Hello :) How's everything in your neck of the woods? Hope all is well, if not, I hope this Nautical-ish mani will help you out.
My inspiration was drawn from a very talented woman over at Nailside. She posted this gorgeous mani. And when I saw it I thought nautical immediately. Nautical could be red/coral & not just navy & white no? Ah well, it is now :) I loved the gold in hers & decided to utilize it in mine, but I changed the base color to Essie's ~ California Coral...
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| Here's my take |
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| 4 fingers for ya |
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| The obligatory closeup |
What I did: I did 2 coats of MAC ~ Immortal Gold (probably should have gone with the California Coral first - but hindsight is 20/20 ;). After topping it off with a nice coat of Seche Vite I then went my usual route of cutting strips of scotch tape to size & placing them accordingly where I wanted the gold to show through. I then removed the tape after the California Coral was applied. A few take-aways from this mani. #1 - Definitely going with the California Coral FIRST, I had to apply such a thick coat in order for the gold to not darken the red & had to work fast so it didn't become goopey & in the process ended up missing some of the gold towards the cuticle (see last pic). #2 - Since the coat was so thick I had a bit of an issue removing the tape - I was sooooo worried it's screw up my lines, but luckily there were only a few thin strings that pulled from the Coral unto the gold. #3 - Thick coat = A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF DRYING TIME before I could even think about applying another round of top coat. Boo with a side of Face Palm. Never again, lesson learned, note taken. Besides all of that I was extremely pleased with this mani, just when I think about throwing in the towel & just ordering striping tape I feel I keep getting better at cutting the strips :) Go me! I'm really loving tape manis & again, possibilities are endless. What do you think?
