It's All About the Base!

One of my favourite bases lately has been a few colours sponged then topped with gold flaky polish for interest. The look is loosely based on a mani I had seen originally posted by Silvia Nails (IG @esmalterapia4me). To be honest, when I did these nails and used the gold flaky, I did so from memory thinking that it was gold flakies that had been used, only to look at the pix after the fact and realize it was gold/yellow sponging! Regardless, I'm still happy that I broke open my gold flaky polish as I've had it a while and had never used it; I like the random interest it adds! I've done a couple mani's along these lines now; here's one I came up with not too long ago!

Started with a base of Sally Hansen Dark Huemoor**, this is two coats, no top coat. My apologizes for the blue cuticles; it seemed the harder I tried to clean up a couple of fingers that needed it, the worse it got and I wasn't able to do a great cleanup. But you can see the three fingers I did minimal cleanup are good; I'll have to try to apply it better next time! Coverage was good in two coats and there is lots of shine even though no top coat has been applied. Be careful with application and removal to avoid smurf nails though! Dark Huemoor is part of the Sally Hansen Luxe Jewels Collection; and is in retail and drugstores now.

After the polish had dried for a few minutes, sponged on Ciate Headliner and OPI Front Lawn.

Added OPI The Man With the Golden Gun. I have quite a few different gold flaky top coats; OPI The Man With the Golden Gun, Rococo Gold Leaf, and versions by Zoya and Sephora by OPI, but hadn't used any of them until recently. When I did swatching to see which one I was wanting to use, I found they are all a little different and I happen to like the OPI version the best so its been my go to gold flaky for a few mani's now.

As I didn't apply quick dry, waited about 20 minutes for the base polishes to dry before stamping. (You can see the thumb wasn't quite dry and squished a little when stamped but it wasn't terribly noticeable! Then stamped using white Konad special polish using images from Messy Mansion MM14 on all fingers except thumb, which is Wistonia Hunters Life. Top coated to finish.

Messy Mansion MM14

Wistonia Hunters Life

I did my right hand slightly different, no sponging, just topped with gold flakies and stamping. I really like the colour combination of the navy, gold and white; will have to keep it in mind for a future mani!