March BHB Mani Swap

Who is ready for Spring?  Well, I'm ready for summer, I've already pulled out the NEONS!!  Read on for my inspiration and how I put this mani together!

Fun Floral Mani

So, it was mani swap time in my group of awesome nail friends!  This time I was paired with Heidi from @crooked_mani on Instagram.  Go give her page a look, she's got some really beautiful manis!

For this month's swap, we both chose neons to recreate.  Seems Heidi is just as ready for warm weather as I am!  Heidi chose my Pipe Dream Polish water marble and she did a fantastic job with her recreation in the pic below (originals on left, recreations on right).

Mani Swap!  Originals on left, recreations on right

For my recreation, I pulled out colors from the Pipe Dream Polish A Night In Vegas Cremes collection.  I used On The List, Happy Hour, VIP Pass, and High Roller.

L-R: OPI Nail Envy, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Pipe Dream Polish On The List, MPolish black prototype, PDP Happy Hour, Qtica nail growth stimulator, PDP VIP Pass, PDP High Roller, KBShimmer Clearly On Top

I decided to try a new base from Qtica designed to strengthen and grow natural nails.  I received it as an extra when I ordered from Zoya.  I used one coat on my natural nail, then used a coat of OPI Nail Envy over top.  At the time, I was hoping to see the nails on my cindy hand thrive and grow to mirror my long nails on my swatch hand.  You'll see the flaw in this theory at the end of this post.

I painted two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White over my base, and then when that was dry I started sponging.  I dabbed the four PDP polishes on a dry latex-free cosmetic sponge and then dabbed them over each nail.  I wasn't really going for gradient, I wanted some white patches to show through, but I put a bit too much on the sponge, so I just went with whatever effect occurred.

Sponging with polish

I thought this was a pretty good starting point.  I didn't want the colors to be too rich, so I just stuck with one pass of sponging.  If you want more vibrant colors, a second or third pass would be best.

Sponging over a white base, pre-topcoat

I picked out a couple of images that I thought were close to what Heidi used for her stamping.  I ended up pulling my Pueen plate 65 and MoYou London Pro XL plate 10.

Pueen Plate 65 from Stamping Buffet Set

MoYou London Pro XL 10 

I used the black prototype from MPolish again for this since it is so opaque.  I had much better luck with it this time.  It just worked very well with these two plates and my BPS XL squishy stamper.  I used a good bit of pressure when I rolled and picked up the images.

Daylight shot

On my cindy hand, I tried to isolate the leaves image from the Pueen plate, which I succeeded in doing, but then my double stamping over top didn't come out so hot.... lesson learned, use a different color, lol.  I never said I was a logical thinker.  :-p  I topped all of my nails with a coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top quick dry topcoat.

Daylight shot of Cindy

And I caught a macro of one of my nails, just 'cause.

I love macros!

Since bright wasn't enough for me (lol, of course it was, but let's bring on the bling!), I grabbed my ILNP My Private Rainbow L+S (linear and scattered).  It had a pretty subtle effect over this mani, which was quite alright with me.  I just used one coat over top, and then topped it again with KBShimmer Clearly On Top.

Mani topped with ILNP My Private Rainbow L+S

Sunlight shot

More sunlight macros!

So, the flaw in my theory.  I neglected to take into account the possibility of a devastating break on my swatch hand.  Which of course, happened.  A NAILTASTROPHE!  Seriously, this was just one more thing that I didn't need to deal with that morning.  Thank you drawer, you could have just opened when I pulled on you instead of snapping my nail.

I knew this was inevitable, but it doesn't hurt any less!

So I offered a one-finger salute to the drawer that ruined my happy nail family, as well as my dear middle fingernail that decided to betray her sisters.  What a bitch.  I considered letting her be to feel very inferior to her family.  But I'm not heartless.  So I did the unthinkable and chopped all the rest down.  I was so sad.

Dear Drawer: Fuck you very much, sir.

So this was a bit of a setback in my nail journey, but one that is not unheard of.  So I'll just deal with it, and maybe try to will my nails to grow faster so I don't have to look at these nubs.  Which are, laughably, the length that I used to keep my acrylics at so many years ago.  Well, except for that middle finger....

How do you deal with a major break on your picture hand?  Any suggestions besides tender loving care?