Admittedly, I'm pretty good at talking myself out of buying all of the indie polishes that give me grabby hands on the daily. It's not that I don't want them, I do, but the budget does not allow and I've taught my brain to be mindful of that. However, occasionally there is a polish that will go from grabby hands to grabby brain and there's no turning back, even if the cost of shipping officially makes said polish the most expensive in my collection. Why am I telling you this? Because the base polish for this mani, which was featured in The Charity Box collab in August, is now officially the most expensive polish in my collection... and I'm absolutely in love with it!

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Described as a light dusty sage-like army green crelly base loaded with metallic bronze flakes, Cardigan by Cuticula is immediately a favorite in my collection. While I was waiting for it to come, I couldn't help but wonder if it could possibly live up to my hopes - and to the cost of it once shipping to Canada was factored in - but as soon as I had it in hand I was completely in love with it. I mean... LOOK AT IT. It's just dreamy and perfectly and exactly up my alley in every way. Clearly I knew that I needed to use it for some warm fall nails (and I will also very likely pull it out again next month for some pretty Christmas nails...) so I decided to pair it with some warm, abstract, fall-themed stamping.

For this mani, I applied two coats of Cardigan to all of my nails and let them dry down completely. I feel like I would have needed three coats if I had been wearing this alone, but two coats was perfect as a base for nail art. 

For the stamping, I knew that I wanted to apply a single leaf to each nail, so I had to start with some abstract stamping for my base. I used a sort of taupe creme that feels like a very slightly darker version of the base polish along with a gold metallic that is a little bit warmer than I was hoping but still, I think, works for the overall vibe. I used two images from the Whats Up Nails A020 Stamping Plate and changed up the placement and direction as well as which image was stamped in which color so that each nail was different. Next, I went in with the Whats Up Nails A021 Leaf Pile Stamping Plate along with a rich, chocolate brown stamping polish and applied a different leaf to each nail, again playing with the placement and direction so that each nail feels unique and sort of free form.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed it in with a nail art top coat and then followed with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat for volume and shine. And voila!

GUH. I love how this turned out. I love this base polish, I love the design, I love the colour story. I just love everything about it. If you're looking to create this type of nail design, I honestly can't recomment enough these two plates from Whats Up Nails - or even just the Floralize Your Texture plate, which has an absolute ton of versatility. Definitely worth grabbing.

Thanks for reading!!