SMOOSH

For this design I used a the “smoosh” technique, which is perfect for my Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS).  It makes for a quick but eye-catching design! It’s also a great way to use up some older polishes from your stash… Here are the colors of Gelish I used:

• black – Black Shadow
• red – Don’t Toy With My Heart
• gray – Fashion Week Chic
•  nude/neutral – Taupe Model

I did one coat of Taupe Model as the base, cured it, then applied small drops of all the colors in various spots on the nails.  Next, I used the clear stamper to smoosh the drops around so they blended a little, but not so much that the colors became “muddy”. Finally, I cured the design for 1 minute.

Once the smooshing was done I thought it was a little boring so I stamped on top using a floral design. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out ClearJellyStamper.com for some great stamping plates that work well with their stamping polish. If you’d like to place an order with CJS, use my coupon code Smoke&Mirrors for 10% off! Here’s the link to go to the Clear Jelly Stamper site with the discount code for your order!

Distressed Floral

This set uses two colors from the summer 2020 Gelish® Switch On Color collection. They are:

• Total Request Red
• Super Fandom

As the accent color on the floral feature nails, I used Wish Upon a Starboard, from the Gelish summer 2016 CosmoProf Exclusive collection, A Very Nautical Girl. The feature nails have the following layers:

1. Super Fandom base layer x 2 coats
2. silver foil on about 50% of the nail
3. a swipe of Wish Upon a Starboard
4. dots and lines painted with Wish Upon a Starboard
5. flower stamped with CJS-04 stamping plate and More like 1 AM from Clear Jelly Stamper

So far I am loving the Switch On Color collection. What do you think of it?  It was a bit difficult to get my hands on, but it looks like Gelish is taking strides to make products readily available through online outlets in the future.

Everyday Nail Art #6: Gel Polish Marble

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For this design I used Princess Tiara, one of the original Gelish colors, on most nails. You can see that, even though my bottle of polish is a few years old, it still went on smoothly and provided good coverage with two coats.

For the marbled nails, my base was two coats of My One Blue Love (AKA Water Baby).  To get this easy marbled look I applied a third coat of My One Blue Love, but did not cure. I laid down stripes of these colors in a radiating pattern from the lower corner of the nail:

• I’m No Stranger to Love
• My Main Freeze
• Garden Teal Party
• Princess Tiara

Then I used a round paintbrush with a small number of short bristles to drag the polish outwards in a fan from the corner. You could also use a toothpick or dotting tool to get this drag marble look.

If you want a crisp marbled lines, it’s important to cure as soon as possible.  I wanted a mottled look, so I let the marbled gel polish run together and blend a bit before curing.

Testing real sterling silver glitter

In one of my previous designs I used loose sterling silver glitter form 24byRGI.com.  The glitter is nice – it’s chunky, easy to use, and available for a reasonable price. The design came out well, and I’ve posted a video of how I used the glitter to create the design on the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel.

Check it out if you’re interested in finding out more about this eye-catching glitter or this easy design!

Unboxing: More Clear Jelly Stamper Plates and Polishes

Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS) offers an array of products for stampers of all levels. I’ve had the XL stamper plus a few plates and polishes for about a year, and decided it was time that I add to my design and color offerings.

This time I purchased the largest bottle of black polish CJS offers, because I like to stamp my outline image in black. I also bought a “You Choose” Kit of 6 polishes, which is a small savings over buying each one individually. I did the same with small plates, picking a “You Choose” Kit of eight plates and a free plate holder.

These stampers, plates and polishes stamp beautifully and consistently every time. I’ve had great results, and will probably purchase more from this company in the future.  I recommend these products over some of the off brand similar items you can find online. You get what you pay for, and I think you’ll find that these products deliver.  Clear Jelly Stamper is the original clear stamping head, and the company has really turned stamping into it’s own art form. They even have accessories and organizational products to make the job easier, which I love!

If you’d like to see exactly what you get when you order from CJS, please check out my unboxing video for these products on the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel.  And, we’d love to hear from you in the comments on your experience with these products!

Everyday Nail Art #2: Magnetic Nail Art

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The magnetic polish trend is a few years old but seems to have made a revival recently, since the “cat eye” look became popular. Here’s my take on it for fall! I used Gelish Magneto Electric Metal Lover on the middle and ring fingers, with Wanna Share a Tent? from the Fall 2018 African Safari collection on the others.

As you can see, I used the starburst magnet, from Gelish. These magnets are hard to find for sale now, since they were released so many years ago, but you can use another brand of magnets

(here’s the one used for a NailPro Magazine demo last year) or magnetic polish to achieve the same look. I’ve even seen nail artists use the side of a normal round or rectangular magnets to create the cat eye look.

Sun-kissed bliss!

This design meshes two lovely brights, Sun Kissed Bliss and A Tribe Called Cool, from the Just for You III (in Europe)/Secrets (in UK) collection from Harmony Gelish. After a couple years of searching I finally got my hands on some colors from this collection, which I’ve been referring to as simply the Just For You (JFY) collection because it’s only JFY collection we in the US have had. For more information about the full collection I recommend you check out Elysia’s Harmony nail blog, as she’s done a great job of swatching the full collection.  Fair warning: You may want to buy ALL the colors after reading her posts! (Note that I bought these from a US Seller online, and I don’t think they were re-directed from Europe since they have item numbers that fall in between the items numbers from the Gelish Winter 2017 and Spring 2018 collections. See my list of Gelish colors for item numbers.)

For the flower design I used Clear Jelly Stamper (CJS) layered stamping plate Cjs-14 with Born Pretty Store (BPS) stamping polish. I wanted to have white flowers but the Born Pretty stamping polishes were so uncooperative (and my latest shipment of CJS polishes hadn’t come in yet) that I just used whatever would work. I’ve had so much trouble with BPS polishes not stamping lately that I got rid of them. If you want great results with your stamping, I highly recommend the CJS polishes and plates.

This was also a good time to update my list of Gelish colors with the new fall 2018 collection plus the colors from the JFY/Secrets collection. Check out that list for info on all the Gelish US colors ever.

If you know where we in the US can purchase the rest of the JFY/Secrets collection, please let me know in the comments. There are some other great colors that I’d love to have!

Beauty Marks the Spot!

This design was done with two coats of Gelish Beauty Marks the Spot, from the Royal Temptations Spring 2018 collection, with some stamped nail art using Clear Jelly Stamper polishes and plate CjS-04.

This polish was wonderful! It went on very evenly in just two coats, as you can see. And, though Gelish pinks and corals have had fading issues in the past, this one shows no signs of such issues after almost one week of wear. And I’m just loving the color! I’m not even tired of it yet!  Here I’ve applied it over a layer of Gelish Dip, and have had no adhesion issues after a quick buff with a 100 grit buffer prior to applying the gel polish.

The more I use Clear Jelly Stamper plates and polishes, the more impressed I am with them.  The plates are perfect for the salon because they allow you to quickly layer images to create designs as unique as each client. And they’re easy to use with just a little practice. I recommend using the plates and the polishes together – they’re worth the investment!

Unique Ways to Use the Gigantic Stamper

A couple weeks ago I posted a new video to the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel, unboxing the Born Pretty Store Gigantic Stamper. In this post, we’ll take a look at two unique and useful ways to use the gigantic stamper.

First, and most useful in a salon setting, is that you can use a large plate and the stamper to stamp multiple images at the same time. I recommend using abstract full-nail images, because if you take the time to line up single images on each nail the polish will likely dry before you have stamped all the nails.

In the below photo you can see I did 6 of 10 nails this way.

Second, on 2 of the other 4 nails I applied a decal, which I made directly on the gigantic stamper. I stamped off the plate then allowed the polish to dry on the stamper before painting it with other colors. After that dried overnight, I carefully removed it from the stamper and used clear polish to apply it to the nail.

Check out the Smoke & Mirrors YouTube channel for a demo of these techniques.

Don’t Toy With My Heart

For this design I used a technique that’s been around for awhile but I had not yet tried: the “smoosh” manicure.  Here are the colors of Gelish I used:

• black – Black Shadow
• red – Don’t Toy With My Heart (also used on full coverage nails)
• gray – Fashion Week Chic
•  nude/neutral – Taupe Model

I did one coat of Taupe Model as the base, cured it, then applied small drops of all the colors in various spots on the nails.  Next, I used my Morgan Taylor clear stamper to smoosh the drops around so they blended a little, but not so much that the colors became “muddy”. Finally, I cured the design for 1 minute.

Once the smooshing was done I thought it was a little boring so I stamped on top using a design from the Morgan Taylor Designer Plates Flirty Florals collection.  These are some great stamping plates that would do even better with a better stamping polish. (Next time I’ll try using polish from Clear Jelly Stamper.) Check out the macro shot!

This ended up being super easy (and quick) to do, but got a lot of notice. I wore this manicure for over two weeks!

Have you tried the smoosh mani? Let me know how it turned out in the comments!