Mani(c) Mondays: Colour Blocking

I know, I know.... sigh, I am late to this trend, but I decided to attempt a bit of Colour Blocking.

I am the least stylish person I know, I stick to what I know, so I am always late to the table as far as fashion goes. Also I never know if something is still in fashion or not. Ah well.

I am really liking Essence's Choose Me! I looked to get another bottle (they cost all of €1.29) for a friend, and its not on stands any more, which is a pity as its a great colour for spring. Heck, its practically the Pantone Colour for 2012 (I may not be fashion-forward, but I do read).

I tried to pick up on the very subtle gold shimmer that you can see in the bottle by adding some gold stripes, but it didn't work out quite like I wanted. But I only realised that I like the effect that I ended up with, even though it took me ages (and 32 attempts) to get those 3 stripes, this morning. I generally paint my nails in the evening, when light is not conducive to taking good pictures.

Right, so this is what I used:

Base coat: Sally Hansen Miracle cure
Base colour: 2 coats of Essence Choose Me!
Accent: Avon Mirror shine Gold Foil.
Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-dry
Konad French Manicure stamping plate, scraper and stamping tool.

I was hoping to get a nice solid gold band. But the polish just wasn't the right kind to use with a stamping tool. I should have used french manicure guides to do this, but I was feeling lazy and thought the stamping tool would work nicely.

It didn't. The gold dried so quickly I had to work extremely fast with it and even then it was messy. I knew I would have to use a top coat to make sure the gold bands would stay put. In a happy accident, the top coat dragged a bit of the gold colour off a little bit, allowing more the the base colour to shine through. I didn't appreciate the effect until the following morning.

And the following morning, I decided to try this Colour Blocking thing. I matched my Lipstick, a Rimmel one (kate moss #02) to a t-shirt cardigan that I picked up at Penneys (for €2 down from €8).

 I quite like the contrast and clash of the orange and the pink.

I know the light is very bad in this last photo, But I just like how my skin looks: all clear and nice :). Yes I am a bit of a vain creature.