Galaxy Nails 2.0

Hi! It's been a very long time since I've done galaxy nails, and since today is my Birthday I thought it'd make a nice Birthday mani (I hate the word mani, I really do) You can see my last attempt at this (which was also my first attempt) here. I think I've improved quite a lot, not only on the design but my pictures and nail shape too! 

The polishes I used are:

a-england Tristam (base)

Kiko Blue Spot

Illamasqua Poke

Illamasqua Nomad

Barry M Greenberry

Tristam was the perfect base because it already looks like a little galaxy all on its own! I drew on the stars with white acrylic paint and a dotting tool. I may add this to my list of tutorials to do.

More pictures ahead

The polishes - 

What do you think? A marked improvement on my last attempt?!

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Fractal Fingertips from Will Paint Nails For Food

Today's guest post is coming to you courtesy of Meghan from Will Paint Nails for Food
Meghan's been at the nail blogging game for less than a year but she's already making waves and once you see her nail art you'll know why! If you follow the nail art tag on Tumblr, you've probably seen her nails on there more than a few times. She's currently in the middle of the 31 Day Challenge so make sure you go and follow her to keep up to date with her creations!

Where to find Will Paint Nails for Food
Blog - Facebook - Instagram - Tumblr - Bloglovin'
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Hi everyone! What an honour it is to be writing for this blog. Thank you Sammy for having me here!

I had the idea of combining galaxy nails with some sort of fractal design months ago. I’m no expert on the subject but simply put, fractals are complex geometric designs where the small parts are very similar to the larger overall pattern. And there are many connections between galaxies and fractals – some believe the universe is just a large fractal.

I’m not sure how successfully the accent nail conveys the idea of fractals, however, you can check out the source image HERE .

Here’s the steps I took for these nails:

1. I started with a base of Essie Midnight Cami
2. Using little bits of makeup sponge I slowly built up the colours, first with the blues using piCture pOlish Cosmos, piCture pOlish Pshiiit, Foxy Paws One More Night, and Zoya Crystal
3. Then I built up the purples with Nicole by OPI Back In My Gloria Days, and Zoya Carly
4. I added my blacks with Orly Liquid Vinyl and Liquid Sky Lacquer Party All Night
5. I added the nebula effect with more Zoya Crystal and OPI My Vampire is Buff
6. I painted the stars with a detail brush and Sally Hansen White On
7. For the accent nail, the base is the same as the others, only I didn’t add the lighter nebula. The fractal design is painted with OPI My Vampire is Buff and a detail brush.
8. I finished with two coats of KBShimmer Clearly On Top

I love galaxy nails because, generally, most people use the same technique, but everyone’s looks different. I tend to use more polishes than necessary, you probably don’t need this many colours.

I hope you enjoyed my post, and thanks again Sammy for having me here!

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White Space

Back again with the galaxy nails! These were hugely inspired by Kaitlin at the Daily Polish's Tumblr Nails. As we know, galaxy nails are this week's obsession and I knew I just had to try it with the white space after seeing Kaitlin's creation.

I have a few little snippets of news to share today. Tomorrow marks the first day of my summer holiday but fear not, there will be plenty of new stuff for you to read on this blog whilst I'm gone. I've lined up a couple of guest posts from some very talented bloggers while I'm away and I can't wait for you to see all the amazing nail art they've created!

I'm also very excited to tell you that this blog has been nominated for best established beauty blog in this year's Cosmo Blog Awards! It's such an honour to be nominated again and your votes are very, very much appreciated. If you'd like to vote, just click here to go to the voting page and you'll find me in the first category!

1. I started with a base colour of Barry M White and topped it off with No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.
2. Once my base was dry, I used scotch tape to mark off the sections where I wanted to keep the white showing.
3. One nail at a time I created the galaxy look by sponging on NYC MoMa, NYC Lavender Cupcake and NYC Raindrop (tutorial here). I topped the galaxy off with Calvin Klein Blue Wants to be a Millionaire which is a blue tinted holographic polish which works well as a holographic top coat.
4. As soon as I was done with the galaxy on each nail, I peeled off the tape and added the star details.
5. Finally, I added two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat to smooth things over and keep it shiny!

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Unknown blue, Calvin Klein, Galaxy, glitter, NYC, purple, Sponging

Galaxy Nail Art Tutorial

Since you guys loved my Pastel Galaxy Nails so much I thought I'd make a tutorial to show you my process. There are a few different ways to do it but this is my method of choice!

I'm using mostly pastel polishes for this look. From left to right, the pastel polishes I used are Sally Hansen Green Tea, NYC Raindrop, China Glaze Tart-y for the Party and NYC Lexington Yellow.

Next up are the shimmers, Essence Choose Me and Essence Irreplaceable. I think that a bit of sparkle is really important to get the nebula look. Holographic polishes, very fine glitters and shimmery polishes all make great additions to galaxy nails.

NYC Matte Me Crazy is my matte top coat of choice at the moment.

You'll also need a make-up sponge and a pair of tweezers. And the things I forgot to photograph (doh!)... white nail polish or acrylic paint, a nail art brush and a dotting tool.

Start by painting on your base coat and letting it dry completely.

Tear off a small piece of the sponge and grip it in the tweezers.

I dab out my colours on to a sheet of plastic and dip the sponge in but if you prefer you can paint the polish straight from the bottle on to the sponge. You only need a small amount on the sponge, it's best to build up the colour than to splat on too much straight away!

Use a fresh piece of sponge for each colour.

Start adding your colours by dabbing the sponge on to your nail in random patterns. I started with NYC Lexington Yellow.

Next up is NYC Raindrop.

And the last creme, China Glaze Tart-y for the Party. I sometimes go through my selection of colours twice to make sure I get a really good mix of them on the nail.

Add just a little bit of shimmer here and there.

I do the shiny stars by painting on a little cross, then joining up all 4 points with a curve.

Using a dotting tool, add some smaller stars of different sizes.

I always use a fast drying top coat to smooth everything over and make the whole thing dry. At the moment my favourite is No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.

I clean up the messy bits around my cuticles using a nail art brush dipped in acetone.

Finally I added a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy. 

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Pastel Planets: Matte Nebula Nails!

Pastel galaxy nails have been on my to-do list for the longest time. Why it took me so long to do them... who knows?! I think I was sceptical that it wouldn't work without a dark polish underneath but I proved myself wrong there. I ♥ these nails so much... a new obsession has definitely been sparked here!

1. I started with a base of Sally Hansen Green Tea.
2. Using small pieces of sponge, I dabbed on China Glaze Tart-y For The Party (pastel purple), NYC Raindrop (pastel blue), Essence Choose Me (blue shimmer) and Essence Irreplaceable (nude shimmer) to create the nebula effect.
3. I used White Acrylic Paint with a dotting tool and nail art brush to create the stars.
4. I used a coat of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat to dry it all through and then topped it with NYC Matte Me Crazy for the matte finish.

Here's the look before the matte top coat. I definitely prefer the matte version, what do you guys think?

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31DC2012: Day 19 Galaxy Nails

Day 19 of the challenge calls for some galaxy nails! I saw this drippy galaxy design on Very Emily and traced  it back to Starlett Approved. I heart galaxy nails pretty hard and wish I could muster the effort to create them more often. Saying that, they're so easy. You literally just need a sponge and some sparkly colours! There's a great tutorial and an amazing galaxy look to be found here at Coewless Polish.

Cristina and Rie also have cosmic claws for you today!

I used A-England Lady Of Shalott* as my base colour and then used a sponge to create the galaxy effect with...

NYC Full Metal Jacket*

A-England Dorian Gray*

Rimmel Metal Rush Pearly Queen*

Essie Navigate Her

With Sally Hansen Ion*, I used a nail art brush to draw on the drips and stars. Then I added a highlight to the drips with Rimmel Pearly Queen and placed on a few holographic glequins before topping it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite.

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Galaxy Nails!

I've been meaning to do some galaxy nails for aaaaages! Whenever I'm in the process of doing this nail art, I'm always super disappointed with the way it looks so sometimes I give up before I've even finished. I have to remember that it never looks good until that final layer of glitter goes on and you take a proper look at them from further away.

The base colour is Look Beauty's Nail Pop in Glamrock and the colours I used for sponging are Barry M White, Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream and A-England Princess Tears.

I used NYC Starry Silver Glitter for some extra cosmicness and finally added some Holographic Glequins before applying my Cult Nails Wicked Fast top c

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From The Vault: Galaxy Nails

I just found these pictures in my drafts list! I'm pretty sure they're rejects from Day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge. You can see the ones I decided to post here. I like them and I recall liking them at the time but deciding the colour scheme was too similar to the ones I posted way back in February 2011 - my first ever attempt at Galaxy Nails.

I can't remember exactly what polishes I used but I'm pretty sure I can see BYS Glittering Purple, E.L.F. Twinkle and GOSH Holographic must be in the mix because I'm holding the bottle!

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