Matte and Gloss Leopard Print

I've done a few different variations on leopard print nails, and this is a very subtle version that I came up with, matte and gloss black leopard print.
This manicure was quite a hard one to get good pictures of, I hopefully have managed to show the leopard print here, but trust me, the effect is much better in real life!

In order to create this mani, I painted my nails with a couple of layers of black nail polish as my basecoat, waited for it to dry then added a matte topcoat. Once that had dried, I painted on the leopard pattern with a nail art brush, using a gloss topcoat nail polish.

I love this mani, though I must say, with all matte polish I've used, the matte effect seems to dull down with time - especially if you use a moisturiser regularly - so this is not a long lasting mani!

Any tips for how to keep a matte mani matte?

Thanks for reading!

M

All Hallows' Eve

So yes, I know this is a little late for a Halloween post (a lot late!!) but I still wanted to share the nail art I had going on for Halloween because I loved it and I LOVE Halloween! I actually did two different manis, one for the build up to Halloween and one for Halloween itself.

The Pre-Halloween Mani

Bloody Talons

Sorry for the terrible picture quality, I forgot to get a good picture and just ended up taking one at work! I had seen this mani style quite a bit, usually the paired with pastel colours or made to look like ice-cream cones, and I thought it could be quite a fun Halloween mani if I had my nails look like they were dripping blood. I quite liked the outcome and may do it again next halloween - though as you can see I evidently didn't give the red enough time to dry before I put a topcoat on - which meant the red bled a bit into the undercoat.

 The Halloween Mani

 For my Halloween nails I decided on black (of course!) with three accent nails - one cobweb, and a two nail skeleton. 

Cobwebs and Skeletons!

Whole Skeleton

I used a black undercoat as my base, and for the spooky accents I used a white nail art pen. To create the cobweb, I drew three straight lines originating from the same point going outwards, I then connected those with slightly curved lines between each of the initial ones to create a cobweb like look.

The skeleton was a little harder to paint, I started with the spine, skull and pelvis, then added the arms ribs and legs (not very anatomically correct though, hehe!).

I loved both these manicures, and I am already excited thinking about what to do this year! Anybody got any good Halloween ideas yet?

Thanks for reading!

M