There's something about a summer smoosh, I find, and as I was thinking about ways I could use the mermaid silhouette images from the Whats Up Nails B038 Lost At Sea Stamping Plate it occurred to me that a neon smoosh could be just the ticket. I love the smoosh technique for a few reasons, but the versatility of it is really the thing that drives it the most. Depending on the colors you choose and how you apply them to your stamper head or nail art mat, you can get a completely and totally different look. For this one, I kept it pretty simple and straightforward and the results are pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

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For my smoosh, I knew I wanted to use bright, bold neon colors in the blue and green family to get that real oceany vibe, so I reached for my much loved Color Club neons. I went with a super classic neon green, a turquoise/teal, an azure sort of blue, and a deeper ultramarine shade. What I was really going for was some contrast to get a good depth to the marble vibe, and I think this selection of shades really gave me that. 

I started with one coat of the lightest shade on all of my nails and then applied a cuticle barrier to make for easier clean up. Once I was ready to smoosh, I randomly applied dots of each of my polishes to my stamper head. I have a NailStuff.ca stamper** that I use for all of my smoosh manis because it gives good visualization when I apply my smoosh, has a nice big head for applying the polish, and has a metal body so that I can clean up any mess on the stamper easily. Highly recommend. Anyway, once I have all of the polishes applied across the stamper head, I just sort of pounce it onto my nails using a light pressure until I get the desired blend. It can take a little bit of practice, but once you get the hang of it, it's a really easy technique.

For the stamping, the vibe I was looking for was sort of... peeking through the seaweed to find the mermaids, if that makes sense. Using black stamping polish, I applied the mermaid silhouette images to my middle two nails and then applied the sort of wavy image that, for this mani, is calling to mind seaweed to the rest of my nails. Something that I really like about pairing the smoosh base with this type of stamping design is that it is actually a pretty simple man, but it gives real impact and a feeling of intricacy.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed it in with a layer of water based top coat and then I finished with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat. And voila!

I swear, I'm having so much fun with summer nail art - even though the sweltering heat of this summer has me whimpering for fall already. Anyone else? Anyway, summer themed nail art can be so, so many things so be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK to check out their Summer themed #CBBxManiMonday nails!

Thanks for reading!