Checkered Fancy French Nails and Not a Rainbow in Sight!

I love glitter, blah, blah, I think you get the picture by now.  HOWEVER, you haven't seen me to do a checkered pattern with matte square glitter now have you? HUH??? Yeah, that's what I thought.  It's that kind of day.  Not even a sparkle or rainbow in sight, too!  Cos that's a good segue.

I knew I wanted to do checkers with this matte square glitter I ordered off Impulse Co on Etsy, the trick was trying to find someway of incorporating it without me having to spend a year doing it full coverage on all my nails.  The obvious choice with black squares is white but I wanted to do a bit of twist, with a slight gradient on my tips.  To do this, I started with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then sponged on said white, Sally Hansen Wet Cement and Grey Area on the top third of my nails.  Once dry, I used my usual technique to apply the glitter.  I started by centering a piece right at the end of my nail, then made a diagonal row out to the sides, lining the glitter up corner to corner.  I then just filled in the gaps.   

The Verdict: I'm kinda proud of my for not only getting my square glitter to line up nicely, but that I did so without using a single rainbow or sparklie.  I'd say that I'm growing up but that's not true and I kinda wanna do this again but over a neon rainbow...mmmm sparkly rainbows.  This cool too though :D

Rainbow Nails, Mixing Matte and Shiny Glitter Together for All That Texture

I'm not really sure how to introduce this manicure, other than I love it but am scared for my sanity over how long it took to do.  This took a long time to do.  Like, a LONG time.  Like, I'm not going to tell you how long, cos it's a long time.  I don't care though because I had the TV show Scandal to keep me company and now I have the most rainbow-y nails in this apartment.  Let's take a look at this monstrosity, shall we?

When I did my computer logo nails last week, I fell just a bit in love with the rainbow glitter as all the colours went together perfectly.  My brain of course then wanted to know what would happen if I mixed it with the matte glitter I received in the same order from Impulse Co.  Turns out, not only are the colours perfect but the contrast of the matte and shiny together looks awesome.  To start, I applied two coats of Rimmel Black Satin when went to work using my usual technique.  As usual, I started with a stripe down the middle of my nail then just built out either side.  Yes, I did also trim pieces to fit around my cuticle and tips.  By this point I'd already spent so much time on this what's a little more time to leave no gaps?

The Verdict:  I don't know how to words for this.  I love them so much, even though I suspect a few people won't understand why I'd spend so much time doing this.  It's totally worth it for me, especially close up.  The mixture of textures is perfect and I love them.  I only wish the shiny glitter was holographic but we can't always get everything we want.  I think I might be leaving these ones on for more than a day :)

Alternative to Full Coverage Rainbow Glitter Mosaic

Let me start off by saying thanks to everyone for being so supportive - in general but also for my crazy glitter mosaic I did on Saturday.  I didn't get a single "Ain't nobody got time for that" gif!  I understand that not everyone has time for quite that intense a glitter mani so I thought I'd put something together that uses the same glitter, but takes significantly less time to do.  I managed to get the whole thing, from base coat to top coat - ON BOTH HANDS (OMG) - done in under an hour.  Let's take a look, shall we?

I've done a mani like this before but I wanted to use the same mix of matte and metallic glitters I used in my last post.  To start, I did the usual base coat and two coats of colour, using Essie Protein Base Coat and Rimmel Black Satin respectively.  Then, using my usual technique, I just painted a stripe of my cheapest top coat and, starting on the left, laid down a row of rainbow glitter.  If you look carefully, you'll see that your hexagons will rarely be perfect but will be elongated, ever so slightly.  If you line up the longer sides together, they'll sit nicer.  Finish off with a coat or two of a top coat like Seche Vite and you're good to go.

 

The Verdict: I got this finished in under an hour which is marginally more reasonable than taking most of a weekend day.  And now you get rainbow laser nails!  The trick, of course, is finding the right glitter but you can do this style with just about any colour or size glitter, as long as it's lined up properly.  This glitter I bought from Impulse Co on Etsy but I'm sure that any pre-mixed little pots of glitter you find on Etsy will do. Yay glitter!

The Other Hand: THE SAME, BAM, DONE.