Jessie J Black and Gold Manicure

As promised, here is the other manicure that I spotted in Jessie J's music video for Domino. Did you spot it? Here are some screen shots:

I really like this one. It's pretty fierce and I love how she pairs it with that bedazzled hat. Awesome! For my version of this manicure, I started with two coats of Essie's Licorice (my go-to black). For the gold accents, I picked up one of Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear nail colour in Golden-I. It's a little bit more silvery gold as opposed to Jessie J's yellow gold, but I didn't have my YSL Gold that I used here. 

After letting two coats of black and one coat of Seche Vite dry for about 20 minutes, I used Scotch tape to section of a thin line in the middle of the nail.

Then, after making sure there were no bubbles along the tape line on each nail, I carefully painted one coat of gold over the uncovered areas.

One word of caution - wait as long as possible to let your coats of base colour and Seche Vite dry before doing the tape step. For this manicure, even though the tape didn't pull up any black, the tape left tiny, and almost unnoticeable, ridges and valleys in the black as it was still slightly sticky under the Seche Vite.

I decided to add gold polka dots with my dotting tool (found in the painting/sculpting section of your local craft store - a toothpick would also work) instead of adding 3D decals like Jessie J's. I love the look of decals but would rather not have them all over my nails. It would be so devastating if one caught on something and ripped off - taking some of the manicure with it! Then I added one coat of Seche Vite to lock it in and, fortunately, this final coat of polish eliminated the appearance of those minuscule ridges and valleys mentioned earlier. This is what it ended up looking like:

I didn't realize until after I got started that these nails are probably supposed to be dominos (duh) but, either way, they are cute and I see a lot of variations of this manicure in Beauty School Dropouts' future!
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Jessie J Multicolour Manicure

I was watching Jessie J's music video for her latest song, Domino, the other day and I was happy to find out that, in this video, nails are front and centre. I spent a while trying to get a good screen shot of one of the manicures and, this is what I got.

Pretty, right? It looks like a warm base that consists of a bright yellow, a pink, and a teal-ish colour, topped off by thick and thin dark purple stripes. I thought I would attempt this complex manicure. Since I am on holiday in Florida and don't have my trusty nail box along with me (I brought some basics but not the necessary colours for this manicure), I ran out to my local Walgreens and grabbed a bunch of Sinful Colors polishes. They are only $1.99 each (I know!!!) and are sold in a ton of colours and go on the nail really well.  They show up rather opaque after two coats and seem to really last. For the teal-ish blue, the most similar colour I could find was Rise and Shine.

I found a pretty perfect pink called Pink Forever.

The yellow, Unicorn, is light and buttery and I can't wait to work it into other pastel manicures.

For the dark purple stripes, I grabbed Let's Talk. This colour is a deep, grapey, metallic purple but, unfourtunately, photographs as blueish!

I decided to free-hand the manicure as opposed to using tape to make the lines sharper, but I think next time I might opt for the more precise tape or sticker method that I used here and here.

Also, I wish the polish colours I used were slightly different (specifically I wish the teal was slightly less green and more blue) but, alas, I am without my supplies so I'm working with what I have!

This is what it turned out like. Keep in mind, the purple lines in the photos with flash appear more purple-y in real life :)

Overall, it actually looks pretty cute. The pattern is inspiring - I can't wait to try it out with different colour combinations...maybe monochrome. Greys and black would be awesome, as would different shades of pink...Valentine's Day anyone? It's coming up! Thanks to Jessie J for the inspiration!

P.S. There is another manicure in the video that I'm itching to try...can you spot it? Keep your eyes peeled on the blog!

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