Nail Art: Perigean Tides Day

Early this morning, the moon reached its first perigee for the month, meaning it’s the closest to earth in its orbit. This leads to higher than average tides, and since I was completely stumped for nail art ideas for the week between Halloween and Remembrance Day, I settled on doing tidal based art. Blame my Dad, he’s a huge astronomy nerd. See more pictures and what I used for this look after the break.

I used a lot of untrieds for this manicure. I think everything but the base and top coats were new. I also used a new technique as I’ve never done a sponge gradient before, and I’m pretty pleased for my first attempt, even if it didn’t quite turn out like my plan.

I’ve had my eye on Liquid Palisade for a while, but can’t justify the $22 price tag, so I started looking for dupes. Turns out it’s basically liquid costume latex with purple colouring in it, so I went off to my trusty Amazon.com account and bought myself enough liquid latex to paint half my body for about a third of the price. I bought a $0.99 clear nail polish I had no intentions of ever using, emptied and cleaned the bottle, and after it dried used a funnel made of aluminum foil to pour some of the latex into the bottle. Unfortunately, after you paint this stuff around your fingers to prevent the sponging from getting everywhere, it turns basically transparent. Oops. I managed to make it work though, and after the sponging, I had mostly clean fingers! You probably want to know what I used already though.

I started with three coats of China Glaze – At Vase Value, which is a lovely colour with a mildly problematic formula. If I hadn’t been sponging over it, I probably would’ve gone for four coats. I used that and two other China Glaze colours for the gradient; Capacity to See Beyond from The Giver collection, and Well Trained from the All Aboard collection, both of which I just picked up from Sally Beauty on clearance on Friday. The gradient was supposed to look like the ocean blending into the night sky, so I put a coat of Hungry Asian – Dream House on, hoping to make it look like stars and light on the waves. It didn’t work out very well after I stamped, but it sure looked pretty beforehand. Dream House is an indie gold holo glitter top coat that I’m glad I picked up.

I stamped with CICI&SISI #14 from the jumobo yellow set #3, and Color Club – Over The Moon. I don’t actually own any wave-like stamping plates, so I used the tea steam from the right side of the collage portion of the plate. I probably should have turned it sideways to make it more wavey. I finished it off with some half moons on my accent nails, done in Julep – Tin Man; a weak silver holo from their Wizard of Oz collection. I sealed it all in with my usual finishing coats of essie – no chips ahead and essie – good to go. I find the combination of those two top coats lets my manicure last a longer time without chipping (I’m one of those poor folks who invariably gets chips on day two), and the quick dry coat lets me do anything at all with the rest of my day, other than walking around with my fingers held out of harms way for 4 hours.

How do you like my nails? Have you ever heard of the lunar perigee and its effect on tides before? I grew up in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, so you tend to learn a lot more about the ocean than you actually think you’re picking up. My Dad will probably be looking out his back door at how high the tides are rising on the lobster wharf a few miles from my parents’ house, begin glad they live on the top of a hill near the shore.