It's Friday! Always a cause for celebration, and this weekend is going to be extra fun as Beth and I are also off to see The Hunger Games. I just hope they don't deviate too much from the book.
Today's prompt is Grey + Colour, and my pattern was camouflage. Originally, I was going to pick something hot and bright as my colour, but in the end went for a milder choice - and regretted it.
As I've mentioned, my depression has been worse over the last few weeks, and when I'm troubled, I always look for the soothing tones of lilac to calm me and help me feel more centred.
I'd been itching to wear a-England Wuthering Heights since I bought it - a rich. deep, smokey, scattered lilac it sadly ended up looking much darker on my skin tone, and therefore didn't give enough contrast to the grey.
Polishes used - base - OPI I'm Totally Fort Worth It (3rd time of wearing in 4 years - wow lol) lilac - a-England Wuthering Heights grey - Barry M Chai
I deliberately did my grey over the top of my lilac to show how depresssion can be like clouds, trying to stifle the light within.
There's a lot of posts about mental illness at the moment, and it's so important to remember - You Are Not Alone.
Welcome to the end of the weeeeeeeek !!!! And perhaps my very favourite mani of the week, and one that if I had to wear it for all time? Well, I think I'd be quite comfortable with that.
This one probably looks least like its source pattern than any of the others, but we'll get to that! Let's just love the pictures!
I hate snakes so rarely do snakeskin manis, but really loved this bright version. I used 2 OPIs - I Ate Berries In The Canaries for my violet, and Cajun Shrimp for my off-red. I did 2 full coats of the former, and then dabbed on Cajun Shrimp, going over those areas twice to make sure they stood out.
The problem came with the stamping. The only snakeskin pattern I had was on MoYou Pro 04 and it's a really dense pattern. As you can see in the inspiration pic, the pattern is sparser and broken up.
So I hit on the idea of distressing my stamping, and eating bits of the pattern away with a cotton bud before I plonked on to my nails. This worked to an extent, and created the really interesting things you see on the index and middle nails.
I went for a full blown stamp on the little finger (can you see how black that is!) but then used what was left on the stamp on the ring finger - and I love the faded effect I got.
With hindsight, stamping with purple may have been better, but this mani entrances me on so many levels. It's bright, it's messy, it's gothic and it's glossy. What's not to love! See you next week xx
Today's mani is probably my least favourite of this week. I loved the source pattern, but somehow, it just didn't translate onto my nails.
Basically, this is a watercolour kind of base, with wiggly white stripes on top. I've seen this work brilliantly when you do a white base first and the splodge on top, but this had to be done the other way round.
And maybe that's why it doesn't work for me. The stripes look too solid on top of the watercolour and ... nah, I'm just not feeling it.
Still, I did use some pretty polishes - * OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls * Grace-full Nail Polish Jacinta * OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries * OPI matte top coat
Often, we strive for perfection, but you know what? Usually, messy is more interesting, and I fell in love with these scruffy chevrons I found on Pinterest.
Annoyingly, it took me til the middle finger to really hit my stride, and I love the middle and ring fingers (index and thumb are a little too conventional!).
I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Grace-full Nail Polish Jacinta, and then matted them for the final effect.
The REALLY annoying thing? When I was searching my stamping plates I found this EXACT design on Winstonia W203 - doh!
