Colour Block Nail Art

I recently took part in an "Invisible Friend" gift exchange, which would be like a Secret Santa only not at Christmas. Carolina, the lovely lady who was given my name, sent me, among other things, a Naughty Nautical trio of Essie polishes which luckily I didn't already own. How great is that?!

I was so excited to try my new summery shades, I decided to use them all at the same time!

This mani is 100% Essie: I started with Nourish Me, followed by two coats of Blanc and one of Good to Go.

Then I placed some striping tape to create the patterns and used Naughty Nautical, Full Steam Ahead and Sunday Funday in random places.

I removed the tape with tweezers and finished off with another coat of Good To Go.

It's not a difficult mani but it requires a lot of patience as the base colour needs to be completely dry and striping tape can be fiddly.

I am pleased with the overall look. What do you think?

Marimekko Nail Art

In a bid to stop buying more polishes and start using what I already have, I recently got Nail Candy by California-based sisters Donne & Ginny Geer. I really like their book, it has given me lots of ideas on top of the designs described by them, and I attempted their Marimekko mani for the first time today.

I used Essie Blanc, Color Club Endless Summer and OPI Bullish on OPI, plus a Nubar black striper. The design required a lot of precision so I had to start over on a couple of nails. I love the monochrome stripes and touches of colour on this mani.

I managed to do it while my girls were being extremely well behaved and was quite pleased with the results until I noticed some bubbling on the photos.

Marimekko is a Finnish design company, and when I think of Finland I think of the lovely Moomins cops a friend of mine brought us from her home country. I've never been to visit her in Finland, I hope I can one day.

9 de Julio Original Nail Art

I was going to say "I'm back!", but if you follow me on Instagram you know that I never actually left...

I did, however, make a few small changes to the blog. I hope you like them!

On a day like today but 197 years ago, Argentina, the country I'm from, became independent from Spain. The design on today's mani is a combination of what is commonly known in Argentina as "Guarda Pampa", a geometric design used by the Mapuche tribe; and a gradient in blue and white, with a yellow sun in the centre, to represent the national flag.

The Guarda Pampa is something very traditional in clothing, accesories and utensils and often seen in souvenirs. I chose the Chakana, a staggered cross which originally comes from the Incas. Black is used for nobility.

I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh? and a black nail art pen. I imagined the design would be much harder to do, but I copied it from a picture I found online and just drew it on my nails, freehand. I repeated it twice on my right hand but the results are a little less sharp.

For the flag I did a double gradient using Essie Blanc and China Glaze For Audrey. Then I painted a circle of Kiko 279 onto a piece of sponge and placed it in the centre of the white stripe. I finished everything off with top coat, of course.

Last but not least, I'll tell you a little bit about the item I am holding. It's called "Mate", pronounced MAH-te (the last "e" sounds like the one in "test"), and it's a traditional South American infused drink. You can read more about it here.