Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Nail Art Challenge #16 - Supermoon

A softly marbled, glow-in -the-dark(!), cling-wrap manicure inspired by the face of the full moon.


It took me a while to figure out what to do for this fortnight's challenge. My original plan had been to do a half-moon manicure but obviously I just did one. I didn't want to go too white because the next challenge is Labor Day/white themed.

I ended up Googling pics of the Moon and realized how beautifully marbled it looked, so I thought that may be something to work with. I'd never done a marbled manicure before so I wasn't sure how to approach it. I knew I'd seen what I was looking for, but all I could think of was sponging, which would be too even. 

img source http://www.oocities.org/~cphilg/astro.html
A bit of nail blog searching later and I stumbled over saran wrap or cling film manicures (link is to a Google image search) and I knew I had it!

I've linked to a tutorial here but basically you do a base layer of one colour which you let dry. In my case this was a dark taupe. I wish I had something a bit cooler grey but you got what you got. Once that layer is really dry you apply a coat of the second colour (white, here) and while it is still wet dab at it with a piece of crumpled plastic wrap until you achieve the desired effect. I ended up going back in a few times with the white as it is very sheer and I wanted a really diffuse uneven effect.

Some people just topcoat it there, but you can also put a coat of something sheer over the top for added depth. I used a yellowy glow-in-the-dark polish to smooth out and soften the design... and also because glow-in-the-dark makes everything better! I couldn't get a pic of the glowing that made any sense, but here is a brief video from my instagram.

I'm beyond psyched at how this came out. I think it is probably the closest I've gotten in any of these challenges to nailing PRECISELY what I had pictured at the outset. This technique was quite easy and also works spectacularly well to make lapis, turquoise, and tarnished copper effects so I will DEFINITELY be revisiting in the future.

I hope you all had a fantastic view of the Supermoon on Sunday, I ended up going out for a late run with my Fiancée and while we usually don't like getting caught out after dusk it was absolutely worth it to watch the moon rise. We even got to catch a small group of bats on the wing.


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