Friday Triad: inspired by Pshiiit

Hi everyone!


It's the last Friday of the month so it's time for Friday Triad with Michelle and Juanita :) This time I got to pick the manicure we were going to create and I picked this beauty by Camille of Pshiiit.com...

And boy, did I regret that pick! I think I've done at least four versions of this manicure and I kept messing up the vinyls. Sure, I could have stamped a design but I bought vinyls and I really wanted to use them. So I fiddled and removed the tragic result, tried again and removed the pitiful result again, did it once more, made pictures of the base before trying to master those *censured* vinyls and... ended up removing the result again as I really didn't like it. At that point my supply of vinyls was running low, my cuticles looked like I'd been doing a month's worth of dishes without gloves, I was ready to start throwing stuff around and I was contemplating just posting the pictures of the base and be done with it. But that didn't feel right either (although I will post the base for my third attempt at the end of this post as I really like it ;) so I sat down, picked a happy color scheme, took a deep breath and this is what I ended up with:

indoors, no flash

I started by painting all my nails with the palest pink I had, China Glaze Let's Chalk About It, one coat on my middle and ring finger and three thin coats plus a coat of Seche Vite on the other nails. While that was drying I painted liquid latex around the cuticles of my middle and ring finger all the way down so it covered my entire first phalange. When that had dried as well I dabbed small dots of (pale to dark) China Glaze Let's Chalk About It, Zoya Dot, Zoya GeiGei, Zoya Azalea, OPI Super Cute in Pink, ILNP Paige and Colors by Llarowe If You Dare on my big Creative Stamper and roll-smoosh-pressed everything on my nails until I felt it looked pretty enough to continue with the next step, adding sparkles with two coats of ILNP My Private Rainbows (X) and a coat of Seche Vite to help it dry.

When my base was completely dry I stuck chevron shaped vinyls on my middle finger and filled up the top part with liquid latex to create two chevron openings near my cuticle. I painted over the vinyls using Hit the Bottle As Black As Night as I wanted to make sure it was really, really, really black in one coat and I immediately removed the vinyls and the latex.

indoors, no flash

I did the same thing on my ring finger, first the part of my nail near my tip (is that the top or the bottom? I'll call it the top for now) and when that had dried the bottom part near my cuticle, so it would look like an hourglass. I intended to take pictures at each stage but I forgot to do that between the two parts of my ring finger. Yep, I definitely said a little prayer when I peeled away the vinyls and latex for the bottom part as I really didn't want to start over again... but it turned out quite nice, even if I say so myself :)

All I had to do at that point was correct some small oopsies using a teeny tiny brush, cover everything with another coat of Seche Vite and pamper my poor acetone-soaked cuticles to make them look somewhat presentable for the last picture.

Here's all the pink polishes I used. The glitter and the black are absent but I'm pretty sure you know what they look like as I use them very often :)

China Glaze Let's Chalk About It, Zoya Dot, Zoya GeiGei, Zoya Azalea, OPI Super Cute in Pink, ILNP Paige, Colors by Llarowe If You Dare

When editing the pictures I noticed I messed up the vinyls a bit as the lines aren't straight, especially the top part of my ring finger. I must have been tugging too hard or something... I guess vinyls and me are just not a match made in heaven, but it definitely was fun to try. I wonder if I can handle those full nail vinyls better, yet another thing I have to try... one day ;)

What do you think of my first manicure using vinyls? I'm pretty sure both Michelle and Juanita will have gorgeous manicures as they're masters in using vinyls. You can check out their posts by clicking their names.


If you managed to read this far, here's the picture I promised of my third attempt (using three gray Hema polishes and a silver OPI). I still love this color combination so I'm pretty sure these polishes will make a proper appearance soon:

indoors, no flash

And just before I was going to hit the Publish button, I happened to check my SBB Nail Challenge overview... chevrons is challenge 48 so that's another one done!

Zoya Dot, Zoya GeiGei and Zoya Azalea were bought from Pretty Polish.
ILNP Paige, ILNP My Private Rainbow (X), Hit the Bottle As Black As Night and the single chevron vinyls were bought from Hypnotic Polish.
Colors by Llarowe If You Dare was bought from Nailland Hungary.