Plaid Nails

The Polish-aholics Anonymous Monday Nail Art Challenge was plaid!  

This was my first attempt at plaid, and I'm pleasantly surprised.  

Here's the first pic...

I used Zoya Phoebe for the background here.  It's a gorgeous, pearly matte.  Blue polishes like this one have a reputation for staining...badly.  Plus, matte polishes have a tendency to chip easily.  So I started this mani with a single layer of Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top coat, wrapping the tips - which means putting polish on the flat outer edge of the nail.  This helps prevent chipping.  After that had dried really well, I added a single layer of Zoya Phoebe, wrapping the tips.  The matte polish dries really quickly and the first coat looked really streaky, but that's to be expected.  When Phoebe was dry, I added another base coat layer, again wrapping the tips.  Then two coats of Phoebe, wrapping the tips, to finish it all off.  Whew - that's 5 layers of polish!  Hopefully, that layering will help this polish last, since obviously, I can't put a no-chip top coat on top of the matte!


To make the burberry-esque pattern, I started with white Kiss Nail Art Paint, a striping polish, and hand-painted both a vertical and horizontal stripe.  I waited to that to dry because when I was testing out this idea on paper, I learned that without letting the polish dry, my next layer would cause some serous smearing.  The next layer was the black on the sides of the white.  When that was dry, I added the pink.  All three (white, black, and pink) are hand-painted with Kiss Nail Art.  To see more of exactly what these polishes look like, go here.


To clean-up around the side cuticles and the base of the nail, I used a small brush dipped in pure acetone.


Ready for more pix?

And as I was taking these photos, my darling five year-old decided to "add a little something" to my photos.....her fake spider....LOL!  And you know how I feel about spiders! (read this one)

Hope you enjoyed these!!