Once in a Blue Moon - Painting it Blue for Autism Awareness

Dear followers,

We're painting it blue again, this time on my, the Captain's nails. I really needed to try out these multicoloured caviar beads that I recently purchased from Max Make-up. They were really really cheap! And since I have no money, that comes in handy ;) They really made this mani a happy, yet sophisticated one:

Both with flash

I first painted my nails with a base coat and ridge filler from Etos. This one is very gloopy and hence does not apply easily. It does however fill out most of my irregularities (and there are a LOT). Then I took one of my favourite blues, that unfortunately remains nameless, HEMA no. 23. It is a dark royal blue creme, that appears lighter in the bottle than on the nails. I painted my nails with one coat (which is almost opaque). Then I waited for it to dry and harden. As soon as I thought it was ready, I took out some french tip guides from Essence, and placed them, not at the tips, but at the base of the nail, as to create half moons. Never had a half-moon mani before, so I thought I'd try. They're not supposed to be be done with the french tip guides though, but it was the only way it would work with the caviar, of course. Normally one would create the moons the other way around, namely by sticking a circular piece of tape on the base and painting over the rest of the nail. But of course that would not work in this case. Anyway, after the tip guides, I put some top coat on the base and poured over it the caviar. Then I gently pushed down the beads, in order for them to stick better. Then I removed the tip guide, and to my shock, only half of it would come off! OH NO!

Apparently, my polish was not as dry as I had thought. Oh well, I thought, let's try and salvage this horror. I gently scratched off the stickers and that worked reasonably well, except for one or two fingers. I had started with my right hand, so when I started working on my left hand, I made sure to make the stickers less sticky (place it on various parts of skin on your hands and arms first ;) ) and applied them one by one. This worked better.
After the caviar, I added one more coat of blue to the non-caviared parts of the nails, and took the two upper photos. 

I did not want my mani to be ruined by the upcoming hair-wash festivities that I have each morning, so I decided to add another layer of top coat to it all. This is tricky, because the colour of the beads is easily dissolved in the varnish. So dabb it on quickly and don't touch it anymore! I learned this the hard way... Below, you can see the vast colour difference between my middle and ring finger caviar beads... 

These photo's were taken the next morning, and as you can see, the mani survived sleep and hair washing! Although, you can see some sheet imprints... Oh well.. As we speak, I'm still wearing the mani and it has survived a second night of sleep and a second shower! However I didn't have to do dishes yesterday, so it's lucky ;)

Daylight & Outfit

My right hand (that I couldn't have done without the Lieutenant) in daylight: 

Flash

I'm totally in love with this mani. It makes my nails and fingers look longer! As you can see, I have very short fingers, and they can appear very much like sausages, but with this mani, my hands look pretty <3

Do you like the half-moon/caviar look?

xoxoxo

Captain