u/FloralTraveler

When I was a kid, I fantasised that crawling under the blackberry bramble bordering my grandparents' house would lead to another world. I didn't want to do literal art for this one, so instead I tried to recreate that vibe of staring deep into the briar, looking for the perfect berry to pick and hoping I would get a glimpse of something magical.

There are four polishes in this mani, two of which are DIYs, so I've officially surpassed my Project Frankenpolish goal for the month! The two DIYs are the green jelly I've named Millennial Velvet (iykyk) and the black flakie topper called Make It Spookier.

After doing two nature-inspired manis in a row, I decided to make a bingo card with slightly off-beat nature prompts to keep the theme going! I mentioned in my July recap that I was in a bit of a polish rut, so I'm hoping this snaps me out of it. I'll post the blank card in the main bingo thread as well.

The GITD polish for solar eclipse is a frankenpolish that's dupe-adjacent to a much loved GITD indie polish, using cheap GITD pigment, white alcohol ink, and a polish I already had. It's not quite as sparkly, but it's as glowy as the original for a much lower cost!

A little belated, because I smudged the original mani while making a pinhole camera for the eclipse on Weds and had to re-do it.🤦🏻‍♀️

The GITD polish is a frankenpolish I made after lusting after MC Avatar State but not wanting to pay Mooncat prices. I found some light blue GITD pigment on Vinted and added it to Barry M Popcorn Shimmer All In One, with a few drops of white alcohol ink to make it a milky jelly. The shimmer isn't exactly the same as Avatar State, but it's a close enough cousin for me. I'm suuuuper pleased with the glow, I wasn't expecting a no-name, cheap pigment to be this bright! First pic is in natural light, second is indirect indoor light, and third is in a dark room with no windows.

Product list

• Base coat: Essence UV Rescue (used as blurring base)
• GITD polish: DIY Glow Baby Glow
• Stamping polishes: Born Pretty white & silver
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

Is it autumn already? Nah, the plants are just dead thanks to the drought in Ireland.

Last month was the driest, sunniest, and hottest July on record in Dublin, and the second hottest month on record for Ireland overall. But sure, it's fine for data centres to be using 5 million litres of water per day* while all the plantlife withers and dies.

*That's 1.3M gallons of water per day for the American laqueristas.

Products list

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1
• Polish: Painted Polish Silence of the Yams
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1
• Humour: Millennial Pessimism

In July, I kept flip flopping between loving my manis and absolutely hating them. Pics 1, 3, & 4 I adore, but 2 and 6 felt very meh and I wore 5 for less than a 24 hours before I took it off. I think I need either inspiration or a break, so we'll see how August goes.

I only did 1 frankenpolish this month, the green GITD in pic 5. I like how the polish itself turned out, but took it off early because I was unhappy with the QDTC shrinkage and top coat bubbles.

Monthly stats:

• 9 total polishes worn
• 1 frankenpolish
• 1 untried
• 3 polishes I haven't worn in 6+ months

Anyone else have a favourite polish they're trying to make last forever?

This is my favourite neutral of all time, bought waaaay back in 2011. The formula is terrible compared to new glitters, but I just love it so much. I've added thinner over the years but it thickens so quickly that's not cutting it anymore. I'm going to try adding more suspension base to see if that helps, so cross your fingers I can get another 15 years out of it!

I haven't worn this in 6 months, so it was definitely time to pull it out!

Wearing one of my all time favourites this week! The shift on this is insane, especially indoors.

Products

- Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

- Polish: Phoenix Indie He's Just the Boyfriend (from the Barbie collection)

- Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

And before we start, yes, it was intentional on my part.

I did two full manis Friday evening that I hated, so I grabbed this untried red as a last ditch attempt to have something on my nails before the weekend.

Reds are my go-to when I can't decide what to wear and this had a super fast dry time, which is what I needed in the moment, but I'm not in love. The colour is nice, but the flakies somehow make it less attractive and there's visible tip wear you can't see thanks to my ✨️creative angles✨️ in the photo.

What do y'all gravitate towards when you need a quick reset?

Products

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1*
• Polish: Sally Hansen Tot-Ally Red
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

*not gel, just "gel-like" (also can brands PLEASE stop using gel as a marketing term)

First nails of the month, using an untried jelly with this technique for abstract nail art that looks like fluid art but is waaaaaay easier!

Kicking off July with some abstract nail art using this technique, which is waaay easier than fluid art for a very similar look. I think I might re-do these in October, aka Spooky Lake Month, since they remind me of dark water.

Products:

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1
• Black jelly: Cirque NSFW
• White: Catrice Ibiza Feeling
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

This month I kicked off my personal Project Frankenpolish, with the goal of frankening polishes I rarely wear into shades I like and making dupes instead of buying new polish. I'm super happy to say that every mani I wore this month had a frankenpolish and/or diy polish!

Final mani of the month is the first two pictures, which features a pastel yellow that was originally too light on me (see pic 2 for swatch comparison). I added yellow alcohol ink to darken the colour a bit, keeping it pastel but making it much more flattering. I also used some water decals that I've had for so long that I forgot they were decals, not stickers. It was my first time using water decals and they are sooooo much easier to apply than stickers!! I'll need to keep that in mind when I deplete my sticker stash enough to justify getting more.

Pics 3 - 9 are the rest of my June manis, in reverse order, including before/after swatches of the polishes I frankened. The only one that doesn't have a comparison swatch is my second-to-last mani in pic 3, because I used a fully diy polish for that one.

Monthly stats are:

• 5 manis total
• 10 polishes used
• 2 diy polishes
• 4 frankenpolishes, 3 of which were made from untrieds
• 1 polish unused in over a year

I probably won't use a frankenpolish for every mani in July, since I'm feeling a tiny bit limited and want to use other colours too, but my goal is to make over at least 2 polishes I don't wear every month for the rest of the year.

Made these Voyager comm badge earrings to wear to Dublin ComiCon, since Kate Mulgrew was a guest, but I ended up too sick to go.

If anyone wants to make their own (or a pin version to wear on your uniform in lieu of a real comm badge), here's the pattern! It's from Pinterest and I think you may need to be logged in to view it.

The moment I saw this gorrrrrrgeous jelly sandwich by u/gement I knew I just HAD to make something similar! They layered a green jelly, purple flakie, and blue jelly, so I whipped up a green jelly with suspension base and alcohol ink, then added purple/black ucc flakies and a blue aurora pigment. I've named it Weekend Aquarium, after the original post title. 😁

Products

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1
• Polish: DIY Weekend Aquarium
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

I fell in love the moment I saw this gorgeous jelly sandwich u/gement and wanted it on my fingers immediately! While I don't have any of the polishes they used, I knew I had materials on hand to whip up something similar. Here's the end result, a green jelly base with purple/black ucc flakies and blue aurora powder. I'm calling it Weekend Aquarium, after the original post title. 🐟🐠

Emily de Molly Dark Crystal was one of my first indies and an all around favourite, but it's now discontinued. I got ILNP Cityscape last year thinking it was a dupe, but was disappointed to find the holo much denser than Dark Crystal and left it sitting unused. Now that I have the supplies to make my own polish, I'm going through my collection and frankening all the polishes I don't love, including this one.

I tried to make Cityscape closer to Dark Crystal by adding suspension base to thin the holo and black alcohol ink to restore the colour lost when adding the suspension base. The holo is still denser than Dark Crystal, but it's much closer to what I was looking for! I'm calling it Legend, after another 80s fantasy cult film.

Products

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1
• Polish: DIY Legend
• Top coats: Seche Vite & Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1

I got this polish ages ago thinking it was a dupe of a discontinued indie favourite, but when it arrived I realised the holo was much too dense. It's been sitting unused for almost a year, so I decided to try my hand at making it closer to what I was looking for by mixing it with suspension base (to thin the glitter) and black alcohol ink (to restore the colour that was lost when adding the suspension base).

The glitter is still denser than the original I was trying to dupe, but I like it much better than when I got it! Since the original is named after a classic fantasy cult film from the 80s, I've named my version "Legend" after another movie in the same genre.

For those interested, the polish I started with is >!ILNP Cityscape!< and the polish I thought it was a dupe of is >!Emily de Molly Dark Crystal!<.

There's both a frankenpolish and a DIY polish in this mani!

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The description for the neon said it was yellow, but the actual polish leaned too green so I've never worn it. I added a truly shocking amount of yellow alcohol ink to fix it, which made it a little less neon but much closer to what I wanted when I bought it. Last picture has before and after swatches.

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The DIY polish is the blue flash topper, made with suspension base and cheap pigment powder from Amazon. I was disappointed with the intensity of the pigment in my first version of this polish, but it occurred to me that grinding the pigment finer might make the flash brighter and it totally worked!

I had some obvious application issues with this one (bubbles, wrinkling, & cat hair), but I looooooooove the end design! It's bringing me back to middle school, complete with neon plastic blowup chair and see-through phone.

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Products:

• Base coat: Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1*
• White jelly: Catrice Milky Not Guilty
• Blue flash topper: DIY Blue Me Away
• Neon yellow: My Mood Overdressed**
• Holo: Revlon Holographic Pearls
• Stamping polish: Born Pretty black & white
• Top coats: Snails Water Based Topcoat (smiley face decals only), Catrice Power Gel 2 in 1, & Seche Vite

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* Not actually gel.

** This polish leans green but is supposed to be neon yellow, so I added yellow alcohol ink to the bottle to colour correct it.