Fashion Inspired Nails: Altuzarra and Marc Jacobs Spring 2013

Wacky Laki had a fashion inspired nail art contest recently and I made two entries.  I ultimately decided to go with the Altuzarra entry but both of these designs turned out to be some of the best stamping I've done!

I used butter London Wallis and WnW Black Creme to do this design and stamped with Mash plate 39.  I am not a huge fan of Wallis but I love how this design turned out on my nails!

 Next, I have nails inspired by this incredible Marc Jacobs dress.  This is such a perfect mixture of black and white patterns.  I know I could never pull this off with clothes but it made for some very cool nail art.   I used Bundle Monster plates to make this look with WnW Black Creme and Sinful Colors Snow Me White and topped off  the nails with Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor.

No, I didn't win the contest...there were so many awesome entries so competition was fierce!  But I had fun and impressed myself and THAT is the important thing for a stressed out grad student :)

Grey Glitter Rose Nails

One of my favorite things to wear is a black, cotton, 3/4 length sleeved shirt that has grey and ash colored roses.  I finally got around to recreating the print on my nails!

As usual, I protected my nails with a clear base coat.  After using a clear base coat for months, I can honestly say that a base coat really helps polish last longer.  I then applied a thin coat of Raven to the free edge of each nail to seal the edges and administered two, thin coats of Raven to each nail.  After each hand dried, I used my largest dotting tool to add uneven dots with Recycle in different sizes to each nail in a random pattern.  When the dots dried, I used a small nail art brush to apply the detail lines of the roses in White On and Skull and Glossbones.  Using the same brush, I added leaves with Recycle. 

The design looks fine as it was but I wanted to add just a bit of color to break the monochromatic theme with these nails. To bring out the leaves, I applied some Call You Later glitter and Ivanka to each leaf.  To highlight the roses, I added Kaleidoscope glitter to each rose.  I finished with a fast drying top coat and now my nails have an antique, almost gothic quality with this design.

Below is my current base coat product.  It's triple threat being a base coat, top coat, and strengthener in one.  I tend to use Julep's Fast Drying Top Coat as my top coat because I think it helps my polish set and dry faster.  I had to switch products because my base coat kept peeling and chipping when I used Double Duty and Hard as Wraps for base coats.  Pro FX is easily found at any Walmart beauty section and I recall I only spent about $5 for this large, 2.5 oz. bottle.  Try it out and I doubt you'd be disappointed!