Professional Pinstripes

Whew...its been a long time since I posted a manicure but I'm baaaaack... i've just finished a HUUGE project and so I can finally "relax" a little... I had to do an interview with a store manager and give a powerpoint presentation and do a written paper for my class. I needed a professional "business" look so I did a pinstripe mani...it looks classy but still colorful and still "me"...

I had issues with top coat...but more on that later....

I started with 2 coats of Julep's Meryl which is a beaautiful creamy grey color...

Then I decided to add a pinstripe of color with this striping tape I got from the Born Pretty Store. I used my jewelry pliers to cut them b/c i'm used to using it and to me that was the easiest way...but using regular scissors or nail cutters would work too...

This was my process...I would yank out a strip of the tape [in this case the silver one] and then line it up with where I wanted it to be...and i left it a little longer then my nail..and I left some on my cuticle so if I needed to rearrange it, I could still use those longer ends as "tabs" to move the tape around...

As you can see...each line of tape has a little tab that you yank to "open" the roll...There were 12 colors and I chose a different color for each finger..and after I had it in the right place I snipped off the extra that was hanging off my nail and extra that was on my cuticles...

As you can see...in the right light there is a sparkle that the striping tape gives off...I like that the grey-ness of Meryl is chic and classy but the striping tape gives off the right amount of sparkle and color to make it fun but still appropriate for "business"....the only issue I had was that the color of the tape seemed to fade after my topcoat routine...

 For this mani..I really wanted to make sure the tape wouldn't lift up and peel away...so using my logic I figured since Gelous makes tough glitter flat...then it should prevent the tape from peeling...so I put on a coat of Gelous followed by Sally Hansen- No Chip Acrylic top coat that I found in one of my old drawrs..[oh boy big mistake i tell you.... more on that to follow....]

For my right hand I did purple tape on my thumb, silver holo on my pointer..dark blue on my middle finger, gold for my ring finger, and green on my pinky....

 When I said BIG mistake for the Sally Hansen topcoat...this is what I mean.... do you see the cracks??!! I was like O_______O when I saw them the nect day...yea the top coat gave me amazing shine but really?!!?! cracks like that?? whaaatt?? so I quickly slapped on a layer of Cult nail's wicked fast on top... you cant really notice it to the "naked eye" but when i took my pictures and looked at my hands I could see them and it made me feel so eewww!~ also here you can see that the purple of the tape faded to a dull purple.. :(

 Silver holo...

Dark blue...

 gold...

 greeen...

 this used to be black but it faded to a steel grey color..

 used to be bright red...now its more of a dull red.. .>.<

 regular silver..

 light blue...faded to a dull light blue...almost silver...

magenta...faded to a dull purpley pink...

 

Overall I liked this mani and I think I'll use the tape again and play around...but I think if I use this top coat "routine" again..I'm definitely adding Cult nails wicked fast on top to prevent the cracking... >.<

 

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