NOTD & Tutorialette: Neon Ruffian

Hello!

Do not adjust your screens. It's not them--it's the crazy neon polish.

For my third entry in the Tri-Polish Challenge over at Crumpet's Nail Tarts, I decided to do a funky ruffian, since I've seen the style be sort of reborn lately (well, it's been popular again, with interesting pairings). I figured what better way to go for it than with these three funky polishes?

I took the pictures for this before I realized people might like a tutorial on it, so I'll show you the picture and break it down into steps after. :)

To refresh your memory, the polishes I'm using are:

1) Orange: LeChat Kiss-N-Tell
2) Pink: Julep Avery
3) Turquoise: Zoya Zuza

Here's my funky ruffian, which was so bright it freaked my camera out, lol:

How I did it:

Step 1: If you are using a sheer or uncooperative neon, start with a base of white undies (I did this here).

Step 2: Paint your nails as you would normally with your orange polish. Some people paint only the bottom half of the nail, since they will be covering up most of the nail. I don't like to do it that way, for two reasons. One is, you can usually tell where the underwear leaves off slightly, and that annoys me. Second, I like to have my ruffian edge extend far up the sides of the nail, as you can see. (Tip: turning a mani with tip wear into a ruffian is a cool way to extend your manicure.)

Step 3: Pretend your nail bed starts a small bit higher than where it actually does, and then paint your nails with your second color (turquoise here) as you normally would; in other words, leave a bit of the first polish showing, and polish otherwise normally. I use the three-stroke method (push bead down in middle, stroke up, then stroke around the right side, then around the left); I do it just the same here, except I start a titch higher than I normally would. If none of my rambling explanation here makes sense to you, check out a really clear diagram from Tastes Like Glitter by clicking here. 

Step 4: Put two dots of white polish on the tips of each nail. When they're dry, put dots of your pink polish on top of them. (If your pink polish is opaque enough, you might not need the white undie to pop the color).

Step 5: As always, finish with a topcoat. This is pretty important on a ruffian like this because you'll have several layers of polish. :)

And there you go! Thanks for taking a look, and please check out the other Tri-Polish manicures linked below. :)

Big hugs,
M.

Ruffian manicures, and first magnetic attempt (=FAIL)

I have now done two ruffian manicures, and have fallen in love with them. They look very intimidating, but really are not that hard to do. And in my opinion, they look very classy, very elegant. :) If you don't know, a 'Ruffian' manicure, or so I'm told, was originally a silver foil near the cuticle, with a black matte over it. Since the first one hit runways, people have played around with this quite a bit, and I intend to do lots of playing myself, lol. My first attempt was fairly close to a traditional ruffian; I used a gold foil and a red matte on top (both by Revlon). I originally kept the matte finish, but decided I wanted it to last a bit longer, so I covered with Seche Vite eventually:

The second time I went for a gunmetal cuticle and accent nail, using China Glaze's Attraction, from the Magnetix collection. I did this so I could try my first magnetic design on the accent nail (and could cover it up with the ruffian if it went too badly, lol!). The other color I used is China Glaze's Brownstone, which is actually more red than it shows in the picture:

As you can see, the star pattern didn't come out that well, lol. It's a little better IRL, because the glare in the picture is hiding the vertical line of the star...but it still does suck. I think I used too much polish...I'll try again in a few days, once I'm tired of my ruffian.  (Btw, I think I'll photograph my nails from this angle from now on--it shows them more like they really are, and doesn't make them look all misshapen!)

If anyone has any tips on using magnetic polish, please let me know...

EDIT: I have since found out that it came up like this because I held the magnet in place for too long. The longer you hold it, the more likely it is that you'll move a bit, and you blur the image. I also learned to blow on the nail right after removing the magnet, and that China Glaze's magnet is a little less strong than other brands. I got these tips here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGsKsyoAr8&feature=plcp&context=C4596dbfVDvjVQa1PpcFM9OXomgSSRbAY3yLUUng7NqIMTqU4sFqw%3D

M.