Friday, September 7, 2012

31 Day Challenge - Day 7: Black & White



With such a visually striking colour theme, I decided to keep the design as simple as possible; I'd like to think it was a great success. This manicure is very much girly yet sexy, classic but modern, edgy and sophisticated all at the same time.

I used two coats of each Essie - Blanc and Wet n Wild - Ebony Hates Chris to achieve an opaque base. It's extremely difficult to find a great opaque white polish that isn't too runny, too thick, or too streaky, but Blanc does a pretty great job at not being any of those things. In contrast, a black opaque polish is easy to come by, and even in less expensive brands such as Wet n Wild, the quality is still great. So why not save a few extra dollars with a drug store brand?

For the stripes, I used a black and a white Kiss striper polish, which comes with a very long, thin striping brush. This look can also be achieved by using a separate striper brush and just using the black and white polishes name earlier. I had the Kiss polishes on hand, so that is what I used. I do, however, find that the striper polishes tend to dry out much faster than regular polishes, and it's extremely difficult to make thin, crisp lines with thick, goopy polish. I added a few drops of a nail polish thinner to mine just to get a nice consistency to paint with.

I think out of all my challenge nail designs, these are my favourite this far. They're so simple yet striking, and so easy to accomplish that anyone could master this design with a little practice.

Thanks for reading, and see you tomorrow for the next challenge: metallic nails! Haven't I done some already? Haha, whoops.

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