Black & Gold

Since I like to do things chronologically, I still have two manicures to show until the manicure I did with the polishes I got from Sarah. This one is actually the last one you could call "nailart" until the one I'm wearing right now.

I guess most of you know the European brand essence and that this very brand likes to do Limited Editions quite a lot. So one of the current LE's is called "Ballerina Backstage". I wasn't really interested in this LE at first, but went to check it out in my favourite drugstore anyway. This is when the black polish called "Grand-Plié in Black" caught my eye. It's black with tiny bits of orange glitter in it. And this made me think of some art supplies I recently bought, as well as Robin Moses' transfer foil manicures, that I usually find awesome.

In the end, I bought the polish, of course...

Since I was thrilled about that (supposedly) great idea I had in the drugstore, I sat down that evening and started painting my nails with "Grand-Plié in Black". Thinking about it now, I was really stupid for not using a base coat here. My nails were pretty stained when I took it off later. I should have known better.

Anyway, I used two coats to make sure it's not streaky. Sadly, the orange glitter doesn't show as much as in the bottle. It's still pretty, just a lot more subtle... if a black polish can be subtle! After the polish was dry, I added on coat of a clear polish to my ring finger and added multi-colored metal foil bits, I got from the art supply store. This turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would be. ^^;

So this is the result:

This is after one day wearing it. I really hate how the black polish emphasized my first gel attempt, which was a fail. I only applied gel to my index finger, but with black polish on top, you can really see what a horrible job I did. ^^; I also think that I shouldn't have used Grand-Plié under the metal foil. There's still some tiny spots where it peaks through and I don't quite like that.

Well, I was sick the week after I applied this polish and didn't feel like doing something else instead. But after a few days I started to feel like something was unbalanced here. I found that the orange glitter just didn't pop enough next to the metal... So, I added some crackle polish on top of the metal foils.

The tip wear is not too bad after a whole week, I think. And I somehow like it more with the crackle on top. What do you think?