I don't know if this is true for other people, but I very much have a thing in my brain that decides certain things go a certain way and it's pretty rigid. (Just ask my partner about my thoughts on loading the dishwasher, specifically the direction that the forks are supposed to face...) But anyway, that definitely extends to nail art and I tend to feel like certain themes very much belong in certain seasons. For me, oceany or beachy or watery type of designs definitely belong firmly in the summer (unless they're rain themed, which belongs in the spring.) Luckily, my brain has switched into summer nail art mode pretty firmly over here, so this one sort of flowed - pun sort of intended.

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There are so many indie polish brands out there, both longstanding and new to the game, that it can be hard to keep up. Alchemy Lacquer is one that I honestly was completely unaware of until I started purchasing from Polish Pickup this year and now I basically have grabby hands for all of the polishes that they do. In April's PPU, I picked up this shade Nevermind, which is inspired by the Nirvana album cover of the same name, and it's pretty swoon. I would describe it as a cobalt blue jelly that's just packed full of iridescent flakes that just scream mermaid to me. 

For this mani, I applied two generous coats, though I think I would go for three coats if I was going to wear this without full cover stamping. 

I knew that I wanted a sort of flowing feel of water for my stamping, so I looked at a few different options for stamping plates, and I ultimately decided on Whats Up Nails B059, which has this really great free form sort of image that has a good balance of coverage and negative space to let the base polish shine through. I also wanted to use a blue stamping polish with a really similar blue tone but in a lighter shade, so I grabbed for Mercury Baseline from Maniology (Bundle Monster) which always seems to sing with this sort of oceany designs. As I tend to do, I alternated the direction that I placed the image on my nails to break it up and make it feel a little more nuanced.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed it in with a water based top coat (and I do NOT recommend that one that I used for this mani) and then followed with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat. And voila!

I feel like this is the day that I officially move into summer themed mani's, so keep an eye out for all of the things that I feel like are summer specific (I doubt any of them will be particularly surprising) and be sure to follow me over on Instagram at @pblnails for nail art tutorial videos!

Thanks for reading!