of jelly/tinted topcoat type polishes you really need to get your hands on these.

Hope you all are having a great day.

-Samantha

Rica Squishy Rainbow Collection Part 1

As soon as I saw that @justricarda was going to be selling a new line of jelly like polishes I knew it was time for me to order from her. I had been eyeballing her white and black polishes for a while but I kept talking myself out of it for some reason. She describes them on her website as "This squishy/jelly polish is NOT opaque in one coat. They will not work for stamping. This polish is like a sheer tint that looks squishy/jelly when you put a few coats on it." They are great if you are looking to do a jelly sandwich or something like the leadlight technique were you just tint your polish. She has swatches on her page of them on a nail wheel. I wanted to show what they looked like on real life nails. Each pictures shows the polish applied once, twice, three times, and over white to give you an idea of what they look like once built up. Now on to the swatches.

 First up we have Squishy Strawberry. It is a very accurate name. It is a sheer strawberry like color. This would be perfect to use over a floral stamping image. Please excuse my white unevenness. It took me a few tries to get use to the consistency of the white polish. I will be doing a full review of her white polish as well.

Next up is Squishy Grape. This is my second favorite color from this collection. I actually prefer it as 3 coats on it's own instead of over the white. Maybe if I had done two coats over the white it would be a little brighter. This color makes me want a popsicle.

Squishy Plum is a very rare color. I have only seen a very few sheer darker colors like this one. I did not see a lot of difference between 2 coats and 3. Over white I feel like it changed the tone of the polish. I would probably say use this on it's own like the grape one.

I broke this collection up into two posts. I wanted to put the reddish tones in the first one and I will do the more random colors in the next post. Overall I have to say that I am very pleased with this collection. I do want to praise the formula of these. With it being a thicker polish you can go in with a heavier coat then normal and not worry about flooding your cuticles. I had to do very little clean up due to having such control over the polish actually applied. I have quite a few jelly polishes and they all tend to be a bit watery.

I did use my usual Duri Rejuvacote base coat but I left off a top coat. They have a very nice gloss on their own. I would recommend using one just to prolong your mani.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

-Samantha