Matte Tropical Flower Mani

Today I have a gorgeous stamped manicure for you. Rica recently put out a bunch of great polishes that work both for stamping and regular use, so I obviously had to partake. And if you know anything about my nail polish obsession, I definitely had to have the mint shade!

I was originally going to do a white base, but then I got inspired after looking at some of the gorgeous floral manis by Wondrously Polished. Lindsey does these beautiful mattified floral designs, often over a dark or neutral base. So I decided to pair the pretty mint stamping polish over a dark navy, and then I threw a matte top coat over the whole thing.

I really love this! The color combo is great – the mint pops over the darker navy, and it stamped like a dream. I am obsessed with mint, and this Rica is perfect… I can’t wait to wear it on its own too. I think it also looks really good as a matte mani! And I looove the new MoYou London Tropical images too! So much love!

Products used:

• Base color: Zoya Sailor (a beautiful deep navy polish)
• Stamping plate: MoYou London Tropical 04
• Stamping color: Rica Summer Mint

So yeah, I really like this, and I hope you do too!  I can’t wait to try out the other new Rica polishes. That is all for today – have a great weekend!

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Recreating my first gradient manicure: July NCC #3

One of my favorite first posts was my first attempt at a gradient manicure. I called it an ombre mani, but I was almost a year younger and nail naive at that time. I’m older and wiser and know more in the world of nails at this point 🙂

This time, I switched up the colors and made it super bright and neon for summer:

Mmm I love neon! I could wear it year-round; it just makes me stare at my nails all the time! Plus, when you wear neon polish in the NICU, it GLOWS near phototherapy! Phototherapy is a treatment we do for jaundice where we put blue lights around the baby to make the jaundice go away, and it acts similar to UV lights so the neons GLOW.

I used 3 colors in this gradient: China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Models Own Flip Flop, and Formula X Radioactive (Oh, and I also used Rica Whiteout for my white undies). I then decided I need to spice things up since the last 2 recreations i’ve done were basically identical to the previous manis.

Spice it up – put a bird on it! (Any Portandia fans out there?!) I used one of my favorite MoYou London image plates, Suki 08, and stamped the bird design using Zoya Sailor (a nice navy blue creme).

Another pic:

And here’s a comparison to my old mani:

I really liked my old mani, but I think my gradients have gotten so much smoother and better-blended. And I really like the stamping over it too! What do you think? How else do you spice up a gradient mani?

And check out some other recreations:

 

Orange Spotted Delft nails

I heart MoYou London. They’re probably my favorite image plates so far. I own some Konad, Messy Mansion, Bundle Monster, Gals, and Winstonia. MoYou London has such a wide variety of available images and they’re all very high quality. I got a few in the mail and love playing with them!

 

I layered Formula X White Matter (white, duh), then 1 coat of Formula X Firecracker (matte orange glitter topcoat). Then I used MoYou London Pro 06 image plate and stamped the flowery image using Zoya Sailor, a dark navy blue. I think it looks vaguely like Delft pottery, don’t you? Such a pretty intricate pattern that stamped so easily and I like that the orange added a super subtle touch of color.

 

 

On a side note, I just watched the 2nd episode of Sherlock’s 3rd season. Loved it – touching best man speech, seeing Sherlock & John drunk, and Sherlock teaching impressionable young minds about murder.