Week 8 - Corset Mani

I'm thankful that I saw a couple of other people's renditions of this week's challenge before I got around to attempting mine. Otherwise, I would have been horrified at my inability to make this come out looking at cute as the tutorials I've seen. Since none of the others like their results, either (at least that I saw earlier today before I got offline and started working on my nails) I don't feel so bad about saying that this picture you're about to see is icky.

First, let me tell you that it wasn't even my first try. No, that one did not get camera treatment. It got glares and imprecations and cursing. I took the remover to my nails before it was even dry, I was that annoyed. It was BAD. I hemmed and hawed and looked through my polish colors to see if I oughtn't to change my mind about the polishes I was using...I didn't change the polishes I was using, but I did move them around a bit. I had intended to make the sides of the corset the same color as the rest of my nails, and just use black for the lacing, but as gorgeous as that looked in my head, it just doesn't translate when using a jelly that needs more than one coat for opacity.

Okay, I've put it off long enough. I have to show you how bad my second attempt turned out. I'm almost tempted to put it behind a cut-tag.

Like I said earlier, I didn't even bother to do clean up. I waited for a few minutes, trying to decide whether they were kind of cute or not before admitting that I couldn't dredge up even the tiniest shred of liking for this manicure, so I took pictures and then utterly removed the paint from the offending two nails of each hand. I put this picture up first because it shows the design more clearly (the better to see how bad it is!) but this picture is far better in terms of color accuracy:

Because the index, middle, and pinky fingers are far more purple than that first picture looks. And this picture picks up just a hint of the pretty glitter hidden away in this jelly.

Oh, right, I didn't tell you what I used yet, did I? ^_^ Almost all Sinful Colors today, from my new haul. That's three coats of Daddy's Girl on most of the nails, and one coat of China Glaze Reggae to Riches on the thumb and ring finger, with a coat of Purple Diamond layered over it. I used Secret Admirer for the corset and lacing, and dotted a bit more of Daddy's Girl along the top of the corset.

You know, I've never really been one to care whether there's a visible nail line underneath my sheer polishes, but I was honestly surprised when I looked at these pictures, because I hadn't realized there was one under that Daddy's Girl. It looks pretty opaque in person. The pink and gold glitters when the light hits it, though, are just fascinating.

I really wanted to like this manicure, and maybe I'll try it again some day, but I couldn't stomach the idea of wearing this in to work tomorrow, so the accent nails got stripped. I replaced them with three coats of Purple Diamond and some rhinestones, to get this result:

MUCH better! This I can wear to work without cringing at my co-workers asking to see what I did on my nails over the weekend. :)