Little Practice Mix Up
Had a good little practice session again today, fancied trying glitter and French and I’ve bought some little spikes a while ago that I wanted to use for Christian Louboutin inspired nails and finally decided to get it done.
Top left: CJP French Silk with a crystal swirl. Been wanting to try a crystal swirl for a while, so today was the day. Painted the base, then added a swirl in metal silver liner gel from Temu. I went over this with Hona As If Detail paint, just in case there was any show through from the crystal application. Turns out there isn’t. I used a variety of mixed sized gems, and added the smallest caviar beads I have in silver – but really, I would like some smaller ones as I still think they loo too big on the nail.
Top 2nd: French Silk base again, and this time a crystal pattern which I love, but not as much as some of the designs I have already tried.
Top 3rd: I decided to use Alpine Plum from CND for the base on this one, and did 3 thin coats for a nice coverage. I found a similar looking glitter, Waterfall, from Lecente, so added a French tip in top coat, sprinkled over the glitter, set in the lamp and then dusted off the excess. I had a few gems left over so decided to go over the smile line with these, and then finished with shiny top coat. I’m really pleased with my application of the french and glitter – Waterfall is a fine glitter so has gone on in a thin layer, with nice coverage.
Top right: This is TGB Candy for the base. I was torn between this one and Ketchup but went for this one with the Louboutin design in mind. I had a 2nd attempt at the french with glitter, I cant remember which one this is. I added another line of glitter and finished with a chromed smile line using a Hona chrome. I like this one, but think it could look better.
Bottom left: Candy base again on this one and Lecente Milky Way glitter. For this one I used a different technique and mixed the glitter into top coat and painted it on as a liquid. It was good, but ended up a much thicker nail, so not sure I’d do it this way again.
Bottom 2nd: The Louboutin nail. I wanted to do the spiked pump, with the red bottom, and couldn’t resist stamping a shoe pattern on it too. I stamped in white, using Moyra stamping polish with a Yours plate.
I gave the white some time to dry and then added 2 coats of Candy. I then painted two layers of TGB Honey for the shoe insole. I then added the back outline to represent the back pump and added the spikes. I love this nail and I’m super proud of my line work.
It could be better, but for me, this is amazing.
Bottom 3rd: Having a look through my TGB colours for inspiration I spotted the Hola Holo which I haven’t used for a while. This is such a sparkly polish that I knew anything I added needed to be simple, so I opted for a French tip using Black Lecente gel polish. I love this design and my line work on this one.
Bottom right: For the last one today I decided to reverse the design above and paint the nail black with a Hola Holo tip – it looks good both ways and gave me another opportunity to practice French. Winner winner!
