Nail Challenge Collaborative: Recreate Another Member's Look #4 (The Polish Playground)

Hello lovelies! Today I have my final look for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's April theme. I think this one was the hardest, even though I thought it looked simple enough. I was mistaken lol!

Today's mani is based on a really fun dotted look by Lisa of the Polish Playground! Check out the mani she did: 

I thought, oh, dots - no problem! Wrong! The first time I tried, I had to take one of the nail's polish off because I screwed it up so bad lol. The pattern of these is pretty tough. I ended up looking over Lisa's post and using the video tutorial she used, done by Cute Polish. The tutorial is here if anyone is curious! Now, here is my mani!

I used NYC Plaza Plumberry for the outside two nails, same as my last mani - it's a great shade! Then I used Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Wet Cement for the base on the middle two nails, and dotted with Plaza Plumberry, Sinful Colors Orange Cream and Pink Forever, and OPI You're Such a Budapest. I used HK Girl topcoat to top it off. :)

I had to post a shot with flash to show how the bright colors really pop against the gray!

This was a really fun design, I got a lot of compliments on it. Thanks so much to Lisa for the inspiration! It was a really great idea - I can't wait to try it with even more color schemes. :D

I had a lot of fun with this month's theme, it really allowed me to push myself and try new things. I had a lot of great inspiration to choose from, since the other ladies in the group are such great artists! I hope to do this again sometime. :)

Be sure to check out everyone's last mani for the month, and check back soon for my May designs - the theme is Spring Flowers - I can't wait!! I am definitely going to be drawing on Wondrously Polished for inspiration lol.

Thanks for reading! <3
Kelly

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Nail Challenge Collaborative: Recreate Another Members Look #3 (Hey, Darling Polish!)

Hi everyone! I can't believe it, but I am going to make it just in time to share my last 2 manis for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's April theme!! :)

Today I have my 3rd look, which was inspired by this awesome mani by Hey, Darling Polish! 

This kind of look is exactly my style, I love designs that look handmade or kind of offbeat in a way. So I like the kind of wonky flowers designs, I've done a couple before but I really loved her color scheme. Here's my take!

I started with a base of NYC Plaza Plumberry and I dotted on the flowers using Sinful Colors Feel the Vibe, Pink Forever, and Snow Me White. I used HK Girl topcoat on top! :)

I thought this was a really fun and unique look and the colors really pop - it's very eye-catching!

Thanks so much to Hey, Darling Polish for the inspiration - you created an awesome look and I had a lot of fun recreating it!

Don't forget to check out the other member's Week 3 manis, and thanks for reading! <3
Kelly

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Nail Challenge Collaborative: Recreate Another Member's Look #2 (A Little Polish)

Hi everyone! Happy Monday - not. :P I hate Mondays. Thankfully the work day went pretty quickly and now it's time to go home, put PJs on and get editing some more.

I know I'm late again lol - big surprise, but I hopefully should finish my NCC manis just under the wire. Today I've got my week 2 mani to share with you. This month's theme was to recreate manis done by other NCC members, and for this look, I used Stephanie from A Little Polish as my inspiration! First, check out the look she did:

And, here's my recreation of it!

Overall, I am just not thrilled with my attempt at this mani haha. I didn't quite have the right shade of gold - I much preferred the one Stephanie used that had a more yellow undertone to it. And the bubbles, don't get me started on the bubbles! That is a result of several sandwiched layers of polish and topcoat and me not letting them try in between - face palm! Oh well, I tried lol.

For the record, this look was really hard to do! Of course, the top few lines were no problem. I just used regular old striping tape. But, to create the thicker lines at the bottom, I had a couple of choices, either use Scotch tape or lay several strips of striping tape next to each other. I ended up going with the second one, because when I tried to cut the Scotch tape, it was a huge pain, AND I was not getting uniform width, so it didn't look right. So, I painstakingly laid like, 10 strips of striping tape on each nail. GAH, it was so hard! I have no idea how Stephanie got those perfect designs - she's magical! :)

I really do like this look and the idea, I think I just need to work on my execution lol. These kind of reminded me of robots or sci-fi of some kind. I love the metallic pairing with the flat black creme. These might look cool mattified! :)

Don't forget to check out the other ladies' looks for Week two! Thanks for reading <3
Kelly

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Mentality Neon Holos!

**I want to note that I am no longer affiliated with, or a supporter of, Mentality Nail Polish. Please see my post detailing my experiences with Mentality by clicking here for more information. In short, I would STRONGLY recommend not buying Mentality due to harmful effects that their polishes have had on some people. Even if you've been having an issue and you can't say for sure that it's Mentality polish that's causing it, discontinue use immediately. I didn't know what it was and by the time I realized, serious damage had been done to my nails. They are still not healed. Just don't take any chances. I will leave up my posts where I have reviewed or swatched Mentality polishes because I don't want to just delete them and pretend like nothing happened. I would also recommend reading these great, informative posts by Ashley is Polish Addicted and also The Mercurial Magpie who explain what's happened. Lab Muffin also offers some really interesting possibilities for what specifically about the polishes could be causing these effects.**

*Press sample*

Hello lovelies! I am SO excited to finally be showing this post to you. A little while ago, I received an epic package from Mentality Polish and so now I am bringing you an epic post to match!

Mentality has created an amazing 11-piece neon holographic collection for spring/summer! Check it out:

I'm going to be showing these polishes in alphabetical order since I couldn't possibly rank them in order of favorite! I'm going to save some time here by saying for all of these photos, I've used 3 coats of polish plus HK Girl topcoat. I had no formula issues at all, these went on like a dream! No dragging, no pooling, all of these went on smoothly and evenly with no extra effort on my part. The topcoat didn't seem to dull the holo effect at all either! :)

First up is Alarm. 

Alarm is described by Mentality as "a bright red holographic neon." To my eye, I'd describe this one as more of a hot pink/fuchsia color. There's a lovely blue flash to this one too, in addition to the holographic effect.

Here's a photo with flash to show off the gorgeous holo sparkle as well as the blue flash. :)

Next up, we have Bolt!

Bolt is described by Mentality as "a bright purple holographic neon. " And with this one, I couldn't agree more. It is a super vibrant shade of purple, definitely fits perfectly in a neon collection.

With Bolt, I felt inspired to do a little stamping. I felt a lightning bolt stamp was very appropriate!

And next up is Drama. This one was one of my early favorites, and it definitely didn't disappoint!

Drama is described as "a bright red toned pink holographic neon." To my eye, this one is pure coral! Which I guess is what red toned pink means lol. But this polish just reminded me so much of coral, ocean, mermaids lol, etc. It's a perfect summer color!

Here we have Electrify!

Electrify is described as "a bright blue holographic neon." Perfect description! I love this bright blue. My fiance's first impression when he saw me putting this one was "WHOA! - that's bright!"

Next up is Excite - another one of my faves! I love these pink shades so much.

Excite is a described as "a bright magenta holographic neon." This shade feels very berryish to me, which I love. It's almost got a very slight purpleish undertone to it. It's so bright and fun!

And here we have Frenzy!

Frenzy is described as "a bright yellow green holographic neon." To me, this shade reminded me of  green apples! It's got that tone to it. A really fun shade for summer and I think it will be a great base for nail art.

Here, I have Jolt!

Jolt is described as "a bright yellow orange holographic neon." I don't see the orange quite as much here, this appears more to me as a goldy yellow. It's like the perfect representation of sunshine!

Next up for today is Scandal.

Scandal is described as "a bright pink holographic neon." This was the only polish that I was unable to get photos of in sunlight, but it's still gorgeous. This was the first one I swatched and we had like an entire week of rain in Ohio. Not cool! :(

This shade, I would describe as a sort of Barbie pink, it's lighter than the other two pinks and more of a bubblegum pink.

Next, we have Shake.

Shake is described as "a bright orange holographic neon." Perfect description, in my opinion! This is like a carrot orange kind of color.

Next up is Shock!

Shock is described as "a bright green holographic neon." This shade reminds me of Wet n Wild's Glowstick which is one of my favorite neon lime greens. But, this one is way more pigmented and the formula is near perfect! Shock definitely wins the award for best neon lime green in my collection! :)

And finally, we have Startle!

Startle is described as "a bright red orange holographic neon." That's pretty comparable to how I'd describe it, it's definitely red-orange, it reminds me of hot summer weather!

Overall, I was so impressed with this collection! It really spans the entire color spectrum and there is something for everyone. My opinion? You need the entire collection!
You can buy each color individually for $6.75 a piece, but it's a much better deal to buy the entire collection - you'll receive all 11 polishes for just $68.75 - and that includes shipping!!

Check out the following links for more information about Mentality and how you can get this collection:

Mentality Shop
Purchase the full Neon Holo collection
Mentality on Facebook
Mentality on Instagram
Mentality on Twitter

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts below! <3
Kelly

The products in this post were provided to me in exchange for my review. This review reflects my full and honest opinions of these products. Please see my Disclosure Statement for more information.

Nail Challenge Collaborative: Recreate Another Member's Look #1 (Doctor Crafty)

Hi everyone! This month's theme for the Nail Challenge Collaborative is to recreate looks done previously by other members. Any mani was fair game, so this was really tough to narrow down! The first one I knew I wanted to try though, was this awesome quatrefoil look done by Doctor Crafty.

Here is the photo I used for inspiration:

And here is my take! I didn't have the exact shade of grey/purple that she used, so I chose something that was similar. :)

I started with a base of Sinful Shine polish in Who's Your Gloss, then I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and the polish brush to dab on white clover shapes. I went in with my Stripe Rite brush in white to make the little dashes. Once that was dry, I used my biggest dotting tool and Who's Your Gloss again to make the smaller clovers. I used HK Girl to top it all off! :)

This has been a look I've been wanting to try for a long time, and I loved Doctor Crafty's color choices! She did an awesome look and I was so excited to try it out for myself! I got a lot of compliments on this mani. My coworker didn't believe me at first that these weren't decals! Gotta love when that happens lol.

Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out the looks that the other ladies created for Week 1! <3

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