Manicure Monday: Stefani

Last week I showed you a gorgeous rose gold polish from Julep, which I received in my August Julep Maven* subscription. I changed things up this month, opting for the American Beauty box over the It Girl polishes specifically for Dakota, but also, because when I go for metallic polish, it's usually a gunmetal hue. The American Beauty box delivered.

Stefani, the lovely gunmetal polish pictured below, take a bit of a different twist on the shade by including flecks of gold shimmer. It's actually quite subtle, so it didn't pick up that well in the photo, but if you look at the bottle, you can see just the slightest hint of gold sheen in the polish. The gold picks up a bit better in the sun, however, it's still very subtle. I like it, because it's unexpected. I normally expect silver shimmer with gunmetal, so I was happy with this little twist. 

 

As with Dakota, one coat gives you a good color pay off, but the photo above is a two coat shot. Turns out, my base coat was partially to blame with the slow drying time I was experiencing with the rose gold polish last week. However, even with a new base coat, this color also took just a hint longer to dry than I'm used to. Does anyone else experience that? Perhaps it has something to do with the metallic colors. On the plus side, the dry time was no where near as ridiculous as last week, where upwards of 20 minutes later I was still messing up my manicure, which should have been long dry by then. 

This one just took an extra minute or so than I'm used to, nothing earth shattering. Especially since I love a pretty gunmetal polish so much. It always makes me feel kind of like a rock star. And with the gold-flecked twist, Stefani makes me feel just a bit more edgy. All I need now are my motorcycle boots, black skinnies, and a rockin' smokey eye. 

On another note, I'm trying a new nail polish experiment. I read a trick over at This That Beauty. One of the contributors stumbled upon a trick that made her regular manicure last nearly 10 days without chipping on natural nails. That's right, no gel mani. She used regular polish on her real nails. You can read about here experience here. Here's the Cliff's Notes:

1. Paint your nails normally: base coat, two coats of polish, top coat.
2. Wait for that to dry.
3. Apply one more coat of polish over your finished manicure. (This step and the next can be done the next day if you prefer, but do it before you experience any chipping.)
4. Then top that with another layer of top coat and let dry.

According to Christine, her manicure stayed pristine for 10 days and may have lasted longer but she had to change her polish color to something more conservative for a work meeting. She has since tried it several times and found her manicures last a lot longer.

I'm thinking it worth a shot, so I decided that I would experiment with this week's color. After I took the photo above, I added one more coat of polish and top coat. I'll let you know how it works. If it's in fact successful, next week's Manicure Monday may just be Stefani again. Stay tuned!

* This is my personal Julep Maven link. If you join using my link I earn credits that can be redeemed for free nail polish. This is not an offer exclusive to me. Everyone who joins the Julep Maven program receives their own personal link to share and can also earn credits toward free polish. Get your first month for just $0.01 with code COLOR2012 or get two free polishes with code 2COLORS.