Technique: Matte + Sparkle Tips

I've been MIA for a while on this blog. I had a rough couple of weeks and then was out of the country so no posts for about a month....
But now I'm back :)
I am just obsessed with greens lately. Chartreuse, avocado, pistachio, and most of all MINT. I found this glitter that I just had to have and when I took it home I realized it would look gorgeous with a mint polish.
I was bored of the plain old sparkle tips so I added some Matte in the mix. Tip: do NOT put the Matte top coat over a glitter polish. It looks icky... trust me. 

So the order goes... 2 coats of color polish (I used Mint Candy Apply by Essie). 1 coat of matte top coat (I used Matte About You by Essie)... This isn't a great pic but you get the idea.

Then sparkle tips. This really only works with highly concentrated glitter polish. This one is Ray-Diant by China Glaze. The key to the sparkle tips is to do very thin strokes of the glitter. then when you have the tip done dab a few straggler glitter pieces more towards the bottom of the nail. 

If your like me and hate the feel of these kinds of glitter polish you can cover the glitter part with a clear top coat. Just be careful not to cover the matte portion!

Viola! a great contrast of Matte and Sparkle :)

Technique: Argyle Tips

 This technique is a modern take on a classic pattern. The best part is... it’s pretty easy and doesn’t take long to do. Argyle is a cute preppy pattern, but also very detailed and usually needs to be perfect to look good. These tips only use a tiny portion of the pattern so it isn’t difficult at all!

The first step was obvi the base coat. I used a very sheer pink. I needed 4 coats of this pale pink Essie polish to get the color I wanted. I let this dry a loooong time before I did the next step.

Next was the taping! Since this is a look for your tips I had to be careful not to do a half and half diagonal. To do this I made sure that the tapes did not go corner to corner, but a little but higher than that. To the left is the diagonal tips in Mod Square by Essie (my favvvv pink right now).

Lastly was the dots in the opposite direction. The polish I used was Essie in Mint Candy Apple. I used a dotting tool for these diagonal dots so it was pretty easy. If you don't have a dotting tool you can use a pin head or bobby pin. Seche Vite top coat then I was done!

Below is the final look! I just looooove this look and I will most definitely wear it again!

|La

Technique: Diagonal 2-tone

I got the idea for diagonal 2-toned tips look from one of my good friends Kaci’s stylish nails. A picture of the nails she did is to the left. She did a diagonal two tone with nude and black on the ring finger. I thought this look would look awesome on all my nails so I tried it out...

Since I am obsessed with glitter polishes lately I used a glitter instead of a solid as my tip color. The colors I used... Base: “Violet Vixen” by L’Oréal Paris. Tip: Gem Crush in “Big Money” by Sally Hansen.

Other great color combos would be:

- light color base, darker variation of same color as the tip.

Example: base= pale blue, tip=navy

Or...........base= pale pink, tip=bright red

- neutral color base, black or dark brown or dark grey tip

            Example: base=nude, tip= black (like Kaci’s nails!)

- bright and light base, brighter and darker tip.

Example: base=neon yellow, tip= hot pink.

Or.......... base=neon orange, tip=lime green.

 I started with the base color I new I wanted (Violet Vixen) and painted all 10 nails that color. Then I tried the diagonal tip on just one nail to make sure I liked the color and made sure it turned out opaque enough to cover the base color. That’s why all my above combo’s have the lighter color for the base... you want to make sure your tip color completely masks the base color. The glitter polish I used was very thick and I wanted it to completely mask the violet... which it did!

So then I moved on to tape all my nails with clear scotch tape (above). It was useful to use this kind of tape because you can see if the tape is rising up anywhere on the nail.. you dont want your tip polish to bleed under the tape! For the most part I tried to leave a little more space for the violet.. I thought it would look nice if the diagonal was closer to the top so it looks more like a tip accent then half and half. I thought half and half might be a little overwhelming on all my nails with that much glitter :) 

Dont forget to angle your right hand the opposite direction of your left hand! It looks more symmetrical that way. Above is my right hand after I painted on the Gem Crush polish.

 Now comes the tricky part: peeling off the tape. I would recommend doing this right after you paint the tips on one hand... This way you can fix up your messes right away because the polish is still moldable. In the second picture on the left I am using a nail art stick, but I found that even a light press of my finger worked just as well. As you can see in the top picture the tip polish fans up a little bit right where the tape was.. If you just tap it down with your finger it flattens out and looks great!

So here is the order of how I did this, it worked out pretty easy with no mess ups this way:

    1.     Paint all 10 nails the base color. Let dry COMPLETELY. Optional: one coat of quick dry topcoat.

    2.     Tape one finger and test out tip color.

    3.     If you like it, tape the rest of the fingers on that hand and paint on the tip color.

    4.     Remove tape and press down mess ups, one finger at a time.

    5.     Paint on a thick, clear top coat and let dry.

    6.     Repeat steps 3-5 on other hand.

 Violà !  Here’s a final look at the tilted 2-tone tip technique (say that 5 times fast haha).