Sponged Fan Brush Nails & A Bit On Clean Up

Happy Thursday Loves,

Hello my friends, hope you well and are having a good week so far.  Mine is going pretty good and tomorrow is Friday already, yay :)

Today I have some really cool nails to show you and also some talk about clean up.  Many times I will say how clean up can be a bitch with certain manis and figured it was time to tell you about how I do my clean up of those manis that get messy while you are doing them.  I'll show you my mani first then do the clean up talk after that :) For today's nails I used some eye shadow applicators to sponge the colors on the nails, then used a fan brush to do the stripes on top of the sponged nails.  I LOVE the way these came out so much.  They are so fun and happy nails!

I did my base with OPI "Gelato On My Mind", then sponged the following polishes on: OPI "Purple Palazzo Pants", OPI "That's Hula-rious!", OPI "Got Myself Into A Jam-balaya", OPI "Can't Find My Czechbook" and OPI "That's Hot! Pink".  I then used a fan brush and brushed on OPI "Rich Girls & Po' Boys", then did one coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" on top of those.  I used Color Club "Daydream Believer" as the glitter accent.  Hope you like them, I sure do :)

Gelato On My Mind on it's own. I love this polish, it's so pretty.  I think this was from the Fall collection from last year.

Now, onto the clean up.  I'll show you the tools I use and tell you how I do it.

From left to right, paper plate I use for putting polish on when I do nail art, a fan brush (I didn't get a pic with the eye shadow apps in it tho', I just use any little cheapie ones I can find), a plastic cuticle pusher, tweezers and my two clean up brushes I use.  I use the plastic cuticle pusher flat end to wipe any polish off that gets on my cuticles and around the nail as I am painting them.  I do this as I go and that works really well for me. The tweezers I use to get the random cat hair that ALWAYS ends up on a nail or two, LOL.  The clean up brushes I use to neaten up my polish around the nail and to get any polish off my cuticles that the pusher may not have gotten.

In this picture is my little dappen dish that I put acetone in to use during clean up and my disposable eye shadow q-tip things.  When I do nail art that is super messy I put some lip balm on around my nails to help with clean up.  The lip balm seems to make it easier to get the polish cleaned off of the skin. I'll soak the flat ends of the q-tips in the acetone, then use that end for the majority of cleaning the polish off my skin, then dip the pointy end in acetone and use that end to get the skin/nails by my cuticles, then the small tan brush for any other final clean up.  This is my way that I clean up and it's what works for me.  You can get the little dappen dishes at Sally Beauty or pretty much any nail supply store you may find in your area, but, if you can't find one, a shot glass or the cap from your polish remover or acetone bottle will work too.  I always use straight acetone for both polish remover and for clean up.  I prefer straight acetone to other removers that have other stuff added to it.  Just remember that it is drying and you should make sure to moisturize really well after you are done with your mani.  There's also my latest new Walking Dead lighter Casey got me so of course I had to let that be in this pic :)

Here's my nails and the mess after I sponged them.

Here they are after the fan brush, see that mess, lol.

There you have my clean up process, hope this helps you with your own clean up if you need some clean up tips :)

That's it for today.  Have a great rest of the night and here's your feel good for today :)

"I will go anywhere as long as it's forward."

This one is pretty awesome.  I like it!

I leave you with Mr. Kitty and Buster.  Talk soon my loves!!!

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?