Teal Fishtail Braid Manicure: Inspired by Knitting!

My sister has recently taken up knitting, and one of her first projects is a scarf! I was totally inspired by her scarf to do some nail art - and so I did my first ever fishtail braid manicure!

For this manicure I used Exposed Aruba 52, Exposed Aqua Baby 59 (I've swatched the Exposed polishes before), and Boots Totally Teal. I wanted the colours in my mani to match my sister's scarf! I first did a base of Exposed Aruba 52, then painted diagonal lines of Aqua Baby, and Totally Teal, before starting again with Aruba. So basically it's just painting diagonal lines on top of each other, until you reach the end of your nail!


I didn't use any special brushes to paint the lines on - I just used the nail polish brush that came with the bottle. I topped it off with PA Premiere Grande Nail Polish in AA42 - a gorgeous green-blue flakie! I love flakies, although I don't wear them nearly enough. Another thing I wanted to say - you can't really tell the difference between Aruba and Aqua Baby in the photos, but they are different enough in real life. I'm not sure why they didn't show up on the camera!


For the fishtail braid manicure, it's probably a good idea to use colours that are opaque in one coat - of you use one of those loser "4 costs and you still see VNL (visible nail line)" typo polishes, then you'll need multiple passes to cover the polish underneath. Both Totally Teal and Aqua Baby were quite opaque, but for Aruba, I had to do two coats over the same line to get it to be really opaque.


So there you have it - my first ever fishtail braid manicure! I really like this - it's a great piece of nail art, and do easy to do too! I can't wait to try out other colour combinations!

Boots No 7 Totally Teal NOTD

Unfortunately, I don't have any awesome New Year's NOTD to show you as I was travelling right up to New Year's Eve, so how about a normal NOTD instead? This colour is pretty darn awesome, though. I bought this Boots No 7 Stay Perfect Nail Polish in Totally Teal from my local Boots awhile back using one of those £5 coupons they were giving out every now and then. (This was when I was still living in London, so it was awhile back.) I was looking at the Stay Perfect Nail Polishes, and out of all the boring pinks and beiges, I spied this shade. It was a beautiful teal creme, so I quickly brought it home with me.

I actually quite like Totally Teal. I don't actually have anything in my stash like this, and it's easy to apply and has a nice smooth finish. I also love the deep shade of teal - it's neither too blue nor green, but just perfect in the middle. All in all, a great little buy.

Lusting After: Boots No7 Colour Miracle Nail Polish

(Image from Boots)

Can someone tell me why I can't seem to find any of these anywhere? Are they long discontinued or unavailable in the UK, or just hard to get? I went to three separate Boots stores (and one REALLY large one) but I couldn't find any of them!

These are from Boots' No7 Colour Miracle line of nail polishes, that change colour. However, unlike colour-changing mood nail polishes (like the ones from Claire's), which change colour according to temperature, these ones are one colour throughout, and change colour only when you apply a layer of clear polish on top (like a clear topcoat). Boots claims that it is the perfect day-to-night nail polish colour, as you can wear the polish without topcoat during the day (although personally I really don't like doing that myself), and just apply a clear layer of varnish over to reveal the darker colour for night!

That's all fine and dandy, but personally, I'm thinking more along the lines of nail art than day-to-night office conformity :P Can you imagine all the exciting designs that can be done with something like this? Alright then, Boots, where have you hidden the stash of Colour Miracle polishes? Show me the goods already!