31DC2012: Day 12, Stripes

Stripe nails! I actually got like 90% of the way through a completely different design for this theme before I realized it was failing and not turning out even remotely similar to what I had envisioned. So I scrapped that and just started improvising. This is what I ended up with!

The colors I've used here are all Lime Crime polishes. I had been seeing swatch after swatch of these and just couldn't resist their bright pastel shades. The polish really doesn't disappoint in person -- they are bright and opaque, with a really surprisingly nice formula. Unfortunately, with all of the colors in this photo, some of them suffered color-balance-wise. The pink color in particular is pretty off, it's much brighter in person.

The specific color names are Parfait Day, Peaches and Cream, Crema de Limon, Pastelchio, Once In a Blue Mousse, & Lavendairy. The black is OPI Black Onyx.

The technique here is not too complicated. I painted the rainbow stripes on my bare nail first, not worrying about where the lines ended on the sides (since I knew they would be covered). Then, I topcoated with Seche Vite to make them dry quickly. Once they were dry, I put a stripe of scotch tape down the middle of my nail. I painted the black over the whole nail, covering the tape. After removing the tape slowly and carefully, this design remained!

Some of my tape lines did need a little bit of correcting with a striper brush (removing flaws with acetone, or straightening lines with more black polish). However, if you are not a perfectionist, you could probably get away with just stopping after the tape removal and not correcting at all.

Anyway, not too shabby for a plan B! I still wish my first idea had panned out, but I'm totally enjoying these nails, too.

31 Day Challenge prompts are here, and last year's stripe nails are here (also a tape manicure!).

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31DC2012, freehand, lime crime, opi, rainbow, stripes, tape