Saturday, January 11, 2014

Challenge mani #3: Pattern

Well well, as you can see I am clearly late on this one. :-/  Apparently even though this is the "Totally Doable I Have a Life Challenge," I must've had a little too much of a life for it! hehe
Again, I had a couple ideas for "pattern" inspired nails; my first was a white base with rainbow chevrons, but I forgot to look for a small enough brush and wasn't going to head back up town.  SO, I pulled out my trusty dotting tool set and with a mani I'd seen earlier in the week (and now cannot find even after scouring my history!) in mind, I set to work. :)

Found a scarf at Maurice's that echoed the Mexican/Spanish vibe & my dear friend took a couple shots for me with her Droid. :D  Gotta love it when friends "get" your blogger tendencies!


The base color is two coats of L'Oreal Orange You Jealous?, then using my largest dotting tool, I added a towering arch of dots in Cult Nails Tempest (which even after this tiny bit of usage, I firmly believe it to be the best opaque white creme!), then filled in the dotted area to the tip of my nails using the polish brush.  Let dry, and repeat with NYC Tudor City Teal, which might be the worst  teal creme in terms of opacity. :(  I love the dusty teal color, but wow was it sheer!  I'd definitely call it more of a crelly.  See?!

Orange You Jealous? is a bit of a misnomer because it's really NOT this orange!  It's much more of a pinky coral, and not this bold either. :-/


I love love love L'Oreal's cremes for their smoothness, shine, and opacity in two coats and am definitely eyeing up a rich dark teal in their new gel line.  Should've gotten it today, actually.  Also, the L'Oreal brush makes application a breeze; these lovely half-moons with no cleanup are thanks to their slight half-moon shape at the end of the bristles. LOVE!  It's so nice when they make it easy for us to have clean cutes!!

Although I could've done the same on my other hand, I wanted to play with an actual polka dot pattern on the whole nail simply because I'd never done it.  I know, right?!  Simple polka dots and I've never done them.  As Vizzini says: INCONCEIVABLE!


After doing the Tempest dots, I also remembered the "off-center double dots that kinda look like holes" effect and gave it a shot. :P


And for a little bonus, this is what my pattern manicure reminds me of:




These were both taken in Spain; this style of arch is called an "arco de medio punto polilobulado," and is very popular in the Mudéjar (essentially Arabic) architecture.  Little did the Arabic artisans know it would also be very popular with pidgeons!!! LOL  ;-)



4 comments:

  1. What a beautiful mani and great selection of colors!!! I love the varying patterns on your two hands, what a nice variation. Sadly we don't get those L'Oreals here - we only have mini-bottles - and agreed on Tempest!!!

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    1. Thank you thank you dear!! :D You have made my night! I must admit I liked having the two different patterns. :) Ohhh how sad that you don't have normal L'Oreal collections. :( If you have some in your wishlist let me know and maybe I can figure out how to get them to you! You have minis, huh? Interesting... I've never ever seen a L'Oreal mini. Are they the same colors as we have, or totally different?

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  2. Oh my, I think you found your calling. These are PERFECT! You must have a steady hand because I don't see any flaws. Great color choices too :)

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    1. Awwwww seriously you are too kind!!! But I didn't really freehand this; it was all thanks to the magic of dotting tools. And the magic of Tempest. ;) I must say I very much enjoyed the colors too!

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