#ManiMonday 30/03/2020

Happy #manimonday everyone! I’m officially in isolation so this look is the first of many that my mum will be doing. So, let’s get into this purple and orange zig-zag design!

Products used:

Stamping plate: Born Pretty “BP-L006”
Stamping polish: Born Pretty “BP-AC04 Tulip Celebration” and “BP-Q03 Last Dance”
Base: Sally Hansen “Double Duty Base & Top Coat” , Essie “Blanc” and Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy “240 Amethyst”
Top coat: Sally Hansen “Double Duty Base & Top Coat” and Opi Australia “Rapid Dry Top Coat”

Mum hasn’t had as much practice doing my nails as my support worker, so I decided to start isolation off with an easy, one stamped look. This look was slightly inspired by some pictures off Pinterest and by nbnailart’s Glam Nail Challenge on Instagram, with zig-zags being a theme later in April.

With Easter coming up and Easter nails meaning pastel colours, I decided to go bold with a purple and orange look this week. These colours are also best friends as they are opposite each other on the colour wheel. I went with plain purple nails instead of orange because I thought orange might be too “in your face” and also purple is my favourite colour.

In terms of pickup rates, it was pretty good, with just the centre missing out a few times. However, my left hand (shown below) definitely turned out better than my right (which is the hand I always photograph). This was mostly due to the placement and number of colours spots though. On my left hand, we did 5 purple spots on the plate (in the shape of a 5 on a dice) and 4 orange spots (filling in the gaps). Then on my right hand, we did the opposite just to see what it looked like but also because we were worried about the orange polish picking up the purple and putting that back into its bottle, ruining the colour. It may just be personal preference, but I think having more purple in the zig-zag ties in better with the plain nails. So, if you’re recreating this look, I would suggest having more spots of your main colour on the stamping plate.

In other news, my Essie ridge filler base finally ran out and you can no longer buy it. Mum brought another one but it’s actually a strengthen primer, not a base coat. It was a bit oily to put on to start with but dried fine. I then put the Sally Hansen base/top coat over the top of it. However, Mum doesn’t have any polish on her nails at the moment and she put the primer on. It gives the nail a really nice shine. So, if you’re taking a break from polish but still want your nails to look nice, then I would definitely suggest this primer.

As I have plain polish on most of my nails, it meant that I didn’t have to stamp a topcoat onto them. So, this week I used the Opi Australia Rapid Dry Top Coat on my plain nails. It gives the nail polish a really nice finish, but I’m not so convinced about the wearability. Let’s be honest, I don’t really do much with my hands because of my disability (which is why my nails last forever) but my typing pointer on my right hand has already chipped and so has my thumb. I’m not sure if my nails chipped this week because there are not as many layers on, whether the primer didn’t help or whether it was the topcoat. I’ll have to experiment in the coming weeks and let you know.

Overall, this is another simple and easy look to create if you’re in a rush but still want something effective. It can also work with any colour combination.

Bye for now!