Is it weird for me to feel accomplished about having been able to keep an air plant alive for about 3 years now? Because I have and I feel like it's a miracle, even though I feel like I've only been able to do it because that resilient little sucker is pretty impossible to kill. Anyway, all of that is to say that there's a specific reason that I didn't end up naming this mani "Plant Lady Nails" because I feel like succulents are some of the only plants that you don't have to be a plant person to keep alive and this is the way that logic works in my neurodivergent brain hole. Also, this is a weird intro and I feel weird about even posting it.

Let's move onto the nail art, shall we?

When I started this mani, I pulled out all of the polishes I wanted to use and I knew exactly what I wanted to do... and it didn't quite turn out the way I was expecting but I did end up using every single polish that I originally pulled out. I wanted everything about this to be muted, but I didn't want it to skew too far into monochrome or neutral territory. I started with a beige nude base and then grabbed five stamping polishes to pair with it, as you do. I went with an olive green, a smoky blue, a brown leaning taupe, a burnt orange and, of course, black. 

To start, I applied two coats of my nude beige base to all of my nails and let them dry down completely.

I knew that for the stamping I wanted to use these sort of loosey goosey potted succulent images from the BeautyBigBang Flowers-XL-005 stamping plate and after having tested them out I knew that reverse stamping was my best bet to get the vibe that I was going for. For the background, I wanted a cohesive but grungey sort of vibe, so I went with two images from the Nicole Diary 146 stamping plate. I applied this sort of disintegrating lines image to all of my nails, a different color on each nail in an alternating direction and placement, and then I went in with the circle of dots image in black stamping polish to two corners of each nail. For the reverse stamping, I went with the two largest of the line images and filled them in with the olive green along with the blue and taupe for the pot respectively. I let those dry down until they weren't goopy anymore and then applied a thin layer of smudge free top coat to the stamping already on the nails so that I could get a tacky surface to transfer onto.

Once I was happy with all of my stamping, I sealed everything in with a layer of water based top coat and then finished with a layer of matte top coat and voila!

It's always a really cool thing to go into a mani with one plan and come out with something completely different - and yet somehow it works so much better than what you originally planned. I really, really like how this turned out, though I will admit that I'm meandering towards those fall colours that I love so much. I mean... Is anyone surprised? It's about that time of year when aromatic lattes, sweaters, and boots are starting to hold that real appeal, but I'll try to hold off on fall mani's until September...

Thanks for reading!