Love Song challenge mani

At the end of January, I joined a challenge group called Nail Crazies Unite. Week one only got posted to my Instagram and the Facebook group, but this week I am on top of things enough to get Week Two – Love Song up before the deadline. I had a pretty spectacular fail with my first attempt at a love song manicure, which involved double stamping over the red textured polish you see in this manicure, and you can see that on Instagram as well, but let us never speak of it again. Take a peek after the jump to see what finally worked for me.

This manicure was difficult from start to finish, starting with Sally Hansen Color Foil – Rose Copper over ORLY Ridgefiller and NOPI Matte Top Coat. Finding a base to apply this over was nearly impossible, and one of my nails actually has no base at all (and is reaping the orange stained rewards today, but that might also be from the red) because I got so frustrated with the metallic polish dragging up the base. In some spots it actually pulled it up in little rough bits, almost like an eraser. I loved the colour, even though it was a bit more orange than I anticipated. I’ll have to see about doing some experiments with bases later on, since I grabbed a bunch of these Color Foils on clearance.

I also struggled with stamping in Rica – Blackout, though it is an excellent opaque stamper when my game is on. Before getting the Rica, I always had soemwhat watery looking blacks. I am having to learn how it likes to be used, as it likes a much lighter scrape than I am accustomed to, but when I do it just right, it is wonderful.

Finally, I added some sweetheart tips in one of my new favorites (which arrived last week in the mail), Zoya – Chyna. Count on me to fall in love with the PixieDust line as they are phasing it out of production. Chyna makes me feel like I have slippers of crushed rubies glittering on my fingertips. I have three other PixieDusts and I am spacing them out over a couple weeks to try them, but I have tgo admit I want to go to the Zoya website and buy every last colour in the original Pixies before they are all snapped up. I have had at least 3 disappear from my cart as I wait and wait and wait to justify a purchase. Should have gone nuts back in the BOGO sale, but I didn’t get one even then.

How do you like my Love Song manicure? I couldn’t think of a specific song to interpret, so I went a bit more abstract, and I quite like it. Any tips on applying finicky metallics? The ridges on my nails are quite impressive in stature, so “no base coat” means Ridge City, and I like to smooth things out if I can. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.