Ya know, I really like galaxy nails! In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone be like ‘Nah, you know, I just don’t like galaxy nails’, because the truth is Galaxy Nails are BOMB! Over the years, I’ve created countless incarnations of nebula nails (which you can see here) and I thought it was about time to revisit them. You can also see a tutorial here – these are in pastel but the same concept applies.
Every week, an email drops into my inbox with the sole intention to tempt me to buy the latest MoYou releases. Normally this is an exercise in restraint for me because face it, we all want ALL of the MoYou plates, but last week I just couldn’t help myself. As if the announcement of their new worktop mat wasn’t exciting enough, they also released a whole bunch of Emoji stamping plates. Needless to say, I was all over that shiz!
Striping tape is the oh-so-obvious choice for Day 12 of the Challenge but it’s a classic and I just couldn’t resist. This is another technique that I went through a huge ‘phase’ with a few years ago and I haven’t really revisited it properly since last year’s challenge.
I didn’t go in to this with a plan – just my striping tape and tweezers in hand. I took it one nail at a time and just went with my instincts, trying to make sure no two nails looked the same. I really love this look and especially how the colours work together. This base colour (Sally Hansen Ion) is what I would describe as a white-greige but I think it really takes on the tone of the purple in this close proximity.
My base colour is Sally Hansen Ion and I topped that with a thin coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl to dry it fast and hard.
On top of that, I laid out my patterns using some White Striping Tape. I painted over the tape one nail at a time with NYC Lavender Blossom and removed the tape immediately.
It’s all finished with two more coats of HK Girl to smooth things over.
The plan for my gradient nails was to recreate the smoky black and white gradient from Day 7’s Black and White Nails but when the time came, I caught a glimpse of the sunset and changed my mind! The sky was a pale blue fading in to orange at the horizon and I knew it would look just as beautiful on my nails.
I used NYC Raindrop first, followed by China Glaze Peachy Keen to create the gradient. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the video tutorial!
On to the rainbow nails! This one’s always a nice treat for me as typically I steer clear of multicolour combinations. This style is a play on my streaky watercolour look using a flat nail art brush (much like this one). I didn’t thin out the polish as much as shown in the video because I wanted the brush strokes to be more visible.
I used Barry M White as my base colour, let it dry thoroughly, and painted on the colours with a flat nail art brush.
Those colours are
Red: OPI Cinnamon Sweet
Orange: NYC Sunny Manhattan
Yellow: NYC Lexington Yellow mixed with Revlon Buttercup
Green: Sally Hansen Grass Slipper and Kriston 10
Blue: Kriston 52
Purple: Lacquer Lab Ultra Violet
If you follow me on Instagram, these nails might look kind of familiar! Since the challenge started, I’ve been working on these manis for the challenge quite late in to the night. By the time I was done with these yesterday, I didn’t have it in me to sit down and write the post so I totally just crawled in to bed and grammed from there! #nailbloggerproblems
I didn’t go for an all out metallic this year, as I’ve never really been a fan of the all over foil look. I do have a lot in my collection though because they’re unbeatable when it comes to stamping. I get a lot of questions about stamping and, in particular, which polishes work best. The answer is always chromes! I’ve only ever come across one chrome polish that didn’t work for stamping and that’s because it was a watery mess. This copper from Beauty UK is a couple of years old now, but still one of my favourites. Plus copper is so in right now. Pinterest said so!
While we’re here, let’s have a little little recap of the challenge so far… Although it’s technically 10 days in, metallic nails are the prompt for Day 8 so I’m a little behind. I’ve done the nails up to Day 10, I just haven’t had a chance to blog them yet so I’m hoping the weekend will give me a chance to catch up.
…I used NYC Statue of Liberty as my base colour. Once that was all dry, I stamped on this geometric design from Bundle Monster Polynesia Stamping Plate BM-XL119 using BeautyUK Olympic Bronze. It’s all topped off with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
When you want some fine lines in your nail art, there’s no beating a bit of stamping. This plate from MoYou (Sci-Fi 05) has a couple of designs featuring insanely thin lines but I went with this circuitboard pattern for a suitably technologic design.
My base colour is NYC Pier 17 and I stamped the design with GOSH Metallic Blue from MoYou Sc-Fi Plate 05
