Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Latte Inspired Mani

Hey guys! Hope you're all having a good week so far. My arms hurt from the gym >.<

Today I'm gonna show you something delicious! Yes I said delicious and no I don't advocate the eating of nail polish. Although I did see an episode of that show My Strange Addiction where the chick ate nail polish. My friend was all "Omg that's so bad for you!" and I was like "Noooo what a waste of polish!!". We can see where my priorities lie. Lay? Lie? Eh, grammar. Anyhow, today's mani is inspired by latte art. Incidentally I'm also submitting this for the one year anniversary contest over at Copy That, Copy Cat since I'm counting it as food related. Take a look!










Polishes used:
  • Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
  • Sally Hansen Bittersweet
  • Orly Prince Charming
  • Essie Marshmallow

After staring at entirely too many pictures of awesome latte art and making myself very hungry, I decided to use that for my contest entry idea. This was my first attempt at needle marbling a shape on purpose, usually I just plop polish wherever and see what happens. This is also my first contest entry so delicious fingers crossed! Aside from my horrible clean up job I am pretty proud of these. I don't know what it is about dark colors but for some reason I can never get it completely clean looking. Like I thought they were okay looking before I went to photograph them but then looking through the pics I was like wtf it's like I didn't even try. I need to just get over it and buy some pure acetone and the right shape brush. That or I'm just doing it wrong. What type of clean up methods do you guys prefer to use?

30 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I have this on my to-do list of manis, but I'm scawed :(. Did you use any specific tutorial? Because it looks pretty awesome! Good luck on the contest.

    Pure acetone will save your life but maybe wreck le cuticles. I like to use the mix of acetone and glycerin I make (like a dupe of Zoya Remove but cheap). I also have a different method, aside from the brush, that I like to use for that polish that's in love with my cuticle or skin. It's kind of complicated to explain (or I'm feeling lazy), but it involves the orangewood stick.

    Let me know if you're interested and I'll have some coffee and explain :P

    (Yo, blogger, why you gotta be such a snitch letting people know I deleted a comment? Rude)

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    1. I was gonna delete that for you but then I read the end of this one and was like NOPE, STAYIN!

      I didn't use any specific needle marble tutorial but I did watch a lot of youtube videos about how barristas make shapes with the creamer.

      An orangewood stick you say... I kinda use one to go around the edges first to loosen the death grip before I start with the probably very wrong shape brush, like that?

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    2. Not really. First I take the orangewood stick and place it gently in the center of my table, then I proceed to bathe it in acetone while singing latin chants (I'll email you the specific chants). Then, I drip exactly TWO drops of sacrificial blood on the stick and BAM! It removes all polish immediately.

      Or, you could also dip the orangewood stick in acetone, then kind of place it next to the cotton ball and twirl, so it takes a little bit of the cotton ball on the tip. Then dip the whole thing in acetone. It works like a skinnier qtip but sturdier than a brush. Specially good for when polish gets kind of in and under your cuticle.

      I don't really know if that's a popular method or not since I haven't seen it around other blogs. It's just something my mom taught me. Maybe its one of those standard-everyone-does-it things that's not worth showing.

      But you can do whichever you choose really.

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    3. That.... is.... brilliant. Also all I could find was kosher sacrificial blood, will that still work?

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  3. This looks really good :) Making me want coffee now, haha. I haven't tried needle marbling yet but intend to at some point, if I ever get around to it. Did it take a long time?

    For ages I just used regular nail polish remover and a thin paintbrush for cleanup, but when I started taking pictures for my blog I realized that they still looked super messy in the macro pictures. I invested in a bottle of pure acetone and I use a lipstick brush. The acetone dries out my cuticles like crazy but I just wash my hands right after and moisturize and it's fine. Looks so much cleaner :)

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    1. Hmm a lipstick brush, I may have to try that since I think I would like it better than an eyeshadow one.

      Needle marbling is way less time consuming than water marbling and it was definitely faster than I thought it would be. Since you want to work with the polish while it's still wet you kinda have to move fast. I go one nail at a time across the hand but even still it's not a long process by any means.

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  4. The designs are gorgeous. Perfect title...they remind me of Latte.
    I have never succeeded in doing water or needle marbling. I am so bad at that. If you can do a tutorial on how you did this, it would really help me.

    I use Acetone method to clean up the edges. Though I am still not perfect at it, I see a lot of improvement from my earlier pics.

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    1. I've never done a tutorial before o.O This may take some planning since I have no way to do video at the moment. If I can figure out how to take still photos of the process then I'll take a shot at it! (Ha, shot, like a camera)

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  5. Gorgeous. You can't take too many pics of this mani.

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    1. The memory card in my camera disagrees with you :P

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  6. wow these are freaking amazing! now i want a frappuccino!! :)

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  7. ohhhh these are tooo adorable!

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  8. this is a great look! coffee is great inspiration :)

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    1. Thank you! Surprisingly I am more of a tea person haha.

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    1. Why thank you! I made myself very hungry that day and there were many chocolate casualties.

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  10. Wow... looks amazing! Seriously amazing! Love the color combo you picked. Gorgeous! Acetone....just do it. It will save you time and aggravation... just wash and moisturize asap. I just bought a concealer brush that seems to be perfect for me.

    Super cool mani and good luck in the contest.
    : )

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    1. Thanks! I think this weekend will be my time for brush hunting since everyone seems to agree it's the easiest way.

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  11. I bow down at your needle marble skills! I love the shapes you created!

    I've yet to see the polish eater episode of that show, but all my friends constantly bring it up around me. I'm starting to think that they're worried I'll begin consuming my collection. O_o

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    1. Thank you!

      Haha my friend is the one who made me watch it too. We must be at risk and not know it. The chick in the show spent like $700 a week on polish and I was like holy crap what do you do for a living because I want that kind of polish money!

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    2. RIGHT? I wish I had that much money to spend on polish. Then I would need ALL the Ikea Helmers! :p

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  12. STUNNING! I love this mani! It's so awesome!

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  13. this is a tremendously awesome mani! best marbles flowers ive ever seen!

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    1. o.O Thank you! I hope to figure out how to photograph a tutorial soon.

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  14. Omg this looks amazing!! Ok I have to subscribe.

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    1. Thanks for reading! I followed you as well, I love your taste in polish!

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