Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Blinged Out Leopard - China Glaze On Safari Nail Art

Good morning! I'm back from another brief pause in posting due to vacation! Today I'm sharing the first of my China Glaze On Safari nail art looks.

If you'll recall, instead of doing swatches of new collections, I prefer to try to use all of them in various nail art techniques. I am not particularly fond of swatching and find that this method suits my area of expertise best. I also think that doing it this way provides people with some applications for these collections that they may not have considered! Hopefully soon I will have posts ready for you guys that use the rest of the colors.


My first look is a leopard print! If you want to check out my tutorial for doing leopard print, here it is. I only use a dotting tool to achieve this look, so anyone can do it!

I have been doing a lot of these lately, but what makes this one special is the glittery base. I used two coats of China Glaze I'm Not Lion, which, um, I love. First of all, I love the consistency. It's not thick or hard to apply at all. Second of all, I love the density. Full opacity in two coats? Yes please. Third of all, I love the color, a champagne-y pale gold. Finally, it's just so SPARKLY.

It's a little gritty, but way less gritty than I was expecting it to be. I applied one coat of topcoat before continuing with the rest of my nail art. By the end of the manicure, I had applied two coats of topcoat, and that was enough to tame the glitter pretty well.


Then I added the lighter pieces of the spots in China Glaze Desert Sun. I have seen this color described as butterscotch on a lot of blogs. It's very warm and reminds me of caramel. Something about the color is really comforting to me. Desert Sun is a creme and was easy to use in this nail art.


Finally, I added the irregular markings on in China Glaze Call of the Wild. It's a dark brown red-leaning creme. This one gets a bit sheer around the edges, almost like a jelly. It's difficult to explain, because it is definitely a creme... You can kind of see at the edges of some of my spots where it gets thinner, clearer, and redder.


It seemed appropriate to start off my "On Safari" nail art with an animal print manicure. The base color was being truthful when it said "I'm not lion!" (get it, cause it's leopard?) ... *crickets*


And here's a bonus blurred picture so you can see the sparkle in I'm Not Lion. It's definitely got holo glitter in it, but still has a nice even texture when not in direct sunlight!


I hope you'll stay tuned for the rest of my On Safari nail art looks!

The China Glaze On Safari collection is available now at salons and beauty supply stores nationwide. Individual polishes retail for $7 MSRP.

The products in this post were sent to me by the manufacturer or their PR.
Share:

45 comments

  1. Oh, these are so far up my alley it's not even funny. LOVE!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm in love with your nails, perfect, i'll fallow u
    xoxo
    http://utvivamus.blogspot.com.br/

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just ADORE this. Seriously.

    I tried my first leopard manicure just the other day as it was inspired by your tutorial and blog, but I didn't even think about using "I'm Not Lion" as the base. I thought I would use it as an accent or something instead, but I ended up not using it all in favor of the uniformity of all the nails for the leopard print. I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it.

    On mine I used Skull & Glossbones as a base color, with Barielle Wool You Marry Me and CG Kalahari Kiss for the prints.

    But I'm definitely going to try your sparkly version next. It's so great!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I already have I'm not lion, but now I think I need the other two so I can recreate this mani! so beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oooooo, I LOVE this! Such a gorgeous and creative combo, I wouldn't have thought of it on my own! I have all of these polishes, so this one is definitely in my "to-do" list. Thanks so much for sharing!! :-D

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love this manicure! I really like how you make nail art out of the polishes instead of just swatching them! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. love it<3 Leopard+glitter is perfect!!!!!
    cocosnailss.blogspot.fr

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is so beautiful! I want I'm Not Lion now as lions are my favourite animals and I love metallics ;) x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Making me want them really bad now! Love how the base is glittery.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I approve!

    Seeing 500 swatch sets of every new collection gets kinda old, it's nice to see some nail art in the rotation. I'm not much a fan of swatching myself, I'd rather do something fun and have a cute mani to show for it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. this is amazing! they all go so well together!

    ReplyDelete
  12. beautiful!!!! I have never tried leopard free hand.. eeek kinda scared to try

    ReplyDelete
  13. I absolutely LOVE this! I think I'm gonna do it today!! thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I absolutely LOVE this! I think I'm gonna do it today!! thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I absolutely am in love with this! I bought both of the glitters and love them both!! This is awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'm not even that much of a fan of animal prints, but this is absolutely gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  17. That's the most jaw-dropping leopard print mani I've ever seen. That's it, if that's how good they can look I'm going to start practicing!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I need desert sun, it looks like the camel coat for your nails and I'm not lion is pretty special too, nice mani :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Absolutely fabulous! I love the way the glitter comes out on the blurred pic.

    ReplyDelete
  20. :O. amoozing. i clap for you. :O>

    ReplyDelete
  21. this is so sparkly and pretty! i love it, amazing job. and i totally agree about swatching! i'm not a fan at all, id rather see some nail art!

    ReplyDelete
  22. I love the sparkly base for this :) Looks so good!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Very clever... Leopard print with I'm Not Lion! :) I also love that you are so creative with your swatches.

    ReplyDelete
  24. This is brilliant and beautiful! I love the way you 'swatch' collections, it's unique. And of course your lion joke was hilarious, durr!

    ReplyDelete
  25. How funny, we're both wearing leopard print right now. :) Well I don't think you're still wearing this colour but meh. ;) I'm the girl who posted the purple version using your leopard tutorial on Instagram. :)
    I love these colours from the Safari collection! :D

    ReplyDelete
  26. You used such great colours for this mani and it looks so nice :) The only colour I've really been interested in is Im Not Lion from the On Safari collection. And by the way, I LOVED your bad joke, I'm all for them!!! :P

    ReplyDelete
  27. You did a fab job on this leopard print mani! And I love I'm not Lion a lot, I seriously need that one :)

    ReplyDelete
  28. I absolutely love these!!! gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  29. this looks so cool! i love that the base color is a holo. very unexpected. :)

    ReplyDelete
  30. I laughed at the "I'm not lion" joke :D! Love this manicure ♥.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Gorgeous! And I like that you don't do the usual swatches. Once you've seen them on five other blogs, it's great to see them differently!

    ReplyDelete
  32. I wasn't planning on buying any of these until I saw this -- now I want to buy them just to do this mani! Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  33. I LOVE your nails! OMG! I want to try this.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Love it!!! Definitely need to get those colors and try this out!

    ReplyDelete
  35. OMG this is SO FREAKING GORGEOUS! Yes I need to join animal prints anonymous ;)

    I have been wanting to do a leopard mani so badly--so I just watched the video--you are BRILLIANT! I may try other "animal looks" with my dotting tools (just freehanded zebra and kinda just ok).

    Thank you so much, this looks lovely on you :))

    ReplyDelete
  36. This is brilliant and beautiful! it's unique.But i love Desert Safari Dubai.
    Desert safari

    ReplyDelete
  37. wow, thats no nail polish thats art !, amazing

    ReplyDelete
  38. Is it available in Abu Dhabi, UAE ????

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment! Please avoid link dropping and spamming. I reserve the right to remove any comments that I feel violate this policy.

© Chalkboard Nails | Phoenix, Arizona Nail Artist | All rights reserved.
Blog Design Handcrafted by pipdig