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!

Exposed Nail Polish Swatches

Exposed is the latest brand of nail polish to come to Singapore from the UK, and boy, for a cheap-and-cheery range, they sure have a lot of colours! In Singapore Exposed is carried by GlamoGirl (who by the way also carries a lot of other brands), and you can check out the full range there.

I've got a few of their nail polishes and I thought I'd swatch them for you :) For $12, some of these colours really rock!

First up, we have Cappuchin 18. I actually picked this because I thought it would be a chic nude. On my skintone, it's actually a little darker, but still tres chic. It's a soft coffee brown, and surprisingly actually really nice looking on my skintone! I don't always wear browns, but this is pretty and wearable. There's a nice shimmer too.


Next, we have Flirt 40. I have to tell you, the moment I saw this online in other people's swatches, I HAD to have it. It's a gorgeous pink-purple duochrome that sometimes leans gold, and reminds me of Max Factor's beloved Fantasy Fire, or that hard-to-get Orly Fantasea - the duochrome and base colour are really similar. If you're tired of hunting around for rare polishes, this is a good alternative. Like Fantasy Fire and Fantasea, this one is sheer, so you can layer it over other colours (purple, black, blue, pink, red - the possibilities are endless), but for the sake of swatching, 3 coats as shown below gives you full opacity. Nice!


Third is Dazzle 42. This is a gorgeous round holographic shimmer in a pinky-purple tinged base. I think this is best for layering since the base is sheer. Here I'm wearing it over Essie Footloose, and I'm loving the combo! What can I say - any polish with glitter gets automatic love in my book.


Next, we have Aruba 52. This is by far my favourite - and I think it's going to be hot for Spring. One of the Spring 2013 trend colours identified by Pantone is a faded, slightly pastel-looking jade shade called Greyed Jade, and Aruba falls squarely into this colour family, so it will be a great pick for carrying off the upcoming season's colour trends. This polish is very wearable even for people who aren't comfortable green, because it's a toned-down, slightly more sophisticated shade of jade green. I love this. Very chic, fashion-forward but still wearable. Normally I wouldn't expect a colour as subtle as this to come from a drugstore brand like Exposed, but it just goes to show you can get great colours for cheap.


I also have Aqua Baby 59, which is a bright, bright blue-leaning turquoise shade. You know I love turquoise shades, so this is definitely up my alley. It's actually surprised me by drying to a rubber-like finish, which I thought was pretty cool, as you can see in the pics below.


I also top coated over it, so you can see what it looks like with a glossy finish. Beautiful, ain't it? I love this colour - it's a bright shade, very Spring/Summer in feel. And it's also quite universally flattering - because it's got both green and blue tones in it, it will look good on a variety of skintones.


Last but certainly not least, Parisan Night 62. Oh la la, this is another gorgeous shade, and what a romantic name, too. This is another complex not-usually-found-in-drugstore-lines colour. It's a lovely greyed smokey blue, but there is a little bit of blue flash too. What I love about this shade is that it always looks smokey blue, even in low light conditions - it never looks black. And it's a really understated, chic colour, too.


Overall, I really like these polishes. Application-wise, these are good, but not spectacular - nothing made me go "Great application!" when I was painting, but nothing made me go "Yucks", either. Coverage is good, too - with the exception of Flirt and Dazzle, everything gives full opacity in 2 coats. Lastly, I definitely appreciate the colour range, and complexity of colours. In Singapore, drugstore lines don't really carry too many shades, so I totally feel spoiled for choice with Exposed. Exposed is available at the GlamoGirl website.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)