What’s Christmas without a fresh manicure?! Generally speaking, Gold has gone way out of style this year in favour of other metallic shades so I wanted to offer up a few alternative ideas for Christmas nail colours. Nothing too extreme – we’re just gonna keep it classy and mix in some glitter. And if you’re the nail art type, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram where I post all of my Christmas nail art!
Finding a good white polish is a journey for any nail art lover. And at some point during that journey, you’ll come to realise that one white polish probably isn’t enough when it turns out your favourite white base is pretty much invisible when you try to stamp it over plum, or the one you found that so perfectly stamps over dark black just looks like a hot, streaky mess when you try to wear it alone. I’ve been there too, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
To an outsider, it may seem excessive to name 4 ‘must have’ white polishes – it’s just white nail polish, right?! But think of it in real-life terms – you wouldn’t paint the radiators with the same paint you use on the walls. Just like you don’t paint the shed with the same paint that’s on your car. Each of them has different characteristics and yields different results so really, 4 white nail polishes is quite prudent!
I’m jumping right back in to the 31 Day Challenge where I left off and Day 21 calls for nails Inspired by a Color. The themes are very open to interpretation from today onwards so for this particular prompt, I normally try to pull inspiration from the name of a nail polish.
The one that caught me is a new collaboration shade from piCture pOlish and A Lacquered Affair (read Lauretta’s inspiration post here). The shade is called Ornate and I thought it would be a great excuse to pull out my current favourite MoYou plate from the Fashionista collection. The plate is covered in fancy baroque designs – all undoubtedly very ornate!
I’ve been excited about getting to the Galaxy Nails from Day 1 and I knew I was going to use Fool’s Gold as my base. It’s definitely not meant to be a realistic representation, but I think abstract galaxy nails are some of the prettiest.
I used piCture pOlish Fool’s Gold as my base colour. I sponged on piCture pOlish Totes, A-England Let Me In and Barry M Coconut for the galaxy effect.
No galaxy nail at is complete without a sprinkling of China Glaze Fairy Dust so I applied a thin coat of that before freehanding and dotting on the stars using White Acrylic Paint.
Finally I finished it off with Glisten & Glow HK Girl Top Coat.
piCture pOlish Bonkers
Diamond Glitter from Born Pretty Store (Colour #5)
Glisten & Glow HK Girl Top Coat
My base colours are piCture pOlish Chillax (Green) and piCture pOlish Swagger (Blue).
I stamped the design from UberChic Stamping Plate 1-03 using Born Pretty Matte White.
It’s topped off with one coat Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
I always assume that Day 6’s Violet Nails have to be somewhere on the purple colour scale so I’ve gone right ahead and thrown in a few different shades, including one that’s actually called ‘Violet’ just for good measure! I think I feel a skittle mani coming on for Day 7 of the challenge. It’s been a long time since I went for a complete skittle (normally playing it safe with a few accents) but the more I look at this mani, the more I think it could have been even more awesome if I’d thrown in a few different designs.
I used OPI Kiss Me – Or Elf! as the fuschia base colour, then topped with a thin coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl. I used NailVinyls Lightning Bolts and painted over with Kiko Gel Effect in Violet.
The glitter nails are two coats of piCture pOlish Lollipop over the Kiko Violet.
It’s all topped off with two coats of HK Girl to smooth things over.
