Gelish Mani Sunday | Tropical Vacation

My coworker told me a while ago that I would be doing her nails for her up-coming honeymoon on the island of Cozumel, near Cancún, Mexico, and she showed me the collection of bikinis she planned to take with her. I was immediately inspired and came up with a set that would match the colors in a couple of her bikinis.

The palm tree and dolphin studs were actually free gifts that came with one of my orders from AthenaRose! They were the perfect studs for this mani! I put the dolphin stud on her pinky and painted a palm tree on her thumb, then on her other hand I did the palm tree on her pinky and the dolphin on her thumb for a little bit of mix-and-match.
I bought Ocean Wave specifically for this mani because I wanted a bright, bright blue. Based off Chickette's swatches Ocean Wave definitely looked like the best candidate. In reality, the polish was rather sheer and needed a lot of coats to get that bright blue color - I got away with 3 coats on the ring finger only because I knew I'd be loading it up with studs. I wish I would've gone with a blue creme for better coverage.

I hand painted the dolphin, palm tree, and flowers using Gelish polish and didn't have any problems - well, except one: the yellow accents on the middle fingers. On the right hand (top image) I used Coco Cabana Banana to paint the yellow accents. The formula was quite watery and spread all over, and over the black the yellow actually looked green. To try and fix this I put a layer of Don't Be Such A Sourpuss over the cured Coco Cabana, but as you can see the damage was already done. On her left hand (bottom image) I STARTED with Sourpuss and then added a layer of Coco Cabana and the results were MUCH cleaner.

Another gripe I had was with the striping effect on the index nail. I created the gradient first then laid down the striping tape and painted the black over. I've consistently noticed the gel polish had a tendency to "leak" under the tape, causing the striping to look messy once you lift the tape. I think I just need to bite the bullet and start practicing hand-painting stripes.

For the above manicure I did the following:

Thumb Nail:

1. • 2 coats Coco Cabana Banana, cure all coats
2. • 2 coats Brights Have More Fun, use a small piece of sponge on the uncured polish to create a gradient effect, cure all coats
3. • 3 coats Ocean Wave, use a small piece of sponge on the uncured polish to create a gradient effect, cure all coats
4. • Wipe tacky layer. Using a nail art brush, paint dolphin/palm tree using 2 coats of Black Shadow. Cure all coats.
5. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
6. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Index Nail:

1. • 2 coats Coco Cabana Banana, cure all coats
2. • 2 coats Brights Have More Fun, use a small piece of sponge on the uncured polish to create a gradient effect, cure all coats
3. • 3 coats Ocean Wave, use a small piece of sponge on the uncured polish to create a gradient effect, cure all coats
4. • Wipe tacky layer. Lay down striping tape in striped pattern
5. • 2 coats Black Shadow, cure
6. • Using tweezers, slowy and carefully pull the striping tape off. It helps to keep the tweezers close to the nail as you pull, grabbing both the tape AND the polish that's covering the tape as you pull the tape off.
7. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Middle Nail:

1. • 2 coats Black Shadow, cure all coats
2. • Wipe tacky layer. Using a nail art brush, paint flowers using 2 coats of Brights Have More Fun, 1 coat of Don't Be Such A Sourpuss, and 1 coat of Coco Cabana Banana on top of Sourpuss. Cure all coats.
3. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Ring Nail:

1. • 3 coats Ocean Wave, cure all coats
2. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
3. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Pinky Nail:

1. • 2 coats Black Shadow, cure all coats
2. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the stud in, cure
3. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure

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Pink Punk Stars

Woah, it feels like forever since I posted (ok, only a week, but still!). I've been super busy with holiday-type stuff. Is anyone else counting the days until Xmas? Just this past Saturday I spent, literally, 12 hours straight baking cookies. It's worth it, and I love handing out plates of Xmas cookies, but MAN that's a long time to bake!
This week begins the Week of the Christmas Manicures. My coworker is coming over tomorrow, my roommate wants some simple red and gold nails, and then my fiancée and I will get our holiday nails on this weekend. I better just keep the red and green polishes out. ;)

In the meantime here's a NON-Christmas mani for your enjoyment :)
This mani is using Black Shadow with some Concrete Couture glitter accents and Brights Have More Fun with some Sweet 16 glitter accents. I used silver Folk Art acrylic paint to paint the silver accents.

I should also note that I'm late on posting this mani - I actually did it on my fiancée 3 weeks ago and am just now blogging it (my Instagram is always my most current place for manis). But Kim over at Ten Little Canvasses just posted a gorgeous shooting star mani a couple days ago. It's a weird coincidence, but I thought it was worth noting :)

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