Black à Lèvres & Gradient Nails

Tell me, does the pink satin make this product look even more fabulous?

This is GOSH Lip Gloss in 81 Black.

I bought this little tube of wonder to use as a blender lip gloss for dark vampy lips (specifically for my Black Swan look). Black lip gloss is something that has intrigued me since I first laid my eyes on it and I'm finally able to say I own some!

This is the only black gloss I've ever swatched, but as you can see, it is VERY sheer. In the tube, there are very subtle green and red sparkles in the gloss but you can't see this in the swatch and only subtly adds to the effect on the lips.

The doe foot applicator is generic and much cheaper to produce than a brush, but that's okay. It stays put and it's much easier to control where the gloss goes. Doe foot applicators are also good for the blending on the lips, but don't quite dispense enough product all the time so I find I have to dip back into the tube more than I like.

However, this is with use on my lips and I have to say, I think it does quite a nice job there :)

The gloss itself has no scent, but when you place the doe foot under your nose, you can whiff out a slight chemically smell. Not enough to bother me though!

So, thanks to Vicky's post about her 'Enchanting Mess', I came across this blog post by Makeup Savvy about stippled glitter nails. So I thought I'd give it a go myself!

I've never tried doing any sort of gradient nails myself, so this was very experimental for me... you can decide if it looks good or not (I don't think it turned out that well, but it's staying on for the weekend!)

Products I used:

* OPI Original Nail Envy (not pictured)

* Impala Nail Polish in Le Rose

* OPI Nail Lacquer in Flashbulb Fuchsia

* OPI Nail Lacquer in Catch Me In Your Net

* 17 Double Gloss Top Coat

* Compact Powder Puff (pictured below)

Unfortunately, the use of this powder compact puff was not a creative decision...

I just didn't have a sponge I could use so I tried the next best thing I could think of! This is probably my first downfall... oops!

Step 1: Paint your nails with a nude colour until opaque.

2nd downfall - I did not pick a nude shade. I don't have any nude shades here :( so I used a very pale lilac shade...

Step 2: Paint the sponge (or in my case, the puff) with a little nail polish and stipple onto the dry nails.

Downfall number 3 - the puff actually worked quite nicely for the stippling effect, but it can leave some fine hairs from the puff attached to the nails as you may observe in the photo above.

With the messy nail design I played, I forgot to picture the other steps...

Step 3: Paint the end of the nail with a thin layer of the stippled polish.

There is a downfall at every step, this is the fourth - I picked a polish that was too pigmented to blend with the stippled polish so after painting a thin layer at the edge of my nails, I tried to stipple it out to make it less pigmented but that didn't work out so well...

Step 4: Paint over the nail with a glitter polish and thicken up the opacity at the tip of the nail with a second layer.

My fifth downfall here was that I picked a glitter nail polish with a good opacity with just one thin layer, so to thin it out, I used another section of the puff and stippled the polish over my nails...

...which looked horrible so I stippled over the whole nail, which seemed to make it a bit better!

Step 5: Gloss over the nails with a top coat and clean up the mess around the nails.

I didn't really have a downfall here... but I suppose the end result is one! Haha :P

What do you think??

WHITE CHOCOLATE OREOS!!!!

Just thought I'd share :)

Love love and vampymessylove!!

Toffee xXxXx