Mixed Up Stripey Holo

Ozotic 513, BYS Striper

I've been in an Ozotic mood lately, and couldn't help but add some stripes when I had Ozotic 513 on the other day. 513 is super lovely, but I've raved about its loveliness before. 

I also bought my first 'indie' nail polish a few weeks ago, and they arrived last week. I now own three Lush Lacquers - Salt n Peppa, Party Rockin and Birthday Cake... and they're awesome! So prepare to see a bit of them over the next week or so!

Red Roses

OPI Dutch Tulips, OPI Alpine Snow, BYS Black Striper

I was in the mood for a bit of striping, but was also feeling a little bit lazy. This was what I ended up with. Bizarrely, lately my non-dominant hand has been steadier and better at striping than my dominant hand. I'm a leftie, and I think that the top photo of my left hand is a whole lot neater and smoother than my right hand! Weird! 

I ended up taking off the flowery nails the morning after I painted them (they never saw the light of day, poor things) because when I woke up, I thought they looked a bit like rissoles cooking on a barbecue. And once you see something like that on your nails you can't unsee it. So they went back to being plain red for the day.  

Are you blue? Purple? Green? Or just plain amazing?

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic, Ozotic 505, Ozotic 528

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought a few new Ozotics last week, one of which was Ozotic 505. This is a damn awesome nail polish! It's blue, it's purple, it's green! And it changes completely depending on what you layer it over! I'd painted my nails with Rodeo Fanatic (because it's one of my all time favourite nail polishes and I love applying it!) and since it's a similar sort of colour, I thought I'd see how 505 went over it, instead of layering it over black like I do with most Ozotics.

For a bit of extra multi-chrome fun I added a coat of Ozotic 528 over the top. Ozotic 528 has the same colour shift as 505, just in glitter form. I nabbed this combo idea from Cathy of More Nail Polish fame (and general Queen of Holo & Ozotics). I was a bit lazy though and didn't do that many coats of glitter as she did. Check out her mani for 528 glitter awesomeness. 

And sadly, if you haven't heard, Ozotic is discontinuing a bunch of their polishes, including both 505 and 528 (most of the 500s in fact), so if you were thinking of getting some Ozotics, do it now before it's too late! Picture Polish (the distributors of Ozotic) also said on their Facebook page that the availability of Ozotic polishes in general is a bit unknown at the moment. Best to get the ones you want while they're still around!

Blue, Green & Purple Watercolour Mani

OPI GelColor Passion, Essie Mint Candy Apple, OPI Fly, OPI A Grape Fit, China Glaze First Mate, Ozotic 505

My second watercolour mani! This time in blues and greens, with a bit of sneaky purple. I had this on at the same time that I received my package from Picture Polish. PP recently had a sale and I bought Ozotic 505 and Ozotic 530. I couldn't resist adding a coat of 505 to this mani. It gave it a subtle bit of shimmer and sparkle.

Watercolour Nails

OPI GelColor Passion, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI Dutch Tulips, OPI The "It" Color, China Glaze First Mate

While I'm rocking the gel mani, I wanted to attempt watercolour nails. I saw this on Chalkboard Nails  (and also followed Sarah's link to Rebecca Likes Nails and this video at BeautyGeeks) and really wanted to try it, but one of the necessities with this mani is a base that won't be cleaned off with nail polish remover, so you either need a super thick top coat, or a gel or shellac mani. I had tried it once with just a top coat and I failed miserably. 

This time however, it was a bit more successful! Everyone else uses acetone to do the watercolour, but I used non-acetone remover, because I was slightly worried about ruining the gel. It still seemed to work how it was meant to. Since my gel mani is just kicking butt at looking perfect and not chipping, I figure I should keep it on a bit longer so I'm going to do this again! Probably in greens and purples. 

OPI GelColor Passion

OPI GelColor Passion

Over the weekend, one of my best friends got married, and I was lucky enough to be one of her bridesmaids. The day before the wedding we all got manicures and pedicures. I knew that if I had a regular manicure, with my luck there'd be a chip the next day and I didn't want to have to worry about fixing my nails on the big day, so I got an OPI GelColor manicure. I ended up with Passion, which is a pale (almost peachy looking with my skin) pink. I took this photo this morning and they're still looking absolutely perfect, even though they were banged around all weekend! 

It's meant to last at least 2 weeks (3 weeks if you don't mind it growing out from your cuticles) but I'm not sure if I can last that long with the same nude manicure! I've read that you can paint regular nail polish over it and remove it, so long as you use non-acetone remover. Has anyone used regular nail polish over a gel manicure? Any tips? I'm thinking of stamping over it when I get bored.