Gelish Mani Sunday | Beachy Japanese Seashell Manicure

It's official: I FINALLY GOT MY SEASHELL STUDS!!!
Aren't they purdy!? A couple weeks ago I was poking around Instagram, looking for nail art, when I saw an announcement by a new account called shopthenailroom that they would be opening their Japanese nail stud store within the week and that it would contain seashell nail studs.
Some of you may be familiar with my epic search of doom for seashell nail studs. I was so, so stoked to find a seller on this side of the pacific that would be selling these studs. I immediately came to my blog and updated my previous post with the info cuz, let's face it - the vast majority of hits I get on this thing are from people looking for those shells!

By some strange circumstance, the store owner, oshimanails found my blog and hit me up, offering me a 15% blogger discount that I'm happy to pass on to you! I'm not getting any kind of commission, this is just a "help the nailists of the world" kind of thing ;)

shopthenailroom.com - Get 15% off order over $20 with code GELISHGEEKERY.

Right now she has gold and silver 5mm and 3.5mm seashell studs :D I'm just so glad my quest is finally done.
And now: on to the manicure!
I'm kinda sorta in LOVE with this Gelish mani. It's my favorite one since the nude & gold pearl mani. So, initially I was like, "OMG I WANT BEACHY NAILS BUT I CAN'T DECIDE WHAT I LIKE BEST SO HOW ABOUT ALL OF THEM!!" Like srsly I was going to do one of each of these on my nails:

By daily_charme

By MyMakeupMania

By CaptivatingClaws

PLUS the gold glitter nail that I ended up keeping. The night before I did my manicure I decided to do my first Gelish pedicure (linked to pedi pic because sometimes feet are weird to look at) and I ended up loving the Japanese nail art-inspired style so much I decided to recreate it on my nails. Thankfully, I decided to simplify things - but I still had to keep that cute beachy gradient by daily_charme. I used my new Gelish Garden Teal Party and lemme tell you - that formula is THICK! I tend to put my Gelish on thicker than I should (but somehow not thick enough to cause wrinkling) but this one gave me a run for my money. If the whole Love In Bloom collection is like this I bet it'd make great Gelish nail art polish. I also got to use my new 5mm seashell stud from shopthenailroom. Yup, it's just as awesome as I thought it'd be.

For the above manicure I did the following:

Index, Middle, and Pink Nails:

1. 3 coats of Garden Teal Party, cured all coats
2. Dabbed Foundation onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cured
3. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

Thumb Nail:

1. 2 coats of Up In The Blue, cured all coats
2. 2 coats of Garden Teal Party, sponging off the first gradient fade, cured all coats
3. 2 coats of Seafoam, sponging off the second gradient fade, cured all coats
4. 2 coats of Skinny Vanilla Latte at the tip, sponging off the third gradient fade, cured all coats
5. Scrubbed mix of gold and brown glitter into the tip of the nail
6. 1 coat TIO, cure
7. Dabbed Foundation onto the TIO and pressed the stud in, cured
8. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

Ring Nail:

1. 3 coats of Skinny Vanilla Latte, cured all coats
2. Scrubbed mix of gold and brown glitter into the whole nail
3. 1 coat TIO, cure
4. Dabbed Foundation onto the TIO and pressed the studs in, cured
5. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats