Sea colours saran wrap mani

The weather has been so lovely in the UK lately that it instantly makes me think of being on a beach beside a beautiful shimmering aquamarine sea (I wish ;) ). With that in mind I decided to try and capture that feeling on my nails!



In direct sunlight

 I started off with a base of OPI 'Glacier Bay Blues' as per my previous post, then added a coat of OPI 'Thanks a Windmillion' on top. I then used saran wrap (otherwise known as clingfilm) to achieve the first layer of my mani.

'Thanks a Windmillion' is one of my favourite colours, it's a lovely seafoam coloured creme and gives really good coverage - from memory you only need 2 coats for full opacity.


In direct sunlight

 Once that had dried I added a coat of Deborah Lippman's 'Mermaid's Dream' and used clingfilm again. When I had looked at 'Mermaid's Dream' previously it seemed to be quite a thin, watery formula so I had used 'Thanks a Windmillion' to boost opacity, but as you can see 'Mermaid's Dream' completely covered poor 'Thanks a Windmillion'!!!

Nevertheless this is a beautiful polish - a turquoise metallic base with blue and gold micro glitter and blue sequins. Just like a mermaid's tail :)


Partial shade



Indirect sunlight

 This mani didn't turn out quite as I had planned, as I thought the 'Mermaid's Dream' would be more subtle and would be flashes of colour on top of the other two coats. I still like it though - I would do it again in the future and with other colours.

What do you think, do you like the colours? Can you see 'Thanks a Windmillion' peeking through?

Fx

OPI 'You Don't Know Jacques!' with bow nail art

My newest nail varnish purchase is the revered 'You Don't Know Jacques!' by OPI. This is probably one of the most famous OPI polishes ever made and has been copied (or 'duped) countless times by other brands. It was originally released in the 2008 autumn 'Collection de la France', and has became part of the permanent 'Classics' collection since then.

It's a brown taupe creme and in the bottle isn't something I expected to like - however I have to admit I really loved it on the nail! My only gripe is the formula is quite watery so needs at least 3 coats for even coverage.

 I decided to jazz it up with some nail art seeing as the weather is so nice in the UK at the minute.

In sunlight

I used 3 coats of OPI, then painted a cross on to my nail using Barry M 'Amethyst Glitter'. This is a nice glitter that I often use for gradient manicures as it's easy to drag evenly on the nail.

I then applied a topcoat of Seche Vite, then glued on a nail art diamante bow. The bow is much bigger than I expected and I think it will be gone within a couple of hours! I'm far too rough 'n' ready to keep something like that on! It looks pretty for now though, huh?

In sunlight again

Polishes used

 What do you think, do you like this colour? Do you already own it?

I've recently purchased quite a few nail art props and tools so will be experimenting with those over the next few weeks. In the meantime here is a pic of a mani I painted earlier in the week, but didn't have enough pictures of it in a good state to do a dedicated post. It has 3 coats of OPI 'Dulce de leche', Seche Vite topcoat, and a piece of fimo nail art (an ice cream cone as homage to the good weather :) )

'Dulche de Leche' is one of my favourite nail polishes and is used a couple of times a month at the moment!

I hope everyone is enjoying the good weather as much as I am!

fx