Play Time with OPI

Hiya lovely people! Today's mani is one that I wasn't sure I would ever post, but the response from some lovely ladies who saw it was so positive, I decided to share it here too =). I like to play around with different manis and techniques while watching TV / listening to music if I have down time, and this mani was born while watching Bedlam. Not the most amazing series ever, but I'm totally hooked! Anyway, onto the nails...

I started with two coats of OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips (have you noticed I've been using that a LOT lately? Can't help it, it's pink perfection!) and after applying some magical Seche Vite to speed the drying process along, I taped off the tips of my nails and created a thick french mani with OPI No Room For The Blues. With a medium-sized dotting tool I added dots of NRFTB at even spaces along the bottom edge of the 'french tip', then dotted KMOMTL between the blue dots on the other side... Do you kinda get what I mean? I didn't bother to take step-by-step snaps because I didn't know how it was going to turn out, but if I do this again I'll definitely keep a photo record for ya!

A coat of SV over everything dried and set it all, and took away *most* of the 3D effect of the dotting. Naturally I had to grab my Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Top Coat for some yummy matte goodness. It's so nice to know that if a mani doesn't look great after applying a matte top coat, you can just apply another shiny top coat and pretend it never happened! ;-)

Whaddya reckon - is this a cool effect you'd want to try yourself, maybe with some colours that don't contrast so much? What does it remind you of? Do you love matte manis as much as I do? (As if that's possible... =P )

Thanks SO much for stopping by, lovelies!