My Dazzle Dry Anniversary! Bugs and Flowers Remake

It has been roughly a year since I first joined the Newsworthy Nail Art contest by Dazzle Dry Philippines, which earned me my first Trinity Kit (nail prep, base coat and top coat), and my first 2 colors.  And since that time I did my first nail art with Dazzle Dry, I never used any other brand.
With Dazzle Dry, I bid goodbye to yellow and damaged nails, waiting hours for my nails to fully dry, and toxic fumes.  I actually wrote about my experience in full a few months ago in an entry entitled Once I HAD Yellow Nails.

So for this entry, I decided to remake that first Dazzle Dry nail art I did a year ago that I called Bugs and Flowers.  But instead of remaking it exactly the same, I just followed the theme and did the details the way I would do it now to see how I have grown as an artist.

Here is what I came up with now:

And this is what I did a year ago:

As you can see, the two nail arts look quite different.  First off, I chose to use Forget-Me-Not, an opaque light blue, instead of Morning Sky, which is a iridescent light blue shimmer.  I also chose to paint the flowers, bee and butterfly differently, as well as chose white instead of black as the trails of the bugs.

Lets us look at the two creations side by side:

Personally, I am happy with how my remake turned out.  I think my details now are finer.  I have also always struggled with getting really neat edges, so I am glad to see that I have improved in that as well. I think I have gotten better too at taking pictures, although I still just use my smart phone because I don't want to shell out money for a fancy camera (lol!).  Just to share, I do not do any editing or filtering in my photos.  I found that all I need to do is open my window in the morning and take a picture.  It gives me the best quality and brings out the closest match to the actual color of the nail polishes.

So there you go, my little celebration nail art to commemorate 1 year of using a truly vegan nail polish system, and the only one in the market without nitrocellulose.  Using Dazzle Dry is special to me not only because it gave me stronger and healthier nails (and saved me lots of time), but also because it opened doors to beautiful friendships that have made the past year truly special.  So here's a heartfelt shout-out to Dazzle Dry -  Thank you and I love you!  Keep dazzling!

Deadly in Love

Hello Everyone!

It's been so long since I've written anything on the blog, but I do hope you will like this nail art that I've created recently.

Have you ever been so madly in love that you felt like your heart would beat out of your chest and that you'll just fall dead from cardiac arrest?  Then, you also can't eat, can't sleep, can't do the normal things that you do, that you might just as well be a zombie for that fellow? Well, I think that's what you call DEADLY IN LOVE!!

This design was actually inspired by a necklace a dear friend and I saw while shopping together.  I spotted a dainty looking necklace that had a skull for a pendant.  Quite unique, right? Rock, but still sweet.  When she saw it, she instantly associated it with Glamtastic, one of the colors from Dazzle Dry's Fall 2013 collection.  She suggested I do a skull nail art with it, and I thought it was a fabulous idea!

Here is what I made:

I call this art Deadly in Love.  I originally thought I would put skulls with bows on them, but I soon realized it was a common design.  So I thought, why not put a girl on one hand, and a boy on the other? Then, I can put hearts to make them look like they're in love.  So, skulls in love = Deadly in Love.  I think those of you who understand Filipino will also find it funny that this can be an illustration of the phrase patay na patay, which I think is the most literal translation of "deadly in love".

Like most of my freehand nail arts, I used acrylic paint to make the details of this design.  I find that acrylic paint is the most controllable medium when doing nail art because artists can achieve specific shades by blending different colors.  Also, mistakes can be erased with a piece of cotton dampened with water as long as top coat has not been applied.

I would also like to show you a picture of Glamtastic without the nail art:

Isn't it beautiful?? I think it was too pretty not to be included in this post.  This is probably one of the most photogenic polishes I have, but it is still way lovelier in person!  As you can see, Glamtastic will show different hues, depending on how light reflects on it.  I predominantly see purple, with touches of copper and green.

The picture above shows three generous coats.  I had to use three coats because Glamtastic is actually made of a very sheer greenish-grey base with lots of fine glitter.  The first coat actually worried me because it made my hands look sickly, but the succeeding coats brought out the beauty of the color.  The number of coats was no problem at all though, as Dazzle Dry dries almost instantly (no exaggeration, I promise!) and does not feel thick at all even with multiple coats.  Application was a breeze :)

So there you have it, my little love-struck nail art!

Thanks for reading!