Ludurana Supernova

I'm a sucker for a good duochrome or multichrome polish. Same goes with holographic polishes. And when I found out that Ludurana had come out with a multichrome holo, I knew I had to have it. Enter Llarowe, stage left already! I placed my order and less than a week later, I got that little orange slip in my mailbox that means my mail man is a lazy jerk who refuses to walk up three stairs and knock on my door I had a package waiting for me at the post office. Friday morning, I picked up my package and drove immediately home. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. And this is what I got:

Update but more about Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love

Because I don't think an update is really necessary on this. Dana has already covered that for us and the only difference between the two was we used different brand blacks as the base color. I should also mention that when I decided to try this again I did not have high hopes that it would work so I totally didn't use any kind of base coat whatsoever. I was fully expecting to have to remove it and choose something else.

With that said...

I can haz water marble?

So back before Halloween, I mentioned something about me trying to do a water marble. I wanted to do a neat little multi-color glow-in-the-dark one with those Blue Cross pumpkin polishes. It was a spectacular failure. As it was my very first attempt at one ever, I had no idea why. There could have been any number of reasons. And just in case it was the polishes that caused the flop (those pumpkin polishes are cheap, okay) I tried a few Essies and still couldn't really get it working. I had one nail that was sorta done but it was terrible. Dana tried to help as much as she could but as she said herself, it's hard to troubleshoot from five states away. I gave up on it and decided to try another day.

Update: Ludurana Water Marble

I LOVED this water marble manicure. I got so many compliments on it--from the ladies I work with, the check out girl at the grocery store. It was completely worth the time and effort. And it held up remarkably well. As you'll soon see, I can be incredibly rough on a manicure, and I'm not much for touch ups and fixing. Once it starts to look bad, it's gone. But this one, I held onto for an extra day. And to be honest, it didn't look bad until the last day, when polish lifted on two nails, I got tired of catching it on stuff, and I peeled the loose part off.  Here it is on Day 5...

 

The thumb and first finger are the two where the polish lifted. I was having some issues getting my pictures taken, as you will soon see.  (also, the blue glass in the sink? Belongs to my cat, Gizmo. He drinks so much water he gets his own separate drinking container in the sink. It's weird but it makes my life SO much easier.)

Here's the other hand. It worked out fairly well, no major chipping or lifting issues. I did have some tip wear, but I type for 10 hours a day at work, so if that's my biggest problem, I count myself lucky.

 ...And as I was taking my pictures, Gizmo hopped up to get a drink and decided to help. Just as I touched the "take the picture now!" button, he head butted the phone, resulting in a lovely photo of my feet and blue leopard print PJ bottoms. Thanks, Giz!

Bottom line...I highly recommend you try this water marble. The Ludurana held up beautifully. I think the lifting polish I experienced has more to do with me than anything to do with the polish. Or it was caused by my NFL Saints black polish base coat. Either way, I'd do this one again in a minute if I didn't have so many other colors waiting for me to show them some love!

--Dana

Additions and Ramblings

Jess texted a photo to me a couple of days ago--a bottle of nail polish with a sale price and the name of the store where she found it. Off I went to my local Walgreen's, where I discovered the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure inventory was being (mostly) cleared out. New colors coming in, I guess? They had a huge selection and I ended up bringing a bag full of new babies home. They've been added to my polish list if you're curious. I also got a couple of Essie colors that I've picked up and put down a dozen times in the last month. They're my first Essie colors. One of them (probably Play Date) will be my next mani when I'm done with the Ludurana water marble.

Ludurana Water Marble

I was so excited to get my Ludurana Aurora Boreal nail polish! I bought it with the express purpose of trying out this manicure. I love the look of water marbles. If you know how to do them, skip the video. If you're new to water marble, this is a good tutorial:

There are a kabillion tutorials on YouTube. Some of these people are so creative and talented. The designs they're able to make astound me! I was going for an oil-slick look, completely inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest. Jess, miracle worker that she is, found the source of the photo: Esmaltas Da Kelly. Fair warning, the site is in Portuguese, but the photos are so lovely, I think it's worth a look anyway. There's always Google Translate!