Fun with magnetic polishes!

Hello!! 

In my last post, you saw my tragic FAIL with a magnetic polish. 

When I first saw magnetic polishes, I wasn't very impressed. They were a novelty, I thought, and sort of cool looking, but didn't have much flexibility. I thought, wow, you can make...stripes. And a chevron. And an asterisk. And...stripes turned another way? Not exactly major excitement. Plus, when I first saw the China Glaze versions, they were something like $8 each, plus $8 for the magnet. Yikes. Plus, I didn't really see how they could fit with stamping very well, and stamping is what I really, really love; stamping works because the polish dries almost instantly in the process, and that meant that they couldn't be used with the magnet after being stamped. Plus, I couldn't see how any stamped designs could go along with the magnet designs. Plus, I didn't really see any tutorials that seemed to show a more versatile side to them, or any way that they were compatible with stamping. Since that was at least 4 times that I had said 'plus', I took a pass.

Then, not too long ago, I found the complete CG Magnetix collection (6 colors) plus magnet for about $20. For that price I figured it was worth it--hey, the colors were pretty by themselves even if I didn't use the magnet.

Once I got the set and had my first FAIL, followed by a search for tips on how not to FAIL, I started to get the hang of them, and I started playing around. And it turns out, my inability to imagine these polishes as being flexible design-wise was a complete failure of imagination on my part. After just a very short time playing around with them, here are some things I tried out. I apologize up-front for the horrible quality of the designs and the pictures--this was just me playing around with ideas, and I only had my phone to take pictures with. So I'm not trying to claim beauty here. But I thought I would post these in case they help spark other people's creativity. :)

One of the issues with magnetics is that you can't re-place the magnet and create more than one design before the polish dries. However, you can paint part of the nail, use your magnet, wait for the polish to dry, and then paint (or re-paint) another part of the nail. It doesn't take very long to dry, or at least, to dry enough that your design won't move. This is what I did here; with CG Instant Chemistry, I painted the nail and then put diagonal stripes on the bottom half of the nail. Then, from the top stripe, I re-painted the part of the nail above that stripe, and then used the magnet to put vertical stripes on that portion of the nail. I really, really like how this came out.

Here I did the same basic thing, but with three different sections of the nail. This started as a FAIL, btw...I used CG Pull Me Close, painted the whole nail, and tried to put a chevron on it. The design only took on the center portion, possibly because my nails are very curvy, possibly because I am not very good with these yet. So, I decided to re-paint over the sections that didn't pick up the magnet design, and then use the stripe magnet at different angles to make this tri-section design. 

Next I decided to try a combination of regular polish and magnetic polish. Here I painted my entire nail with CG Westside Warrior, and then painted the top diagonal half with CG Cling On. I used the stripe magnet to put on diagonal stripes, and then finished with a stripe of silver polish across the dividing line. Frankly, I think I liked it without the stripe of silver polish. (Apologies for the horrendously blurry photo).

This is a combination of the above two techniques, and I think this is my favorite of the bunch...The bottom half is Westside Warrior, and the top diagonal half is Cling On; at first I tried to do the whole thing with one set of stripes, and then decided to re-do part of the section with stripes in an opposing direction. I think it came out really cool, and I love the overall effect (with or without silver stripe, which appears here, lol).

Here is a combination of two other things I tried. One of the cool things about these polishes is that they change color when the magnet is applied to them, because the lighter magnetic particles all bunch up together. So, I thought it would be interesting to have part of the nail with the polish un-magneted, and part with it magneted ('magnetized' feels like the right word here, but means something different so I'm not sure I should use it, lol!). When that went well, I thought it would be a good way to make a french manicure, so I tried that. Here I used CG You Move Me, painted my full nail with it, and let it dry. Then I painted a french tip on with the same polish (not my best french tip work, lol) and hit it with the stripe magnet. I think this is gorgeous...it might look good with a stripe of color under it, but I like it as is. :)

This led me to think about doing something with two different magnetic polishes, especially since this collection comes with two complementary purples, CG Instant Chemistry and Drawn To You (the lighter one). So I painted the full nail with Instant Chemistry, and magneted it. Then I painted over half with Drawn To You, and magneted it again:

I'm not crazy wild about this one, but can think of some fun things to do with it, like alternating sides on different nails...Or stamping over the dividing line (see below). 

I did the same thing here with Cling On (left) and You Move Me (A brown color that is a little less red than it appears here). In this case I only painted half the nail at a time, and that resulted in a line where they joined that just isn't pretty. So I decided to stamp over it...

...And this is what I got. Yes, the stamp is messed up, with part of the dots cut off. Yes, the choice of color (white) is probably not the best (work with me here!!! Come on now!!!). But you get the idea--you can paint and magnet two sections with different colors, and then stamp to cover the dividing line. I'd love to try this using the star magnet on one side, and stripes coming down the other side like rays of light. This could also be cool to do on an accent nail, with all the finger to the left of it done with only the left color, and all of the fingers to the right done only with the right color. Or with opposite colors...You see how my mind started to run with it once I started to play???!!!!

Anyway, I hope someone out there finds something fun to do with these ideas, and if you do, please let me see. :)

M.