floral design | Craftynail

You may have heard that I’m part of a beauty blogger group called the Beauty Buffs. This week we’re all talking about the Pantone color of the year- Radiant Orchid.

The orchid shade that I’m highlighting is Zoya Perrie. I’m shocked at how opaque this color is! The above swatch is one base coat and one coat of Perrie (no topcoat). I also wanted to do some floral nail art to tie into the orchid theme. I tried out my first attempt at one-stroke painting. Nope, you will not be seeing the results! It was less than stellar. I need some practice, for sure. So instead, I grabbed a bunch of Zoya colors and went for an abstract floral orchid design. I enjoy doing nail art like this. It’s not too planned out and I just let my creativity do the work.

Perrie – used as my base color and a few dots here and there

Ginessa – sponged onto my tips for some subtle shimmer

Belinda – for the dark purple petals

Pippa – as the yellow accents

I hafta admit- I borrowed Zoya Perrie from my mom! 😉 She has good taste in nail polish. I’m just realizing that this shade of orchid looks great on me though! I was never really attracted to these pinky-purpley colors before. I always preferred purples that leans more towards blue than pink. But now that my eyes are opened, and considering it’s the color of 2014, I really need to grab some shades like this!

What radiant orchid shades do you have?

Here’s what the other Beauty Buffs are wearing….

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Day 8 of the Oh Mon Dieu Rather Awesome Challenge is MATTE. I love matte on top of nail art! And today I’ve got a big bright mattified design for you!

I’m wearing a strengthening base coat and then three coats of Salon Perfect Flamingo Flair. Turns out that this neon has a really crappy formula 😦 Good thing the color is great, or I would just toss this polish aside for good. It’s thick, chalky and streaky and dries very dull. The polish was stacked up so thick that I had to apply a coat of seche vite to help the goopiness settle down. And then I noticed that it was still super dull and flat-looking. It wasn’t the slightest bit glossy- even with a healthy layer of top coat. Good thing I’ll be mattifying it soon anyway!

Then I painted some random tropical looking flowers on top using FolkArt acrylic craft paint and topped it with one coat of MASH Matte Topper. I can’t compare MASH to other brands since it’s the only one I’ve ever tried, but I love it! It was cheap, dries fast, and gives a nice effective matte finish on top of my nail art.

Initially I liked the final result- it was really bright and tropical-looking. And the Flamingo Flair almost seems to glow in the dark in dim lighting. But otherwise, this mani was sorta a let down. My Flamingo Flair chipped in less than 14 hrs. And half of those hours I was sleeping! This was my first bottle of Salon Perfect nail polish… and if this shade is any indication of the quality of their products… then this will be my last! Once it started chipping I couldn’t wait to get it off! On the bright side, that means I can start prepping for my day 9 textured design. See you then! 😀 Oh, and if you’re just hearing about the nail challenge- it’s not too late! You can still join in!
8. Matte :