#ManiMonday 28/09/2020

Happy #manimonday everyone! The spring carnival is nearly here, which means that I’m going to have a lot of outfits that need nails to match. So, let’s get into this week’s coral rose design.

Products used:

Stamping plate: Born Pretty “BP-L013” and PICT You “PY-J023”
Stamping polish: Born Pretty “BP-AC01 Pomegranate Red” and Hit the Bottle “Cactus Juice” and “A Flock of Seagulls”
Base: Sally Hansen “Double Duty Base & Top Coat” and Essie “Tart Deco” and “Blanc”
Top coat: Hit The Bottle “Water Tight” Smear Free Topcoat and Sally Hansen “Double Duty Base & Top Coat”

This particular outfit that these nails are based around, is one of my Fashion on the Field entries for the national competition (which is a virtual one this year because of COVID-19). As I want the nails to complement the outfit and not overwhelm it, I decided to do stamping only on my feature nail.

With an outfit to draw inspiration from the colour, selection wasn’t too hard this week. My whole outfit’s main colour is this coral colour, hence I wanted that to be on my non-feature nails. Then to tie my feature nail to them and because it’s present on my outfit, I opted for a coral rose. The outline of the rose was a little bit harder to decide as I was originally going to do black so that it stood out. However, this was a bit too stark for the overall look. The darker pink stamping also mirrors my outfit better. The base colours of feature nail (white and grey) were drawn directly from my outfit, while the green was a late edition to add a touch more colour.

Despite only stamping one nail, deciding which images to stamp in which colours were a struggle. The dots were always going to happen, but the rose caused some issues. Originally, I was going to stamp it in either my Hit the Bottle pink polish (which is very similar to the one I ended up using) or my black Born Pretty. However, the first didn’t provide enough contrast again the coral and then black was too stark. The black also picked up the rose with very thick lines so I tried another stamper which made the lines thinner, but it was still too much. Then I tried another flower which was more of a pansy because it was smaller and had leaves attached, which would have removed the need to stamp multiple times. However, it didn’t match the outfit as well and the black outline still didn’t look any good. So, I went back to the rose and used a different stamping polish pink, which turned out perfectly.

Deciding which leaves to do was also a struggle and it was third time lucky in this case. The first ones picked up perfectly but they weren’t exactly rose leaves (they were bigger and rounder) and the second ones looked great but required cleaning up (as they were in a group) and by the time my support worker went to stamp it onto my nail, they were dried to the stamper, plus they weren’t picking up perfectly. Then I saw these leaves that were on the same plate as the rose image. They were a perfect size, the right shape, were nicely spaced that the rose could fit better, and they were right next to each other, so only on pickup was needed. As a result of all those factors, I went with them.

In terms of pickups this week, it was a good, if we’re talking about just the images that I ended up using. The dots were probably the hardest to pick up, with a few missing either the middle or sides. A medium pressure using my sticker stamper seemed to work the best. As it was the dots in the middle that weren’t picking up the best, I do think it was a pressure issue. Luckily for me though, my rose was always going to cover them, so it didn’t matter that they weren’t perfect. I thought we might have problems with the rose because it has so many fine lines, but surprisingly it picked up perfectly every time. The leaves from that plate were also a dream to work with.

Overall, I’m really loving this design. It’s something different and has a really nice fresh and dainty feel about it. It also matches my outfit perfectly, in terms of colours and images! If you had a garden party or high tea, then this design would be great for that too.

Sadly, this will be my last #ManiMonday post for a while. I have decided to narrow down my blog’s niche and focus on my horse racing tips and disability and racing editorial pieces. However, if you enjoy see what I wear on my nails and what products I use, I will still be posting all of this on my new Instagram page “Velvet Court Nails” (@velvetcourtnails).

Thank you to everyone who has support my nail posts along the way. Bye for now but not forever!