Deep French manicure
While I was watching television the other day I saw a French manicure with pale pink tips flash by, sorry I don’t remember what the actual commercial was about but it certainly wasn’t nails. The main thing I noticed about the mani was that the usual white tips of a french manicure were really deep into the nail, almost half. She also had some stone accents but that is above my patience level.
I decided to use circular white adhesive labels, I picked up from the Dollar Store 300 for $1.25, to get a even but curved edge–the model’s actually went straight across the nail and in hind sight I wish I had done that because I kind of liked that too (next time). Anyway, here is the labels in place:
I could have gotten the donut kind that people use for protecting the holes in 3-ring paper but I figured these would give better coverage and protection.
For the base I used Julep’s Marie, a very pale lavendar glaze and for the tips I used Cover Girl’s Pink-finity (One of my favorites. You can see the full pale pink mani on one of my other sites.) And I finished off with my Revlon top coat:
I am happy with how it turned out but I do wish I had used a darker base, perhaps a sheer white. I contemplated adding tiny dots to the seam but could not decide on a color–a bright pink or blue or something else. Maybe in a few days. But overall I am not disappointed.
Over the week I ended up playing with this look a little bit. I could not help myself. First I added a red line between the base and the pink nail tip — as you can see I need a bit more practice with horizontal line drawing. I think it would have been a more interesting effect had my original base coat been a bit darker.
For the red strip I used Finger Paints Restoration Red which has a fine sparkle to it and a drawing brush for line drawing.
After a few more days I decided as cute as it was it was perhaps too harsh a transition and added a top coat of allover sparkle with Sally Hansen’s Hard as Nails Xtreme wear in Supernova (235). I love this sparkle top coat — it has a mixture of purple, pink, and blue. It looks great over lavender nail polish too! My nails kind of remind me of strawberry shortcake like this.
Which way do you think was the best?
