French and Valentine’s

Today’s practice I decided to revisit French, and try and get it a bit smaller and a bit neater.

These tips are Temu pre-coloured tips to save time on painting the tip. I started with the three nails top centre, using the Hona As If detail paint to create the French tip. The idea was to see what the colour looked like on different tips. I really like them all to be honest, but I think the periwinkle / violet colour is my fave.

I kept the tips matte and top coated only the French part of the tip to see what this would be like. I like it, but I do prefer a shiny nail finish.

I then decided to just do the tip in the top coat, and chrome it. I tried very hard to keep the tip thin so it didn’t have too much bulk, or at least noticeable bulk, at the tip. This one is the top left grey nail, with gold chrome.

I have seen quite a few tips where half of the tip is one colour and the other half is another colour, so bottom left, the red tip, has half chrome gold, and half just plain top coat. I top coated the half I wanted to chrome first, and faffed about trying to get the edges as neat as possible, added the chrome, and then top coated the whole tip area to seal the chrome and create the contrasting shiny tip half. Better picture below:

I decided I really needed to do an original white tip – and the result is the top right nail, white tip on blue nail. I hate how bulky this looks. If that was on my nails, I would just pick that off with my teeth straight away.

To finish off I wanted to try pigment powder, versus chrome and opted for a Valentine’s theme.

Bottom centre is using a Yours plate – Fashion Vibe – the lips stamp. I used the Moyra foil stamping polish in black, which I think is running out. I used a neon pink pigment powder – but over the black they look a nice shade of maroon. I then added 3 different colours of pink chrome to the other lips, but it’s so subtle you can’t really see any difference in the colours.

Because I didn’t want the chromes to smudge into each other I pressed the chrome into the stamping polish. When I got to the last few I rubbed – and there is a difference. The chrome that was rubbed is much smoother in appearance to the pressed in chrome. Even when I went back over and rubbed the chrome that had been pressed in to the polish, it stayed looking more like glitter than a chrome effect.

Useful to know, that I can create a glitter look, but keep the thinness of a chrome application.

For the last nail, bottom right, I swapped to the Moyra white foil stamping polish, and used the Lina Twirls and Swirls plate, using 3 different designs – two full designs, and the top hearts were part of a different stamp pattern, but I removed the rest of it and just used the top tiny hearts.

Each part used a different chrome, getting darker towards the bottom. The top is pink chrome, the middle a pinky-purple, and the bottom a purple. Sadly, there isn’t a noticeable difference in the two bottom colours, but the top is definitely lighter and pinker.

I went back to the tip I created yesterday – the super long coffin, and filed it back into the shape I wanted, and the glitter was still visible, so, no problem. I re-top coated and then attempted to stick it to my little finger. The first glue I tried was a Gel Bottle – it had gone completely solid and had to be thrown away.

For my second attempt I found a Nail Mate nail glue, but despite all efforts, I couldn’t get it to stick. I gave up in the end as I was making a mess of my natural nail, and also ruining the tip. I now have just a clear base coat on my pinkie, and it looks alright, very natural, and it’s protected from breaking, so should last a while. And that’s it for today.