Admire a Black Box of Roses

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today's mani is inspired by one from my friend cRc which I saw on Nailgal (the best resource in the universe for color swatches and nail art inspiration).  She has shorter nails and used slightly different colors - I was ging for "inspired by" rather than a duplicate of hers.

I started with a base of L'Oreal Jet-Set Black Box, a black creme that's blacker than most.  The blackest, and most striking, black creme that I have is Lippmann Collection's Fade to Black, but the L'Oreal is quick dry and I was feeling impatient, so it's the one I used.  This was also my first shot at using the particular regular polish I chose for the stamp, and would rather have the failure, if it failed, be on a $1 polish.

For the stamp, which did not fail, I used China Glaze's Admire, the pinkish one of the new Romantiques.  If you have any of those and don't care for the chrome finish, I discovered that they work just beautifully with the Konad.  I selected the rose pattern from plate M65, and found by accident that this one works better on the double stamp without reversing the pattern - I did it accidentally on a few nails, and they look the best.  

That reminds me that I've never explained the double stamping process, which might be useful to those of you with long nails.  When I do an all-over pattern, I srat at the cuticle and the second stamp starts where the first left off, and I usually turn the second stamp upside down to match up with the first stamp (but as I saw, this particular one shouldn't be turned upside down).  When I do an all-over pattern with tips, I start with the all-over pattern and add the tips second.  When I'm stamping my tips only, I start at the tip of my nails and do the second stamp where the first left off.

That being said, here are the results of today's Konadicure.

 

I really love this one, and am grateful to cRc for the inspiration.  I get to spend my day out and about today, and this one might garner a few comments, which is always fun.  I'm up super early today not because of insomnia, but because I'm taking my favorite cousin (we call each other My Identical Cousin, pronouncing "cousin" as the Irish do) to get kidney stones blasted - not fun, but at least I get to be there for her.

I didn't have to do this mani this morning - whatever I was wearing would stay today since I have an early morning task to do.  I did this late in the day yesterday, as the patch on my right index nail was beginning to fail.  I reglued, repatched, and it's just as it was.  They wouldn't wear out if I quit using acetone as remover on them, but as we've seen, I'm a slow learner...

That's what I have for you today, Dear Reader.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!