51st post: 4th of July Mani, Take One

Happy 4th of July, fellow Americans :) Hope you enjoyed the long weekend. And for all my international readers, how was your Monday? Tonight I'm going to show you my first take on my Independence Day mani, which was a complete failure, in my mind.

Let me start with my vision: red and white stripes with blue crackle over it. Then I decided I needed a blue on the base too with the crackle over it. So I started with a nail wheel experimenting with different colors and decided on OPI Red Dazzle (best red ever, hands down... a major dusty, but it's a beautiful, vibrant red with red glitter), Ulta Blue Streak (I know I've used this about a million times now, but it was perfect!), and Pure Ice Super Star (white) with OPI Turquoise Shatter on top. I tried using horizontal stripes, vertical, diagonal... all to see which one worked best with the crackle. On the wheel, it seemed diagonal stripes of blue, white, and red with the crackle applied vertically worked best. But on the nail: nope. It was just a gross, misguided mess. The Turquoise blended into the blue, the red clashed with the turquoise... yuck. Well, here you go, if you must see. It's not a sight I'm proud of.

Sigh. You only get one finger because cleanup was a beast (3 types of polishes, multiple coats, weird angles... you get the idea). This is the finger that came out the best, and I'm not sure why there's a shadow in the picture because it didn't show up on my camera *shrugs*. On the bright side, I loved Turquoise Shatter over white so that may become an option later on?

So what do you ladies think of this mani? I ended up taking it off immediately and I switched to another 4th mani... but I'll show you that tomorrow. :)

xoxo,
Amanda