matte

I did this mani about a week ago but completely forgot to post it until someone in a facebook group I’m part of started talking about this kit. I wanted to get the Chalkboard Manicure kit when it first came out but the price tag was a bit high and people didn’t seem to have amazingly positive things to say about it. When my local Sephora had a whole bunch of nail kits including this one at 10€ in the sale I thought I’d give it a whirl!

It said to apply the black Chalkboard Paint Pot directly to the nail without a base coat, but I was worried about black staining my nails so applied my base coat anyway. Unfortunately this made the polish behave like a crackle polish so I had to take it all off and start again.

The black dried pretty quickly and looked quite nice and even without a base coat. (I only wore it for a day but didn’t have any staining when I took it off).

As other people have said the pens are quite chunky for doing nail art with and take a bit of getting used to. They seemed a bit dry and scratchy at first but just needed a lot of shaking and coaxing to get a smooth flow of ink/paint coming through. It would take me quite a lot of practise to get a nice looking design using these but I did have fun drawing patterns on my nails. The blue pen seemed to work much better than the others with a smooth and opaque application. The others looked a bit patchier but also a bit more like chalk on a board…

The matte top coat dried really quickly and looked just as good as the OPI matte top coat I already own. A day later it was starting to look a little less matte but no more so than other matte topcoats I’ve tried – I think most of them need re-mattifying after a day or so if you plan to wear your mani that long. The kit was worth it for the matte topcoat which would have cost at least 10€ here in Spain anyway and I had some fun with the chalkboard polish and pens.

I’m not really into Pinterest – I’ve tried using it but it just isn’t my thing. I don’t have an inspiration board as such either. I’m more of a list maker and I do have lists and lists of things I want to try, links to blogs, pictures, ideas that I like so this is my version of an inspiration board. One of the things on my list was to buy a matte topcoat and to try a design that contrasted matte and shiny textures in one colour. I’d seen a lot of people do this with black polish but not that many in other colours. I was going to an important work dinner on Friday so I thought this would be a nice subtle manicure for the event. I didn’t feel that black was right for it though and chose a dark purple instead.
In hindsight I should have chosen a simple pattern like dots or stripes but went with something a bit floral which just didn’t work that well. I don’t think the purple polish helped either. I didn’t really like the result and think I should have spent a bit more time thinking this one through.
A bit of a disappointment but something that will stay on my inspiration/to try list for another day.