Rockstar french

I have been dying to use the holographic craft glitter I bought in Buffalo before xmas.  So finally I had some extra time set aside to use it and I decided on a rockstar french.

My terrible Blackberry camera just cannot do this justice.  I did try the dry glitter once with regular polish and it was a disaster.  Unfortunately there's a very fine line between 'wet enough to stick' and 'dry enough not to smudge' with regular polish.

With the soak off gels you always have a tacky layer after curing so glitter will always stick without ruining your base.  So here's how I did this:

One thin coat of Shellac Base coat - cure for 10 secs
One thin coat of Shellac in Negligee - cure for 2 mins
Wipe off tacky layer completely with rubbing alcohol
Paint tips only in Gelish Oocha Coocha (teal glitter) - cure for 2 mins
Brush glitter on tips using an acrylic nail brush
Press glitter down on nails using paper towel
Sweep over nails with a clean brush to remove any stray glitter
One coat of Gelish Top It Off top coat - cure for 2 mins
Another coat of the same - cure for 2 mins
Wipe off final coat with rubbing alcohol

The whole process takes about an hour and a half but totally worth it.

Even Seche Vite does not give me that much shine.  My experience with past glitter-scrub manicures is that they only last half the time.  I have higher hopes for this one.  My last gel mani - the Red Carpet Manicure in Violetta Darling only lasted 7 days...boo.  It's really too bad that soak off gel polishes are fairly inaccessible and expensive here.  I'm not really complaining that much though since the investment has paid itself off at least twice over by now.

Later
P