Fix My FAIL: For-fun contest WINNER!

Hello everyone!

I was so happy that I got a several entries into my Fix My FAIL for-fun contest--so many that it was very hard to pick a winner! Because just like I suspected, you all did a really great job of coming up with great ways to fix them fails. :)

To refresh everyone's memories, here are the two FAIL manicures I posted; the point was to improve the FAIL by taking the elements and reworking them. You didn't have to use all the same elements, but the more you could manage the better:

I had a really, really, really tough time picking a winner; in particular there were two people whose entries were just awesome and I had a hard time picking only one of them.

Then I realized, this is my blog, darn it, and I can have both if I want to! More manicures for everyone to love, right? So, I have two winners tied for first place:


First let's look at what Miss Intensity Nails  did:

She explained on her blog post that her concept here is that these are like shooting-star flowers and the dots are the trails being left behind them. Of course I love that she changed the regular purple to a holo purple--it adds just an extra bit of sparkle and pretty without being overwhelming. I love the clean look of it, and I think she improved on the colors I chose a bit, making them a bit more sophisticated. And it's really summery and fun. :)


Next up there's the entry by Sparkle And Shine Nails; she chose to rework both manicures (this was allowed), and it turns out I love them both:

This makes me think of peppermint candy, you know the kind with the red and white swirls, that taste like candy canes? They always remind me of Christmas, and my FAIL was an attempt at a Christmas mani, so I love that she captured that feel in this manicure. Also, that's some really cool glequin work there--not as easy as she has made it look. Sleek, sparkly, and fun. :)

This is her re-do of my Margarita fail--she actually made a glitter sandwich to capture the look of the base polish! How creative is that? She also threw out my annoying dashes, and did a much better job of controlling her dotting work than I did. :)

Thanks to both of the winners, and to everyone else who entered for all of your wonderful work!! If anyone wants to see the other entries, you can find them on the Lacquer Or Leave Her Facebook page (I'll be loading them all into an album). And if you have a moment, please check out both of the winners' blogs, you won't be sorry you did. :)

I want to end with a question. I've really enjoyed having the for-fun contests, but I'm wondering if I should try something new. What do you think? Should I do another version of Fix My FAIL, or maybe mix it up and make the next one have a theme of some sort, maybe something summer or beach related? Let me know what you think. :)

Thanks for reading, and big hugs. :)
M.

Reminder: Fix My FAIL for-fun contest closes tomorrow!

Hello!

Just wanted to remind everyone quickly that tomorrow is the last day to submit entries for the Fix My FAIL for-fun contest.

If you missed it, you can find it by clicking here. :)

The winner will be featured on my blog...so far, there is only one entry so your odds are good!

Big hugs,
M.

For-Fun Contest: Fix My FAIL returns!

Hello!

It's time to take another shot at 'Fix My FAIL'!  ::crowd goes wild::

The premise here is that I will show you one or more manicures where I tried to make a pretty manicure and failed utterly, and you will have the opportunity to show me what I should have done to create a better mani.

This is a 'for fun' contest, meaning there is no prize, it's just for fun. Send me your attempt to improve my manicure(s), and I will pick the ones I like best and feature them in a future blog post, including links to your blog/Facebook page/Instagram/etc.

When I did this previously, I had people post their entries to my Facebook page, but some people don't have access to Facebook that wanted to enter, and couldn't. So this time I'm going to do this a couple of ways. You can:

1) Post your entries to my Facebook page, which you can find find by clicking here.
2) Create a blog post, tweet, or Instagram of your entry, and link it in the comments below. Only links to entries will be allowed; any other links left in the comments section will be deleted.
3) If you don't have any of those media, you can e-mail your entry to me at lacquerorleaveher@gmail.com.


Okay, let me show you the two manicure FAILs I have for you to fix, and then I'll talk a bit about the rules. First up, my Zoya Blaze FAIL:

Zoya Blaze

Zoya Blaze FAIL

Aphrodite Lacquers Margarita FAIL:

Aphrodite Lacquers Margarita

Aphrodite Lacquers Margarita FAIL

In both cases, I took a really pretty polish and managed to completely ruin it with my disasterous design, lol. I'm sure you can do better--so show me!

What are the rules? Basically, there is only one rule, and that is that some element of my original manicure must make it into your manicure. For example, you might:

1) Keep the base color (it doesn't have to be the exact same polish, just a similar one), and do something different with it. For example, you might take Zoya Blaze as your base polish (or another similar sparkly red), and decorate it very differently.

2) Keep one or more of the design elements. For example, in the Zoya Blaze FAIL, you might decide you want to do something with green glequins. In the Margarita FAIL, you may decide you want to use the same stamp I used, but change everything else.

3) You only have to do one of the two manicures, but you can do both if you want to. :)

Of course, the more of the original design elements you can keep and come up with something awesome, the more impressed I will be and the more likely you will win. So maybe in the case of the Zoya Blaze FAIL, you decide you're gonna use the same polish, green glequins, and silver bar glitter, but you have a way better idea about how to put all three of them together. That would be awesome and amazing and I would love it!

So, submit your pictures of links to me by the end of the month; the deadline is June 1st at 12:01am. And good luck!!

Peace and love,
M.

Winner: Fix My FAIL!

Hello everyone!

I have the winner of the 'Fix My FAIL' fun-test: It's Rithika from Closet Diva!

Here is the manicure I asked participants to deconstruct and reconstruct:

And here is how she fixed it:

I love that the glequins give it more definition and cause the glitter to pop more than on my manicure; I also think the fact that she used a creme under helps the pop, too.

While there is no prize for the fun-test, the winner gets to be featured on my blog and gets a shout out to her blog, so please take a moment to check out her blog at Ramblings Of A Closet Diva. :)

Also, I didn't get many entrants for this fun-test, so I'd like to ask for feedback. Should I do it again or not? Would people participate if I do it again? Should I give more than one manicure to choose from? More/less time to enter? Or is it just a stupid idea and I should abandon it, lol? Please let me know either in the comments here or by giving me feedback on my Facebook page. .

Thanks for looking,

Xoxox,
M.

Fix My FAIL: Glitter Fail

Hello!!

Just in under the wire for February I'm introducing, as promised, a new feature: "Fix My FAIL"!

Sometimes my manis come out okay, and sometimes they just...don't. And sometimes they don't more than other times...And I sit staring at them saying to myself 'that looked so much better in my head...there is so much I'd do differently...'

Well, I thought that it might be fun to see what you'd do differently.

The idea is this. Take my mani and make it better. Deconstruct it and rebuild it.  You can do this any way you want--maybe you like the polishes, but not the design, so you want to do a different design with the same polishes (or similar ones). Maybe you like the design, but not the colors I chose. Maybe you see what I was going for and decide to replicate it, but know you can execute it better. Maybe you like what I did exactly as is, but would have added something else to finish it. You just have to have some element of the original manicure, take it, and run with it. I'll give you some more specific examples with the failed manicure below.

This is a for-fun contest, meaning there will be no prize, just the fun of doing it and bragging rights if your manicure 'wins'. For this first go-round, the winner will be chosen by popular vote--whichever entry gets the most 'likes' on the Facebook page will win. If you enter the contest, you cannot like your own entry, of course. I will include the winning manicure in a follow-up post on my blog. :)

Okay, let's take a look at the first FAIL manicure. I started with the beautiful Hare Polish Rusty Hearts, which is a deep red with orange-gold flecks:

Hare Polish Rusty Hearts

Hare Polish Rusty Hearts

With a polish that pretty, you wouldn't think you could possibly be able to make it a fail. But oh, oh, oh, I did. I added a gold-and-black glitter in a swipe around three-quarters of the nail; in my head, this looked really elegant and pretty... Here's what it looked like IRL:

Yeah...not so much.

I hereby officially apologize to these bottles of polish for doing this to them.

Yeah. Not much to be said there except...What a waste of polish.

Okay so. What would count as a 'Fix My FAIL' entry? You can't just submit a swatch of red polish or just any manicure with a totally different design on red polish. What you could do is use a red polish with a black-and-gold glitter, but combine them differently. Or you could do a sweep design with similar placement, but maybe not with glitter, maybe with a hand-drawn flourish instead. Or maybe you think this mani would have worked if the glitter were exactly the same and positioned the same way, but it was over a grey instead of a red. The point is, there must be some recognizable element that relates to this manicure. Other than that, go nuts! Have at it! Have fun! And Fix My FAIL!!!

Can't wait to see what you guys do. :)

Xoxox,
M.