Friday, August 27, 2010

Nail Art Take Two- A Simple Design Using Sinful Colors Dream On

Yesterday I showed a very simple nail art design using Sinful Colors' Dream On, a warm fluorescent purple polish. Because I paired it with silver, the overall effect was very cool-toned. However, by swapping the silver for gold I can make the same polish look warm and rich. It's fun!

Just like yesterday, I used my base coat and then two coats of Dream On. But instead of silver, I wanted to try a warmer look. I grabbed a gold Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen, thinking it would complement the purple nicely. (That's color theory for you... but that's a completely new topic all together!)

I'd learned something about these pens yesterday. They don't contain traditional nail polish, which makes using them a bit different. The key to using these is to let the base polish dry thoroughly- if they're tacky at all, the pens won't slide over the polish. Instead, they catch and basically put dots and dents into the polish, which is the opposite of what I was going for. However, once the base polish is dry, they slide across the nail leaving a beautiful line of solid color.

I drew a diagonal line across my nails from one corner of my free edge to the opposite "corner" at my cuticle. That alone took a bit of effort, since I was working with my left hand! But patience is key, and I was able to sketch out a basically-straight line eventually. I then slowly filled in each bottom half, leaving a solid gold portion on each nail. The pen did get kind of dry periodically, but I would press the nib into the pen again (like when you first start using it) to get the paint flowing again.

Because of the way the gold goes on it gets a dimensional look, almost like gold leaf. It's absolutely gorgeous. At that point, I thought about several options- stamping on top, maybe drawing flowers on the purple side. But the more I looked at it, the more I liked the simplicity of the purple and the gold together. I finally decided to add three dots of gold in the far purple corner as a simple accent. This way there was something to connect the two visually, but not enough to totally overwhelm the design. A coat of topcoat and this look was done!

As you can see, this is a very simple look that completely changed the overall tone of the Dream On. With the gold, it seems warmer, richer. It was a lot of fun to hold my hands side by side and compare the looks, too! I had to put the two side-by-side so that you could compare them as well... isn't the difference cool?

So, what do you think? Do you prefer the wintery silver accents or the summery gold? Do you think you'll be experimenting with color combinations in the future? If you do, leave me a comment, I'd love to see what you do!

Nail art pens were provided by PR for evaluation.
See my disclosure statement for more information. 

4 comments:

  1. I like the warm better. I want to get more of these pens but they're too pricey for me. I have a black one but I haven't tried it yet.

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  2. Polish&Konad- Thanks!

    Kitty- I'm still not sure which one I like better, I've been going back and forth on them. I do understand the price issue. Not only are the pens expensive, but they have such a small amount of paint in them that it's pretty frustrating to buy them. They're so easy to use, though!

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  3. You'll find this funny....I had the ultimate FAIL yesterday with my black pen. Polish is thoroughly dry on nail and this is the first time I'm using it. Shook the pen, pressed tip on nail to get polish out and tried to write someone's name on my nail. It was splotchy. I have yet to try again....maybe not writing names on my nail but doing designs instead. Haha.

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  4. Kitty- ohhh, I've done that!! It's tough to get the hang of them, but you will. Make sure the pen is flowing well on a piece of paper before you start drawing on your nail!

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