OMD2 Challenge Day 11- Rainbow

I loooove this mani! I've been wearing it for three days now and I really need to take it off to do another one for the challenge. So sad. I really don't want to. I've probably looked at my nails 500 times since I did these. I didn't take photos, but even my right hand looks just as good! Okay, sorry, I'll stop gushing now.

31DC2013 Day 01: Red Nails

Red is a color that immediately makes me feel sexy the moment I paint that first stripe of polish on my finger. With this manicure, all that sexiness went right out the window the moment I added Elmo. But I think cute is an acceptable substitute for sexy.
I knew straight away that I wanted to do Elmo for today's challenge. He is the friendliest red monster there is! I assumed it had been done before (I have found out that all my "original" ideas have been done multiple times), and found one I liked at Nail Loopy. Her Elmo design had awesome detail that I tried to reproduce.

I was really afraid of applying a top coat. I knew it would smear with how thick the polish was. Luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. His eyes got the worst of it. At least he doesn't look demonic, terrorizing children everywhere.

What I used:
American Apparel Downtown LA- red
Sephora by OPI Hi Def- orange
Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack?- black
OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls- white

Did this make you giggle? In a "tee-hee-hee" kind of way? I was amused. :)

That's it for Day 1! Day 2 is coming right up..

Red Matte and Glossy

I've been wanting to try this look for so long. I bought American Apparel Downtown LA a couple weeks ago and thought this would be a good color to try it out on. It's a great classic red, but after the matte coat I felt a little meh about it. It's always trial and error finding out which colors look good matte and which ones don't. I don't think this one does. But I will try again and have some good polishes in mind.

I know if I just used a matte polish this would have been much simpler. Since I don't own any I started with two coats of Downtown LA, followed by Seche Vite top coat. Once it was all dry I taped off the tips. I wanted to make sure I got a really crisp line so I used striping tape. You can see I got a little confused with the process on my pinky nail. Then I painted on China Glaze Matte Magic from cuticle to the tape. With that extra coat it made the polish get a little thick where it met the tape. 

I had debated whether I should do it this way or just start with the matte coat over the whole nail and then paint the tips next. I'm pretty sure I should have done the latter. I just thought the Seche Vite would dry it really well so that the tape wouldn't mess it up. I'll try it the other way next time and will let you know how it turns out!