JULY 4TH MANI (SINFUL COLORS/NICOLE/CHINA GLAZE/LA COLORS)

July 4th is my favorite holiday (*waves American flag*) and this year I decided to be a little creative. I also needed to do it in a bit of a hurry while half awake, lol. I was going to visit my grandfather's grave later in the day (3rd) and I wanted to look patriotic since he is buried in a veteran's cemetery. For not being fully focused, I think that it turned out alright. I started with my base colors and I used the 3 shades that I usually use when it calls for red, white, and blue. Nicole's Challenge Red-y, Sinful Colors's Snow White, & Sinful Colors's Endless Blue. All 3 resulted in just doing one coat for them (huge time saver!). A look before I did anything:

I had never attempting using a makeup sponge and doing a duo color. I decided to only do it on 2 nails on each hand in case I managed to screw it up and/or made a huge mess (happy to report that I didn't!). I ended up doing one application on each nail. I hadn't realized that it may take more than one coat to do it and since I was in a time crunch, I decided after putting it on as a duo, to go back and stamp so it mixed up more. I think it ended up looking better that way. I will definitely try this again now that I know I can do it and it looks good!

For my middle fingers, I decided to do dots. I had no design in mind and just kind of did the one I did mindlessly..which is why it looks uneven in spots. Oops.

I knew for my pinkies and thumbs that I wanted to do stripes. I had picked up a proper decoration polish from the Dollar Tree. The brand is LA colors. I was NOT prepared for the polish collecting on the brush and rolling a bead of polish as I was attempting to make the stripes. I ended up doing one coat instead of going over it since I was tired and needed it to dry properly before I went to bed. I added China Glaze's Luxe & Lash over top these fingers. I thought it would show up more. Instead of it looks like random nicks in the polish in certain lights. The formula was on the thick side so I decided to just do one coat and experiment another time with this shade as a topper. I'll most likely attempt it with a creme next time.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this mani. Most of the fails with the mani (not getting the sponge on all of the nail..crooked dots/stripes) were my fault. The polish has had great wear time though. It is now the 7th day of wear and I only have 2 small chips (right index finger and left pinky). I am giving this mani a 5 out of 6 stars!