notd – China Glaze Zigzags

I got inspired by a new skin on my phone’s keyboard last week. It’s purple and bright blue, and I love it. The only way it could be better is by changing the blue to a proper teal and giving it some orange accents, but that’s asking too much. And while I didn’t make those executive changes to my manicure, I did enjoy these nails while I was wearing them. Keep reading to see what I used.

Both of these polishes were from last years limited edition collections, one from early fall, and the other from Christmas. The bright blue base is China Glaze – Capacity to See Beyond from the movie tie-in collection for The Giver. I didn’t see the movie, but I’ve got a bunch of the polishes! They are lovely. This is two coats, and I did have some quite noticeable staining after two days, so be sure to double up on your base coat. I was wearing one coat, and definitely should have gone for the additional ridge filling coat as well.

I used chevron and mini zigzag vinyls from NailVinyls. This was my first time using them, and while it’s tricky to get things stuck precisely where you want them, I didn’t have too much trouble. They stuck down nicely, and peeled off nicely, and then my main problem was trying to get the sticky wet vinyl off my tweezers and onto something else without ruining what I already had done! I hear striping tape is even worse, but I haven’t tried that yet. It just sits in my drawer staring accusingly at me when I go to get something else. I covered them all up with China Glaze – No Peeking from the Christmas 2014 collection, which is a beautiful dusty purple shimmer that I picked up on clearance about a week ago.

I tried to wait long enough to let No Peeking dry before putting on top coat, and then tried to have a gentle hand, but as you can see, I had some streaking problems. I’m pretty certain this is user error, and not the fault of the top coat or polish. I just wanted to get going on something else. As an afterthought, I stuck on those cute blue rhinestones, and I think they added a nice bit of bling to my fingers. I have a ton of rhinestones (they’re cheap!), so I figure I should use them now and then to justify the space they take up next to the striping tape.

What do you think? What’s been your oddest inspiration for a manicure? How on earth are you supposed to use chopsticks and pencils with rhinestones on the nail you use to support them!? I hope you like it, so let me know in the comments. Have a great week.