Dark Red French Tips with Red Glitter (Gradient Effect) with a small tutorial

I want to clarify something first: the integrity of this manicure and condition of my hands greatly diminished as I was taking these photos. I underestimated the drying time of the top coat before smashing my hands into my boxing gloves for my Boxing class. Since I have sensitive skin on my hands, all that punching reeked havoc on them. Please bear with me. :(

After seeing several of 'Chelle's French tip gradient manicures: here and here. I was feeling quite inspired to create my own without having to purchase any new polish! I decided to sorta make a small tutorial just in case there would be any questions as to how I did the gradient effect.

I decided to take pictures with flash and without flash because as you know, flash makes a huge difference on the actual color of the polish and the manicure as a whole.

• Dark Red French Tips (looks black): OPI's Midnight in Moscow (Swiss Collection). This is an extremely dark red color when it is in the bottle. I noticed that when I painted it on my nails, it was more of a black with red glitter in it.
• Red Glitter : Ozotic's 203 (which I got from 'Chelle from our Swap. Thanks again!). This is sheer red glitter with silver strips? or flakes? Not sure what they are called. Very pretty color though.
• Nude Glitter: Essie's Cool-Lots. I totally forgot to include this polish during the photo shoot! It is an extremely sheer nude glitter polish which I mainly use as a polish topper.

As you can see with the flash, you get a better picture of how dark the OPI Midnight in Moscow is. But with the flash, the red of the Ozotic Pro 203 is just a little too bright.

However, without the flash Midnight in Moscow looks reddish-brown and 203 is more on par with what the color really looks like.

This is just a close up of Ozotic Pro 203, you can see the little silver strips/flakes which I must say is what I love about this polish (besides the fact that it is a glitter polish). As you can see, the flash makes the red super bright!

Now here comes the small tutorial: How to create the "Gradient Effect".

So what I did here was create guidelines to show where you are suppose to apply the glitter polish. They are pretty self explanatory: first layer goes on first (black area), second layer goes on second (red area) and third layer goes on last (white area). Make sure to let each layer fully dry before applying!

I hope that small tutorial made sense! You can easily re-create this look any sheer glitter polish for your French Tip manicures. Let me know if this works out for those of you who tried this small tutorial!

Thanks to 'Chelle for the Ozotic Pro 203 and the inspiration to create this manicure!

Fierce Tiger Manicure

I AM OFFICIALLY ON SPRING BREAK AND BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOOOOOOODDD! :D. Sorry, but I had to let that out. :)

Anyways, moving on...



So, I decided to be fierce today and do a tiger print nail design, inspired by my nail design guru, Asami. She did a tutorial on this awhile back, but I never had the time do it because of school work and such. So now that I have the time, I was very impressed with how it came out. I've done a zebra print design before but i really like the tiger print because there is so much more color to it than just the bland "black and white".

In order to achieve this look I used two coats of a semi-sheer nude color from Essie's Vanity Fairest and then another two coats of a sheer glitter orange OPI's Goldilocks Rocks! I decided to use two coats of the sheer glitter because it was so thin and figured that another coat wouldn't hurt. For the stripes, I used acrylic paint from Micheal's (So much cheaper compared to the nail design paint from Sally's, I got on sale 2 for $1, but they usually are 59 cents. Plus you get a 2oz bottle, more bang for your buck. I originally got this idea from Asami who uses it to do her nail art. Very creative to use acrylic paint, I would have never thought of it.

I thought that using the glitter orange color would make the design look tacky, but it was the only orange color I had and I didn't want to go out and buy an orange color that I'm gong to rarely use. However, I was really surprised how well it came out. Wasn't as flashy as I thought it would because, because the black stripes helps deviate attention from the glittery base color. Overall, I am very pleased with how it came out. :)

Valentines' Day Inspired Manicure

This is manicure I did for Valentines' day. I know the integrity of the manicure is bit worn out as I had been wearing them for a week before I took this photo. It is something simple and not too complicated.

I used a swatch from OPI's Hong Kong collection, Meet Me on the Star Ferry. It is a purple shimmer, absolutely stunning. Not to mention my favorite as well! I applied two layers on to the tips for optimum color. Then I applied another two coats from Essie's Cool Lots. It is an extremely sheer peach nude color.

I usually free hand the designs on my nails but I was feeling quite lazy that day. Since my sister is into scrap booking, I took one of her heart shaped paper stampers and punched out a small heart. The paper I used was somewhat thick and sturdy so I applied some water to soften it. While my nails were still wet from the Cool Lots coat, I applied the heart punch out. As it dried, I applied top coat and especially on the thumb to reinforce the heart.

Thanks to my muse, Asami for inspiring this design! :)