Hello and welcome! Can you tell which countries I’ll be visiting soon? This puts me in full vacation mode now!
This is technically a bonus manicure, since I’ll probably be on a plane as you read this, and *spoiler alert* I plan on wearing the same manicure for the two weeks I’m gone. But, in order to keep up a weekly posting, I decided to do this semi-quick, fill-in mani.
What I Used:
- Base Coat: UNT – Peel Off Base Coat
- 1st Color: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear – White On
- 2nd Color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – ASAP Apple
- 3rd Color: Covergirl – Mutant
- 4th Color: Cirque Colors – Cyber
- 5th Color: Cirque Colors – Hedonist
- 6th Color: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear – Black Out
- Top Coat: Cuticula – Sour Patch Candy Timeless Top Coat
- Maniology mini lotus mat
- Twinkled T striping tape
- Maniology double sided nail art brush & dotting tool
- makeup sponge
- Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
- nail polish remover
I started with the UNT peel off base coat. And for some reason, I was worried that the polish wouldn’t properly peel off, so I did two layers. And since I thought it would be faster, I made all of my designs on the silicone mat before sticking them on my nails.
As you can see I made a little plan on note paper in order to have the correct flag colors, and to size them to my nails as closely as possible. I started with Italy, Austria, and Slovenia, then the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. Lucky for me, most of these flags are just stripes of color, so I could use striping tape to make them nice and even.
Switzerland and Slovenia were the exceptions to the easy stripes. But, it still wasn’t too bad. I used the striping tape to make a cross on the mat, and then a tiny dotting tool to clean it up, and finally covered it all in red. For Slovenia: I had to flip over the flag stripes, and then dot on a rounded triangle for the crest base. Once that dried a bit, I added a red outline, the blue mountain lines, and the yellow dots for stars. I wish I had taken a photo before top coat blended it all together. My ring finger and thumb nails were supposed to be sponged blobs of each flag color, but the black overtook most of the design.
This design ended up a bit sloppier than I had planned. But the whole time I was working on them, I was torn between representing the flags as accurately as possible, and not wanting to put in much effort for a one day manicure. In the end, it’s still a fun way to show off where I’ll be going!
Hope everyone has a wonderful stress-free week!
Update:
I’m not sure if the double layer of peel off base coat was a good idea. By the end of the next day my left hand was already chipping at the tips. But on the other hand, they peeled off pretty easily at the end of the day. And except for maybe two of them, they still kept their entire shape. I did not choose to keep the peelies though, as fun as they were to see.
Weekly Nail 