Changing Scales, Ft. MoYou London Animal

Hello Readers!


Today's post is another #clairestelle8challenge post for instagram, and the prompt this go-round is "scales". I thought about being cheeky and doing a music-themed mani with "do re me fa" stamped across my nails, but in the end I really wanted to play with some of my new neon polishes for summer, so I came up with this:

My idea is that the little chameleon is changing colors, but he's still a little chameleon and hasn't quite figured out how to get his tail to change. He's practicing his technique here.

Valentine Turtles ft. MoYou London Animal

Hello Readers!

Today's mani was a wish-fulfillment type mani that didn't quite turn out as I hoped it would. When I first laid eyes on this MoYou London Animal plate, I noticed that a lot of the animals on it had tiny hidden hearts or more obvious hearts, so I thought it would be a great one to use for Valentines Day. Unfortunately, I kinda made a rookie mistake with my pattern mixing and I'm not crazy about the mani, but here it is anyway:

So the "rookie mistake" was trying to put together the hearts and the small turtle image. I feel that because they are so close in scale and from a distance, they are kind of a similar image, having them both on there makes the mani a bit too "busy". I wish I had painted my pointer/pinky fingers just the straight dark pink and maybe added a little stud to them or some light pink stamping of just a tiny triangle, or simple stripes. BUUUUUUT  I really wanted to emphasize the hearts because I wanted it to be more valentines-y.

So my base color is another one of those light, shimmery, sheer pinks but this time it's a Revlon Gel Envy, which I always find to have excellent formulas. This was better than most polishes in this color family, and I only had to put on 3 coats. If you squint you can still see the faint outline of my nail line, but I was ok with that.

So my turtle images come from this MoYou London plate, as previously mentioned.

And the texture images I used for the nail with the turtle come from this plate. First I stamped arrows in pink, then placed the turtle decal. Next I added a swipe of dark pink polish to give the turtle something to stand on, and I felt like it looked empty so I added stamping over that in black.

30 Days of Color Challenge: Treasure Chest

Hello Readers!

Because I was inspired by the theme, and because we are encouraged to make as many nail art looks for each prompt as we desire for the 30 Days of Color Challenge group, I decided to do a second mani for the prompt "jewels". I thought it would be fun to use some jewel toned polishes for this prompt, and I also thought the a little bit of treasure would fit in with the "jewel" theme.

I used two untried polishes for this: The green duo-tone, which is a new polish from the Kandee Johnson line called "Mermaid Tail", though I think it looks a lot like "Kameleon" from the Kylie Jenner line, I don't own that polish so I can't really do a close comparison. The other untried is the JLB "Creme Burlee", which I used to fill in the treasure chest.

I have to admit, the name of the "Mermaid Tail" polish was a big inspiration here. It is a perfect mermaid polish, after all, so I felt compelled to use it with a mermaid theme. And for literal mermaid tails, on my middle finger. This polish has a great formula; I could have probably gotten away with just one coat but I put on two anyway.

The two plates I used for this mani are both from the 2016 Bundle Monster/Blogger Collab collection, and they are two plates that seem to be made for each other. The treasure chest image comes from this plate, in the bottom left hand corner.

And the mermaid tails and silhouettes come from this plate. I've been wanting to use that mermaid tail image for quite some time now, so I'm pleased I finally got around to it.

Be sure to check out some more jewel-themed manis in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up