Tri Polish Challenge: Coral, nude and turquoise gradient with stripes

I liked the idea of doing a gradient with the nude and coral polishes but wasn’t sure what I’d use the turquoise for this time. I thought about a plaid or grid-like pattern but thought it might be a bit overwhelming so I decided on very simple sketchy plaid design to one side of the nail. I was also running low on time as I was meant to be packing for my trip to the UK and needed a quick design I could do easily.

I’m quite pleased with the results and like how the sketchy plaid lines have come out. The gradient could have been a little smoother but I like how the colours work together.

My summer in the UK is going to be an extremely busy one so I’m afraid I’ll be scaling back the posts on here – it’s likely to be just one or two a week until September when I’ll be back home and back to my regular routine. I’m also minus my photographer/husband over the summer so forgive me if the pictures aren’t up to their usual standard over the next couple of months.

Anyhow, here’s my Tri polish mani:

Techniques challenge: Gradient

I was really sad to have missed last week’s prompt of water spotted as I’ve only tried this technique once and would like to give it another go. I’ll definitely try and do it when I have a day free.

Gradients are a technique I love and often but not always have success with. I tried a vertical gradient not all that long ago with pastel shades (check it out here I wanted to try this technique again with bright rainbow shades. I came across something similar by Sparrow Nails who I borrowed the idea of a glittery topper from.

Mainly this gradient went well but I’m not sure I used the glitter topper well. One some nails where the gradient was’t as smooth as I’d hoped I was glad of it as it hid the gradient a bit and made it look really fun and rainbows. But then there were some nails where I was thrilled with my gradients and felt sad to cover them up with glitter – plus I think I was a bit heavy handed with the glitter on the middle finger.

Overall I’m pleased with it despite my nails looking very short after a nasty break on my index finger a couple of days ago.

I used: I Just Can’t Cope-Acabana – OPI, Papaya Punch – China Glaze, Pomegranate – Barry M, Violet Femme – Picture Polish, Baker Street – Nails Inc, Def Defying – China Glaze, Hello Holo – Essence

Techniques Challenge: Ikat

This is the first time I’ve tried an ikat mani and after looking at lots of pics of both ikat nail art and ikat fabrics I chose this pattern as my inspiration.

I liked the idea of doing a sponged gradient and then painting the ikat pattern over the top. I loved the warm fiery colours in the fabric and thought it would be the perfect choice.

I found the technique fairly easy although my polish went a bit thick and sticky on my middle finger so it doesn’t look great. I’m pretty pleased with the way the others have turned out though, especially as it’s my first time trying this technique.

I used: Bring Me Peach – Catrice, Papaya Punch – China Glaze, Encore! – Ciaté, Victoria – Nails Inc, Wanna Say Hello – Essence, Notting Hill Carnival – Nails Inc

GOT Polish: Purple

Can you believe I got the tape out again!?! Two manis using tape in one week is unheard of for me! I’m proud of myself for keeping on trying with tape. I tend to have more success with striping tape than normal stationery tape and get slightly cleaner lines.

I also find sponging over tape to be less messy, stressful and likely to lead to disaster than painting over it. I liked the idea of a regular looking crisscross pattern rather than random laser line taping this time and am pretty pleased with the result. My tape lines are still not perfect but they’re not looking too bad!

I used : Holland Park Road – Nails Inc, Impulsive – Revlon, Do You Lilac It? – OPI, My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI

GOT Polish: Skittles

I’m really pleased with this one and loved having it on my nails for a day! I decided to do a skittles mani using three of my very favourite polishes with different techniques on each nail.

Some of these are techniques I’ve loved from the very first time I tried them, namely water-marbling and gradients. I do a lot of gradients because it’s an effect I really love.

Striping tape, on the other hand, is one of my most hated techniques as I frequently mess it up. So I’m absolutely thrilled to have succeeded this time with relatively clean and straight lines! A couple of weeks ago I promised myself I’d work on striping tape manis and improve my skills – this is step one! Look out for more striping tape nail art coming up!

Stamping is the newest technique for me and I only own a couple of stamping plates. It might not be a perfect stamp, but at the moment I’m happy just to get the polish picked up and relocated to my nail!

This mani put a big smile on my face today even though it’s been a long and tiring week.

I used: Baker Street – Nails Inc, For Audrey – China Glaze, My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI.

Tri Polish Tuesday: Green, Purple and Blue

I’m a day late on this one, but I’ve been improving on getting my posts out on time and regularly this year, so one little slip up doesn’t matter too much…
I absolutely love the colour scheme for March’s Tri Polish Tuesdays. They’re all colours I own loads of different shades of and enjoy using.
I decided to go with pastels shades for the first mani this month and liked the idea of a gradient across my nails.
I think it worked pretty well and I’m happy with the result but it wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be. I started with a white base and it took 5 rounds of sponging to get the colours to come out this strongly! Usually when I do a gradient three layers are enough, two if I’m using very vibrant colours. It also created way more mess than any other gradient I’ve tried and these pastel polishes were not easy to clean up! But it’s a pretty, girly and relatively subtle mani to start the month!

I used: Mojito – Rituals, I Scream: Ice Cream! – Catrice, Play it Blue – Catrice

Let it Glitter – Tropical

I’ve got a bit behind on my posts as I was away in Seville for a conference this weekend… So this was meant to be my Sunday sparkle but now it’s late on Monday evening. I want to show you this polish though, as it’s a really fun one!

This is the first time I have purchased anything from Let it Glitter. They have a lot of really fun and sparkly polishes available but I was attracted to the bright colours in this green and blue non-metallic glitter. It has two different sizes of bright blue and green hex glitter pieces which would look great over so many base colours – I had a really tough time choosing what to layer it over!

It was surprisingly easy to apply and didn’t require as much glitter fishing as I expected it would. I didn’t need to dab it on as it brushed on nicely. It’s not a densely packed glitter and that’s one of the things that help it to be a great polish for layering over a variety of shades. I love the random polka dotty look that it creates. It also dries pretty quickly making if a fun and easy to use polish.

I decided to layer it over a pale blue to lilac gradient (mainly because I couldn’t decide which of the two colours to use!) but I’d like to try it over a yellow or pale orange next time to give it the tropical feel its name suggests.

I’ll have another Let it Glitter polish to show you soon as I couldn’t limit myself to just buying one…

I used: Tropical – Let it Glitter, Blu – Zoya, Violet – Kiko

33DC: Featuring the colour I own most of

Well the colour I own most of is easily blue. Not only has my collection of blues increased rapidly with my recent mission to find the perfect blue for my wedding but it’s always the colour I feel I need more of and am missing shades that are essential to my collection!

Doing the gradient manicure a few days previously reminded me how much I enjoy gradients but also how much I need to work on getting them smooth and perfect looking. I think I should have used a medium blue in the middle of this gradient as the pale to dark looks a bit grainy and isn’t as smooth as I’d hoped for.
Still, I think the gradient was fairly successful and let me use one of my favourite techniques as well as my favourite colour.

I used: My Boyfriend Scales Walls -OPI, Dreamer – Revlon, Southwark – Nails Inc, Belgrave Place – Nails Inc.

33DC: 3 Colour Gradient + Pattern

I’d seen these stunning nails by Coewless Polish a while back and thought of them immediately for this day of the challenge. I recently bought a matte topcoat and thought this was the perfect opportunity to try it out.
After my disaster with tribal nails earlier in this challenge I was really pleased with how these turned out and I love the matte top coat and can’t wait to use it again soon!

I used: Westferry Circus – Nails Inc, Mojito – Rituals, Pineapple Juice – Rituals, black acrylic paint, matte top coat – OPI

33DC : Chevrons

I’ve accepted the fact that I’m just going to be late for every day of this challenge – there’s just way too much going on in my life right now. But it’s a great challenge and I’m not giving up on it – I’m just going to do it a few days after everyone else!

I wasn’t sure what to do for chevrons that would be fun and a bit of a challenge so I had a bit of a browse on google images and found this fun chevron mani by My Dainty Nails which I had to have a try at recreating! I love gradients and sponging so I’m always happy to incorporate it into another style or technique.

I think I should have done the colours the other way round (lightest colour at the tip rather than darkest) as the pale yellow seems to get a bit lost next to the white, but it was a fun mani to do and I was pretty pleased with the results.

I used: My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Notting Hill Carnival – Nails Inc, Def Defying – China Glaze, Don’t Mess with OPI – OPI