piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013

Celebrating the Year of the Blogger

I was lucky enough to be selected to be part of the piCture pOlish Blog Fest this year! I was given three shades to use to create some nail art. I received heavy metal, starry night and bright white. I decided to use the three shades to do a dotticure.

piCture pOlish shades are available worldwide from either piCture pOlish or the piCture pOlish Network. For more information on shipping prices visit their Shipping page. Make sure you check out the Everyday Deals page too!

There are 3 Blog Fest awards to be won this year. Each award is the opportunity to create a collaboration shade with piCture pOlish. The winners will be chosen via Pinterest as follows:
1 award for the highest voted design by piCture pOlish fans.
1 award for the highest voted design by Blog Fest 2013 participants.
1 award for the design chosen by Jules and Megs from piCture pOlish.

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The products in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

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Artsy Wednesday: Easter

I really really love how this turned out! It easy to do but did take some time. I've got a tutorial below to show how i created it. If you don't have striping tape you can cut thin strips of regular tape. Make sure the white polish has time to dry before you add the matte top coat or you will smudge the white stripes. If you don't have a matte top coat you can use a regular top coat for a glossy version.

               NAIL POLISH INFO 

Polish Used:

ulta3 - lily white
ulta3 - corsican rose
ulta3 - soft hydrangea
ulta3 - lilac bloom

ulta3 - pale dahlia
ulta3 - lemon tart

Essie - Matte About You

Tools Needed:

Striping Tape

Nail Art Brush

Visit the other Artsy Wednesday blogs for more easter manicures:

Michelle - Lab Muffin

Maria - Maria's Nail Art

Catrine - Unnaked Nails

Melanie - Nail & Polish

Jessica - Beauty Gnome

Emily  - An Accent Nail

Ameerah - Valiantly Varnished

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Peel Off Base Coat for Easy Glitter Polish Removal

Essence Ready for Boarding collection has just been released in Australia. Lauren from the Aussie Nails Facebook group picked up the Essence Peel Off Base Coat and gave it a review. She had suspicions that it was just PVA glue in a polish bottle. Michelle (Lab Muffin) had a look at the ingredients and confirmed that it was PVA glue, water and some preservatives. 

I thought I'd test out how well real PVA glue worked as a peel off base coat so I headed over to my local Bunnings Warehouse (a hardware store) and picked up a 100ml bottle of Selleys PVA glue for $4.66. That gives me about 6.7 bottles of peel off base coat for 70c each! 

I chose Sally Hansen Gem Crush - Glitz Gal for the test. Glitz Gal is a very gritty glitter polish I had been putting off wearing because I knew it would be a pain in the bum to remove. Here it is on my sad little nubbins.

Here's how to make your own peel off base coat:

Step 1 - Put some PVA glue in a clean polish bottle.

Step 2 - Apply a coat of PVA glue and wait for it to dry. It will turn clear when it's dry. It should take about 5 - 10 minutes to dry depending on the thickness of the coat applied.

Step 3 - Apply that glitter polish you've been ignoring and finish with top coat. I used Seche Vite.

Step 4 - When you're ready to remove the polish scrape it off with an orange wood stick starting at the base of the nail. You'll need to use a some force to begin with.

It seriously took about 2 second per nail for removal. If you are careful you can remove it all in one big chunk like in the picture below.

I wore this manicure for 24 hours before removing it. I had no chips or peeling. This is by far the easiest glitter removal method I have tried. I will be using PVA glue as a base for all my future glitter manis. I'm going to try it under other polishes like shimmers and cremes. Another great thing about this is if it thickens up you just need to add water. 

What do you think about PVA as a base coat for easy glitter removal? Will you give this a go?

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