THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS

After nearly four years of managing to avoid it, I have finally ended up with Covid, so for today's mani I decided to keep it super simple with one of my favorite techniques and some simple black stamping. There really is nothing to say that you can't sit down and do your nails while you're sick - and while I am currently unable to smell anything, I can certainly still appreciate some pretty nails. 

Keep reading for more!

For the base for this mani, I wanted to keep it simple and sort of soft, but have a nice texture, so I decided to do a smoosh. It's very, very rare that I do a two color smoosh, but because I wanted this to feel soft I decided that it would be the best idea for this one. I chose two different polishes featuring holographic flakes - a pale pinky nude and a warm medium brown. 

To start, I applied one coat of the lighter shade to all of my nails and let that dry down. As always, I applied my Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard to all of my fingers, getting as close to the base color as I possible could just to ensure the easiest possible clean up. This step is particularly important with darker shades that might stain, but it also helps with pretty much any messy mani. 

Next, I applied an equal number of dots of each polish color to a stamper head and then pounced that onto the nail until I got the blend that I was looking for. It's a little bit trickier with a two color smoosh to get a balanced blend, but it did come together. Once that had dried for a few minutes (didn't take long at all on this one) I went in with my stamping. I'm not even entirely sure how to describe this stamping image, but in this context it definitely gives me some art decor sort of vibes. I applied the image in black stamping polish, alternating the direction of placement across the nails.

Once I was happy with my design, I removed the cuticle barrier and crisped up the edges using a clean up brush dipped in acetone. Next, I applied a nail art top coat to seal in my stamping and and finished with a quick dry glossy top coat for shine. And voila!

Not going to lie - this mani came together so quickly and I'm so in love with the final product. It's simple, really, but it's also quite intense in terms of impact. I love a wallpaper style design myself and I think it's a really versatile style. 

If you're interested in any of the Pueen products I used to create this mani, they're all available from Amazon and I definitely think the quality is top notch!

Thanks for reading!