A mind-boggling 314 bottles of nail polish live in my house. Somehow they just keep creeping in!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Day 16 - Tribal Print

Hi!

This manicure is for day 16 of the challenge, the theme is tribal nails! I've been looking forward to this one a lot.  I've seen so many gorgeous tribal manicures on the web and now I finally got around to trying my own.  This is why I recommend this challenge - it gets you to try things you might not do otherwise.

I decided to do a more subtle tribal nail pattern, that could be done in just two steps.  I love multi-step manis, but I wanted to see how good of an effect I could achieve with just tow coats.



I used SOPI Caught with My Khakis Down (hehe) and Barielle Cowl of the Wild.

Caught with my Khakis Down - I have the mini bottle of this, and it is TINY! Which is too bad, because I really love this color.  When I bought it in the early summer, it had a sign that said "upcoming trend" and boy were they right! Suddenly it seems like every brand is releasing their version of this khaki green.  This one goes on smooth and opaque in two coats, and I really hope I get a chance to get a full-sized bottle of it.

Cowl of the Wild- I got this polish off the clearance shelf at Ulta (along with most of the rest of the Style in Argyle collection).  It looks horrible in the bottle, because no matter what I do, it will not blend together consistently.  You can see in the picture.  However, once you actually use it... it was love at first sight for me! I have bought a lot of brown polishes, and to me, this is the perfect brown that looks like you dipped your nails in a melted hershey bar.  Opaque and dries glossy, I love it.

These two colors also play really well together.  :)

For my first step, I painted each nail half green and half brown, alternating sides and direction.  I did two coats of each color, and free-handed it.


For the second step, I went back with a tiny paintbrush from Michael's and added various dots and stripes and patterns as they occurred to me.  I think it turned out really well, and looks like it took a lot more effort than in actually did.  I recommend this to anybody who wants tribal nails without taking hours to do so many different layers, colors, and patterns.





(I'm really fond of this one) thumb:
 pointer:
 middle:
 ring:

(whoooooooaaaa overexposure much?!) pinky:









Have you done tribal nails on yourself? How long did it take? Was it worth it?

Ciao for now,
Maria

4 comments:

  1. These look fantastic, you did such a great job, and freehand no less! I tend to avoid the tribal, something about all the lines and precision gives me the willies... it'll be a good challenge to force myself to really do it someday!

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  2. These look great!

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  3. I wish I had a steady hand to try something like this

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