So Shifty, Nails of the Day

Hello!

Apologies for the short absence, I had long work days to contend with last week - PLUS sending out CANVAS lacquer orders!

In my last NOTD post, my vertical gradient had a faux-mulitchrome effect, and since so many brands have been releasing these lacquers lately, I decided to do a full mani with these trendy finishes.

2 coats of multichrome lacquers over black

The earliest iteration of these polishes were pretty sheer (ie Ozotic's 500 series, now discontinued), but the latest releases have pretty good opacity on their own in a couple coats.. However, that being said, a lot of bloggers agree that the shifty multichrome effect is more apparent over black. Therefore I'm showing these polishes at 2 coats over plain black (Essie Licorice).

Index: I Love Nail Polish Birefringence, Middle: I Love Nail Polish Mutagen, Ring: piCture pOlish Aurora, Pinky: I Love Nail Polish Cygnus Loop

In person, Mutagen has a subtle rose-gold highlight that is present in most light, but is apparently very camera shy.

Follow us on Instragram (canvaslacquer) to see a quick little video of these colour changes in action!

shifty multichrome mani

Look at all those colour shifts! As you can see, the effect on my index and ring fingers are very similar, but pp Aurora has added glitter...
Which brings us to a point a lot of people have been making - how unique are these releases? It is very likely that the pigments being sourced are all the same, making the combinations available finite, so it's been up to each brand to find a way to make their version unique.

My personal collection also includes multichrome lacquer from Hits MariMoon, Enchanted Polish and KBShimmer. Between all these I think I'm totally covered and won't be needing anymore, I'm pretty sure I now have all the colour combos possible and would be buying dupes or near dupes if I kept collecting (as it stands I think I currently do have a few dupes already).

Just for the hell of it, I stamped on a few different images from several PUEEN plates. My silver stamping polish of choice is Nicole by OPI Positive Energy. I have a silver Konad Special Polish, but it's not a great as the NOPI! The Konad transfers fine, but the NOPI actually has way better opacity.

-L

Stamped Vertical Gradient, Nails of the Day

I love gradients. For some reason I find doing them vertically more challenging than horizontally, but I love the effect! I usually use cremes, and I've tried holos once or twice, but I've never used all shimmers, and I'm quite pleased with the result.
Because it has a slightly metallic finish, at a glace it almost looks like I could be wearing foils (which I have yet to try even though I picked up a Ciate kit from Winners a couple months back).

vertical stamped gradient, notd

Unfortunately there's some tipwear since this is day 3 with this mani (my day of photos were a bit messy, the clean up on this was a real pain). In lower lighting this sometimes looks like it's a multichrome polish, shifting with the curve of the nail - love it!

I used a base of CoverGirl 'Silver Lining'. I like using it as a base for a lot of nail art, such as my Monet mani.  It's not too grey or too metallic, it's closer to a shimmery off-white if you ask me, which I prefer to a stark white.
For the gradient I used Misa 'Let's Go Green', China Glaze 'Frostbite' and Nyx 'Purple'.
I then stamped using VividLacquer plate 019 with Konad 'Gold Black'. In the bottle this appears quite shimmery, but it almost never translates onto the nail, so it's pretty much my go-to black stamping polish.

Anyone else find vertical gradients harder than horizontal, or is that just me?

-L

Tropical Vacation, Nails of the Day

I'm going away for bit, so these seemed highly appropriate.

tropical sunset NOTD

As much as I'm looking forward to this vacation - I'm also really excited about coming back because we will be launching the CANVAS lacquer Etsy store! Please stay tuned!

-L

From the vault, iPhone edition

Here we have several manis I did last year that I only ever photographed with my iPhone.

Considering I was quite a novice when I did these I think I fared pretty well! Opinions???

This was/is my only attempt at doing a vertical gradient (per nail), and of course I had to make it more complicated by creating a gradient across all the nails too, then stamped with stars.

I'm still amazed at the variety of looks you can accomplish with dots - I don't take advantage of this simple technique enough.

I'm kinda meh about this look. I don't wear red very often and I was just trying to do something a little different.

Dots again! I've seen a few different stamping images of this look that are much more precise, but I think I did ok with just my dotting tools.

This tape mani didn't come out as crisp as I had hoped, but I remember going to the farmer's market that day and got compliments left and right.

This is my first attempt at the 'waterfall' technique that most bloggers would credit The Nailasaurus for inventing. This was probably attempted almost a year ago and I still don't feel I have a very good handle at using striping brushes, but I still like the results even though it's not as neat as hers.

-L

A sneak peek at Mother of Dragons

I'm really excited to show you guys my Nails of the Day this evening.

Mother of Dragons is from our upcoming Ice & Fire collection, and this one is of course inspired by Daenerys Targaryen.

Mother of Dragons contains fine green holo, wine squares, a mix of iridescent squares and hexes, with a good sprinkling of gold shimmer in a deep green jelly base. Perfect for a Khaleesi. 

Below I'm showing two coats on my thumb before stamping the dragon image, and after.

Two coats of Mother of Dragons

...and here's the rest.

I absolutely love the complexity of this polish, and I promise as soon as you see it in person it just screams dragon.

I've never stamped in this triptych style before, but I think it turned out alright!

This lacquer will be available mid-March when our Etsy store goes live - stay tuned.

-L

From the vault...

I really started getting into nail art only about a year ago. I think I've come a long way since then, but it's also nice to reflect on my first few mani's; to see the evolution of my style and skills.
From time to time I (or Alana) will post something 'from the vault'... kind of like a Throwback Thursdays, only for nails, and on whatever day of the week we feel like!

my first fully stamped mani

I used 3 A-england polishes for the gradient, stamped the snake-like pattern from 2 different images, and then added the gold accents with another A-england.

I'm now sporting more squoval shaped nails, only for the last couple months - but seeing those roundies seems so foreign already!

-L

Nails of the Day

My nails of the day

water colour technique with stamping

-L