33DC Black Matte Contrast Nails

The challenge for today is to choose a manicure from your pinterest board and recreate it. I choose this one from Copy That Copy Cat nails. But because my nails are shorter my shiny details are less complex.

I used my Barry M matte polish in Espresso for the base coat and then used NYC Grand Central Station to create the patterns. I much prefer this way of using the contrast between matte and shiny than just doing a french manicure, it gives it a subtle elegance. I'm not sure how long this will last because there's no top coat involved and matte nail polishes are notorious for chipping quickly. Here is Espresso alone at 2 coats:

My computer has done something really weird to the next photo but it made me giggle quite a lot so I thought I'd share it with you.

Remember to check out everyone else's pinterest inspired manis through the inkslinks below :)

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33DC Chevron with Emily de Molly Blueprint

Today's 33 day challenge prompt is chevron. I wanted to use this polish which arrived last Saturday to do my chevrons. The base is Emily de Molly Blueprint and I hand painted on the chevrons in OPI A Woman's Prague-Ative.

Isn't it funny how sometimes you get a polish and it sits on your desk looking at you for months before you use it and sometimes you get a polish out and have to put it straight onto your nails. It was definitely a case of the latter with this one. This is two medium thickness coats, it looked very streaky on the first coat but the second evened everything up and made it totally opaque. This polish has a navy base with mixed sizes of royal blue glitter, some small purple glitter and purple shimmer. The matte photo on the bottom left best captures the purple shimmer of the polish. I used OPI matte top coat and it looks amazing matte.

For my chevron design the base was already matte so I carefully painted on the chevrons with a small nail art brush and the OPI polish and then didn't top coat the design as I wanted to keep the contrast between the matte base and the shiny, glittery chevrons.

I love these two colours together, they look and feel really autumnal. I have a nail wheel of the colours I've chosen to make up my autumn colour palette and A Woman's Prague-Ative is one of them. My aim is then to use these colours through my designs this autumn to pull my designs together.

I loved wearing this manicure, Blueprint is an amazing polish and if you like blues and purples I would strongly suggest that you check it out. I didn't know if I'd be able to freehand chevrons but it was easier than I anticipated :).

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