This is my current manicure and it's basically a complete ripoff of this manicure by Wah Nails. I loved it so much, and I knew as soon as I saw it, I had to try it. it's genius! The "cutout" of leopard is so awesome, and the contrast of light creamy blue with neon orange is amazing. I used Orly Snowcone and a Migi nail art pen for the leopard and the tips are Color Club Amp'd Up. I don't know what shades Wah used, but it looked pretty similar to me.
Hey guys, I'm back from the ether. I've been MIA a lot lately because it seems like a lot of stuff is going on. I'm trying to get Christmas shopping under control and decorating, and to top it off I've had a string of seasonal colds that just pile one on the other and I've been dead tired and lazy. Hopefully it's almost over and I can share lots of fun manicures and products with you through the holidays. Today I'm showing you a manicure I did last week, (and that I'm still wearing... I'm so lazy lately) that I really liked. It's inspired by Wah Nails, which is one of my favorite sources for inspiration. It's a play on this pointy-nailed tribal-type manicure, but my nails are obviously squared and I added my favorite leopard. It looks badass on the pointy nails, and on me it's sort of manifested itself as a chevron French manicure.
I used Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, Wet n Wild Black Magic and Migi Nail Art Pen in Black on all nails, then for the colored stripe I used Color Club Puccilicious for the thumb, Essie Shorty Pants for the index fingers, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue for the middles, China Glaze Pool Party for the ring fingers, and for the pinkies I used Essie Pretty Edgy.
Here's my French manicure technique. I used CND Stickey and some products from the Seche Secrets of the French Manicure set. Hope you guys enjoy the video and I'll talk to you next week sometime!
Recently, I received some nail art products from Nailene along with the prizes they sent for the winners of the Beautopia Nail Art Contest, and I've been really liking most everything I've tried so far. I still have more product reviews to share with you, and you'll see them soon. Among the nail art stuff, there were two sets of fun decals with four different sheets each, and this blue rhinestone crescent really popped out at me immediately. It screams for a french manicure! So I did. I used my usual basic French manicure products; Seche Clear basecoat, China Glaze Moonlight and Seche Vite topcoat. I applied the decals with tweezers just before my topcoat application and I really liked the way these looked. The stones are all placed on a clear adhesive that when placed on the nails basically disappears and makes it look like the stones were hand-placed. I likes it. Here's a photo of the decals on the sheet.
Seche - Secrets of the French Manicure Kit - around $10 at transdesign.com
I have a lot to say about this kit, so be prepared for the verbose and photo-heavy post that follows the jump! I was sent this set by Seche, and was fairly sure before I used it that it was worth the price seeing as it contains full-size bottles of my HG Seche Vite and Clear top and base coats. This set also includes bottles of Porcelain and Rose as well as about 4 manicures worth of nail guide stickers.
EDIT: Exciting news peeps! Seche is giving away three of these sets to Beautopia readers!! I am so excited because I really love this product. Here's how to enter...
GIVEAWAY CLOSED:
1) Be a follower of Beautopia through either Google Friend Connect or OnSugar. You can find those boxes to the right of this post.
2) Leave a comment here on this post telling us what your favorite Seche product is. If you haven't tried Seche yet, what product intrigues you the most?
3) You can tweet about this giveaway on twitter; "Follow @BeautopiaBlog and RT to enter to win a Seche Secrets of the French Manicure set http://bit.ly/ahSDS1" You can tweet once per day till the giveaway ends, but please leave the tweet link here in the post. Sometimes tweets don't show up and I want to make sure you get an entry for every tweet.
Three winners will be chosen at random. The contest will run till midnight 15 May and is open to US residents only. Sorry International peeps, I try to do a lot of international giveaways and will be doing some more soon!
Nailene French Tip Pen - around $5 at drugstores
I recently received a few Nailene products to review and was especially happy to be able to try out this pen. I love the occasional French manicure, and while I usually freehand my tips with a soft white, the idea of a bright stark white appeals to me occasionally. Problem is, even though I do alright with a soft white, I am hopeless when it comes to the unforgivable stark white. I tried using this pen alone, and I couldn't hack it, so I used the Nailene French Tip Guides in conjunction with this pen. Upon opening the wide felt-tip pen for the first time, you have to press the tip against a tissue until the paint begins to flow freely. After that's done, you apply to the nail. I was really surprised by the opacity of this paint, there weren't any streaks to be seen even if I went over the same place twice. When used with the nail tip guides, the result was nearly flawless.
This is a French I did a while ago that I recreated with this pen. See the original design here.
Recently, I saw a post on PolishHoarderDisorder where she painted her nails with several coats of Nfu Oh 38 then added an opaque white tip for an awesome French Manicure. I haven't really used my Nfu Oh 38 yet so I wanted to give it a try with a similar manicure. I decided to use a soft white tip, China Glaze Moonlight, with a soft wash of the Nfu Oh over it and here's the result. The flakes are in a clear base, and are grey and translucent with a range of flash that runs the gamut between red, orange, yellow and green when the light hits it. In some lights, however, it just looks like a plain ol' French. It's pretty subtle yet fun.
I've been on a french mani kick the last few days, so bear with me. I thought I'd make it a little less redundant by putting them all in one post, so here you go! All three are over Color Club Milky White Base Coat and topped with Seche Vite. The above mani is done with OPI Desire for the tips, Essie Vanity Fair for the base, and then I used Konad plate m29, and China Glaze Heliyum and Color Club White to stamp the flowers then I dotted Color Club Rebel Debutante in the middle of the white flowers.
I love black nail polish, vampies, brights and everything in between, so needless to say my nails tend to get a bit stained. Unfortunately I also love sheers and french manicures, so when I get on a sheers kick, I'm left with Cheetos nails like you wouldn't believe. Aside from the infrequent buffing and/or soak in denture cleaner (insert laugh here), I have a secret weapon I've been using since it came out a couple years ago, and I don't know what I'd do if it went away; Color Club Milky White Base Coat. It's neither white nor milky, discuss. If it's anything else besides magnificent, it's inexpensive! You can get it for $4 at transdesign.com.
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