Guest Post: Lizzy's Galaxy Nails!

Hello Beauty Infinitum readers!  I'm Lizzy, from a little corner of the beauty blogiverse I call The Nature of Beauty and Stephanie asked if I would mind sharing a NOTD I did recently in a guest post.  Mahalo, Stephanie!

I was browsing the You Tube channel of one Miss Jen Fabulous a week or so ago because her name popped up while I was looking for a tutorial on water marble manicures.  First off, I want to say that she made this complicated technique look insanely easy, and I might get up the cojones someday to tackle that one ;)  But in the meantime, I saw on her channel a tutorial for another awesome-looking mani that she called "Galaxy Nails," and not only did it sound easy from the way she described it--she made it look like something I might actually replicate with some success.

So I tried it Monday night.  Wanna see how it turned out?

Galaxy on mah nails!!

Here's a look at all five digits:

 

 

My collection of polishes is fairly modest at this point in time, so I don't have the exact ones that Miss Jen used in her tutorial--out of all the products she named I had only one (CG Techno)--so I improvised:

 

I began by cleaning my nails with Zoya Remove+ and then a base coat of Zoya Anchor.  Honestly it's not my fav base coat but it's a mini bottle and I'm trying to use it up *lol*  Then I applied the following colors in order (for your convenience, I'll list the colors Miss Jen Fabulous used in her mani in parentheses so you can see my substitutions):

CG Liquid Leather (OPI Black Onyx)--2 coats for a solid base color

Essie Dive Bar (OPI Swimsuit Nailed It)--dabbed on with sponge and edges blended out (2 "coats")

Cult Nails Let Me Fly (CG Sea Spray)--dabbed on with sponge and edges blended out (2 "coats")

Essie Miami Nice (OPI Shorts Story)--dabbed on with sponge (2-3 "coats", it was more sheer)

Elixir Lacquer A Cool Fool (Essie Carnival)--1 sheer coat (I had to work at that, it's so PACKED with microglittery goodness!!)

CG Techno--a few large hexes dabbed on here & there

If you enlarge the pics you might catch the "rings" made by the Miami Nice (sheer hot pink with pink/violet shimmer)--this was totally by accident and I couldn't explain how I did this (maybe the way I was holding the sponge, almost like folding a big slice of pizza but using the bottom instead of the top to dab on the polish??), but I think it looks cool, like a "ring nebula" :D

I followed it up with a thick coat of Zoya Armor top coat (again not my fav but it is pretty thick so I thought it would be good with the glitter), which I dried with Zoya Fast Drops polish dryer.  I waited another hour or so before going to bed...and woke up with A HUGE CREASE ON MY LEFT MIDDLE NAIL D:  I didn't get a pic, but it was HUGE--at first I thought I'd somehow clawed a gash in it in my sleep but on closer inspection found that it looked more like someone had pinched up the polish in the middle to make A MOUNTAIN RANGE on my nail T_T

In desperation, I reached for Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat (because it's the only fast-dry top coat I have) and slapped a quick coat on each of my nails.  They don't kid when they say it's "wicked fast"--the coat was perfectly dry in like 60 seconds, maybe even less (I was too freaked to count)!  And you know what?  It completely smoothed out that atrocious wrinkle!  Seriously, no more Himalayas down the center of my left middle nail!! OMG how awesome is that??  Wicked Fast is the shiz--if you are a polish n00b like me YOU MUST HAZ this stuff, so go buy it now.  I also really like Get It On, Cult Nails' base coat--great stuff and really makes a mani last--and I say that as someone who is hard on her nails ;)

What do you think?  Like it?  Leave it? Think you'd ever try it?  Now that I've told my story, I'd love to hear yours!

With much aloha,

Lizzy