Hello and welcome! Since it’s still summer, and scorching hot, I had to do a theme that matches what I’ve been dreaming of: a vacation that’s somewhere cooler!
I mean, who doesn’t like heading to the beach on a hot day? And since I bought my first What’s Up Nails stamping plate specifically for the water design, I had to use it. And I followed the design on their website pretty closely, it just has my own colors and twist.
What I Used:
- Base Coat: Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
- 1st Color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Blue Away!
- 2nd Color: KL Polish – Snickerdoodle
- 3rd Color: Dollish Polish – Drop It Like It’s Hoth
- 4th Color: Stached Polish – Castle Blue
- Top Coat: Glisten & Glow – Top Coat
- Maniology (Bundle Monster) Poli-Peel cuticle protector
- makeup sponge
- Whats Up Nails B010 stamping plate
- clear silicone stamper & scraper
- lint roller sheet
- Maniology (Bundle Monster) dual ended pencil stamper & clean up brush
- acetone nail polish remover
I started with base coat, and one coat of Blue Away! from Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri line. And I think I figured out how to get it to dry quickly. You have to keep the coats thin, and then it really will dry in a minute. When painting my right hand it was thicker and so it took much longer to dry in comparison.
The next step was to apply liquid latex around all of my nails. And while that was drying, I tested how I wanted the water and sand to look. I was debating between a classic gradient, or trying out a smudge technique with my stamper. I’ve been seeing it all over Instagram lately, and wanted to do it too. But in the end, I went with the gradient. I’ll just have to come up with a different design that can incorporate the smudging.
The gradient was surprisingly quick to dry. Maybe it was because most of the nail was glitter. But also, the glitter and creme formulas didn’t mix well. So I just did the best I could with two coats. There was some texture from the glitter but I knew that was going to be covered by top coat.
When it came time to stamp, I was a little worried that the texture would make it hard to stick, but it behaved just fine. And the Castle Blue polish is such a light blue that it looks white against all the rest. Turns out I was having a good nail day.
For all of the little steps that I had to do for this manicure, I’m surprised how quickly it came together. It was nothing in comparison to last week’s neon craziness. And the entire look just makes me feel relaxed and happy. I just wish I could actually be at a beach right now.
Hope everyone has a relaxing week!
Update:
Unfortunately these nails barely made it through the week. By Sunday, my thumb and pointer nails had chipped. So I filled them in with the blue glitter polish, and you could barely tell the difference between my chipped nails and my other nails. But then on Tuesday night, I somehow chipped them again, and it was too late to try and refill them again. I figured I could handle a day with the chips, but I slowly started picking and making them worse. So I ended up with worse nails than I should’ve had.
Weekly Nail 