As you all know, I am in the middle of the 31 Day Challenge with some other lovely bloggers.  I've been an overachiever throughout the challenge and have had many manicures pre-swatched.  I think as of right now I'm up to the galaxy nails.  Anyways, tonight when I sat down to do "Inspired by Nature" I hit a huge road block.  My first manicure was probably not a disasticure, but I thought it was.  Okay, well it might not have been, I messed up one nail and instead of continuing on, I changed up the idea, and really had a disaster on my nails.  My mom liked it but it just wasn't me.  I really hated looking at it.  I then thought "okay, I'll move on, I will do "Nautical Inspiration.""  Yeah, okay, that came out even worse than the nature one.  I ran to the remover and took it off.  

No nails tonight, just yet again, another lovely rant post.  This one isn't a rant post regarding water marbling, or some other technique, but instead of just polishing all together.  Now do not get me wrong, I love painting my nails, I love blogging about them, and I will not be giving it up in the near future.  Sometimes though, I do hate it and literally want to scream.

We've all been there - we've had disasticures.  You know, a manicure that turns into a disaster.  Thank you Nicole from Polish Me Please for this awesome term.  I have to say, this happens to me more times than  not.  I've sat and I've pondered the many reasons why, and I finally believe I have figured it all out.
 
There are so many reasons why a perfectly good manicure becomes a disasticure and through this post I shall rant about each and every thing.

The Base

The base is the pivotal part of any manicure.  Up until I started blogging, I never used base coat, and oh my goodness, what a difference base coat does make.  Colors seem to pop more, polish applies more evenly, less staining, and less damage to my actual nail.  I've never had a problem applying a clear base coat, it's when you add the color, the disasticure begins to strike.

Let's take a look at the base for my fourth of July Nails and watch me rip them apart.

I'm not a fan of white nails, but I'm planning on putting a flag there so I had to.  The blue is one of my favorites - Sinful Colors Midnight Blue.  It's a gorgeous dark navy with that beautiful shimmer.  The issue, the polish is goopy, the formula just blows.  I'm not sure if it's my bottle, or if it's all of them but it applies super thick.  This is two coats, which okay I got full coverage and you can't tell it was a pain in the butt.  I can't wrap the tips to save my life, so notice the wearing already on some of the nails.  On top of that, I stained my cuticles, and it's impossible to remove.  This polish stains like no other.

I also some how manage to miss parts on the nail.  I'm not sure how I do so, but notice on the white nail the random open spot?!  As I'm looking at the picture, I see I sort of missed a part on my pinkie finger too.  Stupid thing.  If I were to fix it or apply another coat, then it will be too thick all together, and would just be easier to start over.

The Art

Oh lord the art....this can be a disaster in itself.  I see ideas on pinterest, youtube, or come up with something in my head which looks completely awesome.  I get super psyched, paint on my base coat, then start dotting, tooth picking, whatever, and bam...disaster.  The thought then instantly enters my head as "how the hell does this person do it so well and I fail??? That picture looks so easy!!!!"  When disaster strikes, I take crappy webcam photos and start sending them around asking people what they think.  Despite the fact some say it's good, if it's not good in my own mind, it comes off and I refuse to share it with the rest of the world.  Below is a Valentines Day manicure which never saw the light of day.


The Top Coat 

If you're like me and you do nail art, you know that top coat can totally mess up your nail art even if you do not mean it to.  You sit and wait and wait until it is totally dry, but it never is.  Some polish will smear, typically the black.  It's my biggest pet peeve when that happens, and well there isn't much you can do about it but start over.  And let's face it, once you add a top coat who wants to start over.  Usually I just suck it up and deal. 

Here are the Fishy Nails I did for a guest post over at Polish Pixelle.  Now let me state that I did not think that this whole manicure was a disasticure.  I freaking LOVED my fishies.  These two nails though were disastrous all thanks to the top coat.


Notice how the little guys eyes are smeared down.  Now okay, I'm sure no one noticed this standing 3 feet away complimenting them, but I noticed it and it made me think those were disaster nails.

Photography

The wrong photo can destroy a perfect manicure.  If you do not believe me, just go back to the beginnings of my blog.  Blurry pictures will ruin anything.  I was the master of that, but I believe I have come a long way with photographing them :)

Final Thoughts

Disasticures will happen.  They are unavoidable.  I believe it's mostly due to OCD that I can take a perfectly good manicure and rip it to shreds.  I've never though looked at another girls blog and went "Wow that's awful."  Instead, I've learned from so many of you bloggers out there!  I try to frame my hands in similar ways, look at lighting in pictures, read their ways that they apply polishes, etc.  I want to learn, I want to become a better nail blogger and nail painter.  I want to reduce the amount of disasticures.  Will it happen, maybe not, but hell I'm going to try.

The biggest way I believe you can avoid a disasticure, is confidence.  Have confidence in your skills, don't think others will believe it's crap.  Easier said than done, but hell I'm sure going to try.


Have you had a disasticure?? How do you avoid them???

Yesterday was Day 7 of the SNAAARKM challenge and I did not post a manicure.  The main reason: I fail at water marble.  Now this isn't your "oh ha ha i'm sure you're great at water marble but only you don't like it" fail, this is literally a fail, fail.  I waste loads of polish and time trying to attempt this technique.

For those of you who do not know what water marbling is, please see the video below.  I'm sure though that many of my fellow nail bloggers will read this post and quickly relate.

Oh CutePolish, how I love you, but your video crushed my water marbling dreams.  I successfully attempted water marble once in my life.  Once.  Okay, that's a lie, I got it twice, but the second time wasn't on my own nails and it wasn't the most impressive.  It took forever to accomplish and we wasted a ton of polish.  The first time can be seen here.  This was my second attempt on a girl my best friend baby sits for.


The ring finger is a gradient of colors the girl wanted sponged on her nail.  I was happy she didn't want all nails marbled because I was getting exhausted just doing the 8 I had to lol.

When this challenge started, I was excited yet nervous to attempt another water marble.  I had dreams that it was going to come out perfectly and be the best water marble yet.  It was going to be one of those water marbles pinned on pinterest that gets 500 re-pins.  Sadly though, yet again, my dreams were crushed as soon as I sat down.

I had selected three colors, a pink, blue, and purple, which in the bottles side by side looked beyond amazing together.  I started dripping, and the polishes began doing their little bulls eye thing.  I was all happy, excited, never had the polish spread out so lovely before.  As soon as I took the tooth pick to it and draw the design, the polish was dried and it was impossible to draw anything into it.  It all gathered onto the tooth pick and in two seconds, my beautiful bulls eye was gone.

I didn't let that get me down, I tried another time, it did the same thing, and another, same thing, another, same thing.  Finally, I used two colors, the purple and the blue, since I thought I was spending too much time adding all the colors.  It sort of did the same thing but I was able to draw a design.  I marbled my finger, and guess what happened, I had about a million little water bubbles that made the nail look like it was diseased.  After attempting about 5 more times, I finally gave up, grabbed the bottle of acetone and angrily removed the failed attempt.

Despite having a clear and white base coat, my nails still were stained for the failed attempts.  To remove the stain, I was forced to cut my nails to the shortest they have been in the longest time.  While I don't have the longest of nails, these were baby nubs which I hate.  They're starting to grow back, but not quick enough.  This final attempt of water marble was traumatizing to say the least.

My Water Marble Advice (even though I stink at it)

First - Know your polish - Polish Groupie had a great post on her blog entitled Water Marble Lessons Learned which I could relate to.  When I water marbled the neighbor girls nails, I used some polishes which I had never used before.  Just as Polish Groupie found out, this was a huge mistake.  If you're going to water marble, make sure that you've used the polish before, and know if it is a sheer or opaque polish.  I have found that the more opaque formulas tend to work better.  Sheer ones tend to disappear in the water, and are barely visible on the nail when the marble is complete.

Second - Work fast, but not too fast.  The faster you work, the more likely the polish will not be dried when you go to draw in it.  Do not work too fast though because that's when mistakes happen.  You can end up spilling polish or dribbling it everywhere (like I tend to do).

Third - Drawing the Design. Draw from the center of the design out, but do not touch the outer edge of the bulls eye and draw it back in.  The outermost circle of the bulls eye is going to be the one that dries first.  If you drag it towards the center and it's dry, it's going to clump up and ruin the rest of the design.

Fourth - temperature is key.  Room temperature water is the way to go.  If the water is too cold, the polish tends to dry faster.  If the water is too hot, I have found the polish won't spread, and instead will sink.

Fifth - It's all about the Brand.  Cheaper polishes tend to not work.  Which is a shame since majority of my collection is Sinful Colors.  I have found that OPI and China Glaze work the best.  I hate using these polishes though because you are throwing your money away with how much polish you have to use.

With that, I have come to the end of my water marble ranting post.  I hope you enjoyed it, or have had similar experiences.  I am sorry to my SNAAARKM girls that I was unable to complete the challenge.  I had a blast though the other 6 days.

To everyone else, have you ever tried water marble?  What have you found to work or not work?  Even though I'm not planning on ever attempting this technique again, I'm interested in seeing what others have found to work/not work.