GOT Polish Challenge: Flowers with Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement and L.A. Colors Color Craze Minis

This week’s theme for the Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge is flowers.  I wasn’t too inspired by this theme at first, mostly because the ideas I had seemed like they would take forever to do and I just have practically no free time anymore.  I finally realized that I could do a simple flower mani using a dotting tool as I’ve seen so many other bloggers do.  That made me feel much better about tackling this challenge!  I still had to do the mani over a couple of days, but I did it.

I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in the color Wet Cement as the base color for this mani.  This color is a medium, cool-toned grey shade that works well as a neutral base for nail art.  Although I like the color, the application of this one wasn’t great, probably due to its age.  It took forever to dry, and I ended up with sheet marks in it even after letting it dry for a few hours before going to bed.  These seem to have evened out somewhat with the top coat, but it still took too long to dry IMO.  I used two coats of it as the base for this mani.

To add the watercolor flower look, I used two L.A. Colors Color Craze mini polishes that I’ve had for a few years.  I know I bought them in a set of mini polishes, but the shade names aren’t on the bottles so I’m not sure what they’re called.  One is a bright medium blue shade and the other is a vivid pink shade.  These had a thinner consistency that I would normally use with a dotting tool, but I kind of like the somewhat watery, almost painting-like it effect it gave the flowers, so I think it worked out in the end.  I used my normal base and top coats for this mani as well.  The top coat did end up smearing the flowers a little in some places, but that is mostly because I wasn’t patient enough to wait until they had completely dried before I applied it.  The streaks are not really visible to the naked eye, so I’m not sweating them.

Have you ever used this simple technique to create a flower mani?  I like how it turned out.

I purchased Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement a couple of years ago from a drugstore for somewhere around $1.50.  I purchased the L.A. Colors Color Craze minis a few years ago from Cherry Culture.  I’m really not sure how much I paid for them, but the brand is generally inexpensive.