Xochitl manicure

Hi everyone,


after searching through my husbands english dictionary (yep, the old fashioned paper kind, a huge Webber dictionary that could easily be used to step on to reach the highest shelves as it's at least 6 inches thick!), I still couldn't find anything that I could use as starting point for my entry for the letter X of the ABC Challenge. I finally decided to see if I happened to have a polish with a name that started with an X. Lo and behold, I actually had one: a lovely lilac colored holographic beauty named Xochitl. After I googled the word xochitl (as it wasn't in Webber's) it finally clicked. Xochitl is a name that is used in central and southern Mexico and it means 'flower' (thank you Wikipedia ;) So I decided to go with a simple manicure that featured lilac colored flowers, and this is it:

indoors, no flash

I started with the easy part:
- two thin coats of Barry M Plum on my thumb, index and pinky, followed by a coat of Seche Vite.
- three thin coats of OPI Alpine Snow on my middle finger, again followed by a coat of Seche Vite.
- one thin coat of OPI Alpine Snow on my ring finger as I was going to place a decal there anyway.

After that I painted a small rectangle of OPI Top Coat (the slow drying kind) on my silicone mat. When that was dry I stamped a floral image from B. Loves Plates B.02 Flower Power on it using Barry M Plum. I then colored in the flowers using Cirque Colors Xochitl and a small dotting tool, making sure to NOT color it in perfectly as I was going for a slightly more abstract look to match the chosen flowers (they looked like they were pencil drawn to me). Last but not least a coat of OPI Alpine Snow when the flowers had dried to make sure any air bubbles that could appear when applying the decal were hidden and my decal was finished, save for some more waiting to let it dry.

To apply the finished decal I started by painting some liquid latex around my cuticles. When that had turned transparent I peeled the decal off the mat, roughly cut it to size, placed it on my ring finger and carefully pressed it down. A clean up brush and some acetone took care of the remaining parts that were sticking out and finally a coat of Seche Vite to seal it all. And... done!

The polishes I chose are:

Barry M Plum, Cirque Colors Xochitl, OPI Alpine Snow

I don't think I've ever had to search this hard for a theme in the ABC challenge before but I'm quite satisfied with the outcome... I only wish I had made a picture with flash to show the holo-effect in Xochitl. It's a beautiful not too strong linear holo and when wiggling my fingers I can see some bright pink flashes. I definitely have to wear this one during the summer. Anyway, what do you think of my purple flowers? I really like them and hope you like them too :)


Here are the other X inspired manicures:

ABC-Challenge - X

Cirque Colors Xochitl was bought from Pretty Polish.