NOTD | Studio Sparkle

Hey y'all! Today I have another Nail of the Day featuring one of the beautiful Face of Australia Glitterati Nail enamels. The collection features eight limited edition shades, ranging from multicoloured glitters, to milky pastel glitter mixes. I finally managed to snag the three milky ones at Big W on sale at 25% off. They are still very affordable otherwise at $4.75-95 and I highly recommend picking them up if you have the chance! 

The shade I'm using today is Studio 54 which is a really pretty glitter polish filled with a mix of two different sizes of rose gold glitter. For this look I've done my first attempt at a glitter gradient where the glitter gradually gets thicker towards the tip of the nail. There is a good amount of glitter packed into the polish so you don't have to go fishing around for it. It worked quite well for this look as you could get a good amount of 'fade'. 

To do the glitter gradient I simply painted half of my nail as normal, though I did clear off a lot of the polish from the brush. To build up the glitter at the edge, I used the 'dabbing method' which gave me a good amount at the tips. As the glitter is quite densely packed, there wasn't a huge blob of clear polish on my nail (good clear polish to glitter ratio!). I made sure it was completely dry before topping off with my Revlon Colorstay top coat to seal in the glitter and even out the nail.

For my base colour, I used an OPI shade which I have in a mini. Sadly, as it is a mini, it is not labelled and I have no idea what it is called! :( It is a nice light mushroom-beige with pinky undertones. It doesn't clash too much with my yellow toned skin, but doesn't look like I have no fingernails either! The formula was lovely and self-levelling - a bit of a crelly (creme-jelly) as it was slightly sheer (but easily opaque in 2 coats) and very shiny. I thought this colour would complement the rose gold quite nicely.

These are the polishes I used for the look. Quick mention about the Essence peel off basecoat. If you are a lover and frequent wearer of glitter polish, but hate having to remove it, you NEED this in your life! It was a limited edition and probably not available anymore but there is an alternative! It's as easy as PVA glue! Just pop it into an old polish bottle and you're good to go! I opted for the Essence simply as I didn't have any empty bottles haha. If you would like more info check these posts here and here, or google!

I'm very pleased with my first glitter gradient and will definitely be trying out this technique in future looks!