Friday Triad: inspired by @dreamsnails

Hi everyone,


it's the last Friday of the month once again, so it's time for the Triad manicure where Michelle, Juanita and myself take turns in picking a manicure that serves as inspiration for the three of us. This time it was my turn to choose and I selected this manicure by dreamsnails. Yep, you're seeing that right: gel polish and freehand... I don't know what I was thinking! (to be honest, I do know... that geometric design and the color blocks... what's not to love ;) I knew from the start I wouldn't do gel polish and since I can't freehand if my life depended on it, that was another no no. So what did I do? This:

I started out by painting my thumb and index with two coats of  Zoya Odette, a dusty orchid that is perfectly office friendly. My other three fingers were painted with essie Go Go Geisha, a beautiful pink leaning nude with that same dusty-ness as Odette.

To paint half of my middle finger in the darker Odette, I first stamped a straight line from MoYou Explorer 30 to use as a guide after which I carefully filled in the half closest to my index.

The geometric design was done using a decal. I started by painting a strip of clear polish on my silicone mat and once that had dried, I stamped the triangles-between-lines from MoYou Explorer 30 using a-england In Robe And Crown. Once that was completely dry, I painted several layers on top (I think three but it could have been four) of China Glaze Friends Forever, Right?, the palest pink I could find in my stash, until I couldn't see light peeking through the polish when I held the mat in front of a lamp. To finish off the decal I carefully cut it out along the stamped lines.

When I placed it on my middle finger, I realized it was too simple for my taste so instead of pressing  down the decal and sealing it with top coat, I racked my brain what to add. In the end I decided to do some stamping on the lighter colored nails so I grabbed Odette and used it to add a small leaf-like design from UberChic 24-01 (and paint another thin coat over half of my middle finger to make sure that part was smooth). After that I painted a coat of Seche Vite on top to smoothen everything, placed the decal on my middle finger and finished off my manicure with another coat of Seche Vite on top of the strip of polish to keep it in place.

And that was it, another manicure done and dusted :)

Michelle and Juanita had their version done a month ago, I'm not kidding here! And since they had a month to contemplate their design, of course I expect master pieces (then again, when haven't they hit it out of the park, right?). Want to check out their version? Just click on Juanita or Michelle!



Last but not least, there's this nagging little voice in the back of my mind that keeps telling me this manicure looks like another one I've seen before. I have looked through all my pins, saves, bookmarks and what not, but I can't find anything similar so I could be wrong. But just in case, if this looks like your manicure but your name is missing, please let me know who you are!