Friday Triad: inspired by @badgirlnails

Hi everyone,


It's the last Friday of the month so that means it's time for the Friday Triad again, where Michelle, Juanita and me present a manicure inspired by a manicure one of us has chosen. This month was my turn and I picked a gorgeous manicure by Sonia from @badgirlnails. It's been on my list to recreate for ages so what better time than now, right? This is what my version looks like:

I started by painting my thumb, index and pinky with two coats of OPI Ski Teal We Drop, a lovely dark teal that could be close to a one coater if you use a medium coat (makes mental note to try this one for stamping). My ring finger received two coats of OPI Alpine Snow, my go to white polish, and my middle finger was covered in three coats of Rimmel 007 Shooting Star, a pretty silver textured polish that doesn't have many larger glitters in there.

After a coat of Seche Vite to help everything dry (of course I skipped my middle finger) I placed a hearts vinyl from Whats Up Nails on my ring finger and used Cirque Colors Storm King, OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui and OPI Ski Teal We Drop to sponge a gradient on top. I immediately removed the vinyl to keep the lines as crisp as possible and grabbed a book to read a bit while I let everything dry completely before applying another coat of Seche Vite for a shiny finish. This is what my nails looked like at that point:

Sonia mattified her nails so I did the same, using OPI Matte Top Coat. I painted a thin coat over my middle finger as well to tone down the glitters a bit.

To put the finishing touch on my manicure I had to add some studs. Unfortunately I didn't have any that I felt were right so in the end I used my trusty dotting tool and a drop of Shooting Star to make 'pretend studs' that were also mattified using OPI Matte Top Coat, resulting in my final manicure as shown in the first picture.


These are the polishes I used:

OPI Ski Teal We Drop, OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, Cirque Colors Storm King, OPI Alpine Snow, Rimmel 007 Shooting Star

I was so disappointed I'd broken a nail last week. I thought the vinyls and the gradient would never work on shorties. But I absolutely love how this turned out and I'm not so sure longer nails could have made it any better. I guess I'll have to try that out once my nails have grown a bit :) I really hope I did Sonia's design justice. What do you think? And what version of my nails do you prefer, glossy or matte and with or without 'studs'? I can't choose!

Please make sure to check out what Michelle and Juanita did with the original manicure as inspiration. All you have to do is click their names and you're automagically transported to their corner of the internet :)



Cirque Colors Storm King was bought from Pretty Polish (dutch but with international shipping)