Playing Catch Up

Greetings All!

Sorry I've not been around for...wow, a whole week. I haven't really had the motivation to do anything lately, including blogging and even painting my nails! However this weekend I had an epic swatchfest, I must have swatched 50 or 60 polishes. My untried collection is the smallest it's been all year, and that's spurred me on to at least catch up with my 33DC manicures, which have been sitting ready on my computer (I did complete the challenge on time, I just didn't post about it!).

Day 31 involved using my three favourite polishes. I don't really have favourite polishes, or at least I don't want to be forced to choose! I tried to pick my top 10 a couple of weeks ago, but a top 100 would have been hard. I have a lot of love for my polishes! Eventually I settled on three polishes that I...favour more than some others, I suppose.

They are; W7 Black (no duh. I recently opened a third bottle!), Beauty UK Jelly Bean (which I bought because it claimed to be matte. It's pretty glossy, but I really love the colour of it), and Butter London Frilly Knickers (my best sparkle!). No untrieds used here, obviously.

Day 32 had the rather broad term of Shapes. I thought about using some shaped glitter (my weakness), but in the end I went for some boring circles!

I regret using the grey. I was going to use just blue and pink, but I convinced myself I should throw another untried in, and I was wrong! Polishes used were Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Sgt. Preppy, Blue Rose and Pumice. I also went with a matte finish, which can often 'save' a manicure I don't love. I'm still kicking myself though.

The final challenge was freestyle, or recreate someone else's manicure. I wore these nails a couple of weeks ago (you'll tell by the length!), and I was so in love with them that I wanted to give them their own post and sound really smug about them. Then faced with the task of trawling through hundreds of gorgeous nails to find one to recreate, I decided to use them here instead!

This manicure has been in my head for...a long time. Pretty much since I saw my first gradient nails, I think. I don't really know what else to say about them, just that I've been waiting a long time to do these!

So this is a kind of...vertical gradient. It hasn't gone perfectly, but I'm still very happy with it! I usually imagined this in black and red (sometimes black with yellow, green or purple), and I don't really know how to describe it. Red nails that fade into black, I guess. It's a little bit similar a duochrome effect. I also tried it with some stamping, because why not?

So this is officially the next technique I want to nail. I though it would be the same as doing a horizontal gradient, but it's tricky! I guess because of the curve of the nail. Still, if I can get it to look like it does in my head, then my life would be complete!


I set myself another little challenge within this challenge - to use 30 untried polishes. I actually used 62, so pretty good going. I reckon that if I knuckle down I can get them all tried by the end of the year, and then I would be free to polish whatever I liked!

As for the blog, I'm not quitting, don't worry! I might take it easy for December, and maybe just post a few Christmas swatches. I'll definitely get back on track in January though, for my one year blogiversary!