Friday Triad: inspired by The Adorned Claw

Hi everyone!


You probably know by now that the one day I never fail to post is the last Friday of the month. That's the day Juanita, Michelle and myself post a manicure that was inspired by a manicure one of us picked. This month was my turn to find an inspiration and I picked one that has been on my to do list for ages... because all the striping tape scared me! It's this stunning manicure by Ruth from The Adorned Claw. And this is my attempt at recreating it with different colors:

I was VERY tempted to do an exact replica as I have all polishes that were used in the original, but I also had my heart set on happy, bright colors and maybe even a holo as the sun has come out with a vengeance lately. So after a lot of going back and forth I decided to go with... *plug your ears or Michelle may blow out your eardrums* PINK!

I picked out the perfect gradient in cremes (pale to dark: Zoya Jordan, Zoya Shelby and Zoya Lara) and added an even darker holo: a-england Into the Rose-Garden. If the gradient colors scream Barbie, Into the Rose-Garden has to be Barbie's even more awesome big sister. It's simply gorgeous, bright, no holds barred and elegant and mature at the same time. And... a one coat wonder on top of all that! :) But let me stop gushing and tell you what I did with those beautiful colors.

It started easy enough, one coat of Into the Rose-Garden on my thumb, ring finger and pinky and one (not opaque) coat of Jordan on my index and middle finger as base for the gradient I planned. After that I grabbed a piece of sponge and happily dabbed and dabbed to create said gradient. Still all easy, right? And then the moment came when I reached for my striping tape... only to discover I didn't have the right width!! On to the vinyls... except I don't have straight ones or any other shape that I can cut up to be straight ones. What next? Scotch tape! I tried cutting thin, straight strips and failed miserably, but I already had figured out a plan D and that one worked :)

I cut a piece of scotch tape, stuck it to my nail at the right angle, cut another piece of tape and stuck it to my nail parallel to the first piece, but leaving a small gap that I filled with one of the creme polishes, after which I immediately removed both pieces of tape and waited for about half an hour for the polish to dry (no fast drying top coat as that would have added way too much thickness to my nail for me to be comfortable with). I repeated that entire routine until my entire nail looked like a pink candy cane... and it only took me about 3 hours!

As usual I finished with a coat of Seche Vite, and an extra one on my ring finger of the gloopy Seche Vite I have on my desk for those bumpy, gritty nails that need a semblance of smoothness.


The polishes I used:

a-england Into the Rose-Garden, Zoya Lara, Zoya Shelby, Zoya Jordan

It's not a secret vinyls and striping tape aren't my biggest friends so I'm quite proud of how this turned out. Sure, the lines aren't perfect but that doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I just love the colors together and the sparkle of the holo that peeks through the lines and is in full sight on my pinky and thumb. I did skip the triangular studs because my nails are way too small to pull that off. I briefly thought about adding a dot of Rose-Garden close to my cuticles but nope, I don't think that is needed either... to me it's perfect just as it is :)

I really have no idea what Michelle and Juanita made of this. It's Winter over there so I hope they did their nails in relative coolness (instead of the freaky sweltering heat that we're having at the moment) but colorwise... nope, not even going to try and predict something. I just have to do the same as you: click their names and see what happens.