Hey guys! Hope you had a great weekend. Admittedly, mine was pretty packed full of stuff, but I still managed to sit down and do a mani that I'd had in my head for a few days. I don't know what it was, but I had the idea of a sort of aquatic toned mani in my head and I got lucky and found a couple of essie polishes in a clearance bin on Saturday that I knew would work perfectly. I'm calling it Vintage Warm Teal Textile Nails because it really does look like a vintage textile to me, maybe a little bit like a couch from the 70s, but in a good way.

As you can see, this is a pretty simple but impactful mani and I really feel like the colour palette has a spring feel that doesn't skew too far into the sweet pastels. I feel like the warmth of these warm teal shades really brings it into spring, where they would feel more winter if they skewed cooler. I don't know if that's a thing a lot of people think about, but I do really find myself drawing on colour theory a lot when I sit down to do my nails and I think it works well for me.

To get this look, I started with two coats of essie who is the boss as a base and let them dry completely. Next I went in with my stamper and smooshed that same base polish along with essie truth or flare to give a sort of subtle marbled effect since both shades are very much in the same family - like you might find them on the same card if they were presented in paint swatches. I actually really liked how this looked on its own, but I had this vision in my head of stamping it with one of my absolute favorite stamping images in my collection so I clearly had to keep going.

For the stamping, I used the center image in the top row of the Bundle Monster BM-S304 plate from the Festival Collection from last summer. I love this image because it doesn't overwhelm what's going on underneath it but instead gives a really interesting textured feel. First I stamped that image with Sinful Colors Snow Me White and then I stamped again with Models Own Chrome Blue. Again, keeping everything in the same colour family, but choosing a bright white and a really metallic blue kept it a little bit more subtle but impactful. I finished with a nice thick coat of the Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat and voila!

More and more, I really find myself loving pairing a smooshed base with stamping and I actually love the way this mani turned out. I think it's really appropriate for spring and I love the feeling of texture and depth that this has without feeling like it's too much - for me, anyway, and I absolutely know that I'm just a little bit extra!

Hope you liked the mani and thanks for reading!