Layering: Bourbon & Black

Polishes Used:

1 Coat Beauty Secrets Ridge Filler
1 Coat Sinful Colors Black on Black
1 Coat SOPI What's a Tire Jack?
3 Coats Julie G Bourbon Street
1 Coat Sinful Colors Clear Coat
1 Coat Seche Vite
1 Coat Hard Candy Matte About You

So, this is my manicure for the 3rd prompt in the 52 Week Challenge... I chose the Matte/Texture option rather than a 60s mani. There's a lot going on here, some of which I like, some of which I do not. It turned out a little differently than I planned.

First of all, for some odd reason, my bottle of Black on Black must be really low, because I kept having dig for polish, and it wasn't easy to apply at all. I switched over to SOPI What's a Tire Jack to even everything out.

Using Bourbon Street, I created a glitter gradient on my tips. Before applying, I knew that Bourbon Street had some texture, but I didn't realize how much. No problem, though, I just layered on a coat of clear and then a coat of Seche Vite, and it looked amazing! Next step... a matte finish!

For whatever reason, I thought the coats of clear and Seche would help eliminate texture when I put the finishing matte topcoat on my nails. WRONG. I'm relatively new to matte nails, and as soon as I applies Matte About You on my that first nail, I realized it was going to show every little bump and grain of the textured polish.

And it did.

Also, I'd like to note that my clean-up method doesn't work so well with a matte finish. O.o

So... yeah. I'm a little disappointed with how this turned out. It looked so gorgeous before mattification, and now it's a little better than meh, but I'm not really thrilled by it. Oh well, on to the next one, right?