Criss Cross & a Cuppa

Ahhh...well doesn't that look relaxing. A nice cuppa, a good book--swear it's not a prop (East of Eden-go read it!), and a fabulous but muted mani. Just what you need to keep those harsh winter days from getting you down. 

Since my nails have actually been in good form for once (knock on wood) I have really been gravitating toward designs that accentuate the almond shape and take advantage of the length. This particular design may be one of my favorite ones to date. The overall look is fairly simple and relative to some of my other designs it wasn't unnaturally time consuming to do, but it was perhaps a but more complex than it appears. 

I began the design like all my others with a coat of butter LONDON Horse Power Nail Fertilizer. Unlike all my other manicures, I did NOT apply a coat of Nail Foundation. Shocking I know. The reasoning for this was simply an aesthetic one. I prefer to use the foundation so the lacquer adheres and lays smoothly overtop and ultimately lasts longer. However I really wanted to have a true matte nude nail underneath and feared my heavy handedness with the foundation would absolutely butcher the look. So in lieu of the foundation I was free to start with the design straight away. The only varnish color I used for this design was butter LONDON's Cotton Buds. 

I began by essentially painting a french manicure on my nails. Instead of your standard French Manicure where you follow the curve of your nail however, I created a sharp V starting at the mid point on each side of the nail and meeting in the middle about where the tip started then filled in the white tip. 

After the tips had dried, I used a slim brush to paint two lines extending down from each edge of the V creating a criss-crossing diamond pattern. I did this on each nail and went over everything with one more coat of white. After that dried. I carefully repainted all the white with Essie's Matte About You matte topcoat--leaving all the natural parts of my nail untouched. I absolutely love playing around with negative space and this design truly took advantage of that leaving little diamonds untouched by basecoat, polish, or topcoat.

The overall look was one of my favorite designs to date. Chic, simple and clean. I loved how the matte white looked and the french criss-cross manicure complimented my nail shape quite nice. 

What do you think?