Metallic Nail Polish Technique

It seemed impossible to me that I didn’t have a particular hue of nail polish when I went to do my latest manicure. I wanted silver. Chrome-like silver nails. But alas, I did not have anything of the sort in my collection! The closest thing I had was Zoya Harley, which is pale grey with shimmer. I did end up doing a Zoya Harley manicure (topped with some glitter, and it looked very pretty!) but it did not satisfy my silver nail yen.

So the last time I was in Walmart, imagine my delight when very quickly after skimming the nail polish shelves I spotted Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. Here’s a picture of the bottle:

It’s perfect. Exactly the chrome silver shade I was looking for. I’d never tried Pure Ice polish before, so I don’t know where you can get it in-store besides Walmart. It’s made by Bari Cosmetics and is Big 3 Free. I think I paid about $2 for it. Prices vary from store-to-store according to the Walmart website. 
But we have a problem. Metallic shades like this one are an absolute bitch to work with, and this one is no different. It streaks like no other. It also shows every little imperfection on the surface of my nails. In order for the best possible results I took the following steps when working with this polish.
– Buff, buff, BUFF. Make sure the surface of your nails is as pristine as you can get it. Fire up the ole’ nail block, kiddies. I have a little battery-powered buffer from Essence of Beauty (CVS house brand) that works pretty well. It comes in a little kit with a file and some cuticle cream for $9.99.
– BASE. COAT. I highly recommend using a ridge-filling base coat even if you don’t have ridgey nails. It will help give as smooth a surface as possible. I used more than one coat of Essie Ridge Filling Base Coat.
– When you’re actually painting your nails, make sure the brush has a lot of polish on it. Way more than you’d normally want when doing a manicure.
– Work quickly in as few strokes as possible. If you have a wide nail art brush that you can use instead of the one in the cap, that might work better. 
– Extend your drying time. Let the polish dry *completely* before adding another coat or before even applying top coat. You can create streaks in your polish by applying your top coat if it has not completely dried. I haven’t yet experimented with using quick dry drops to speed up this process. Just do it in front of the tv or something so you won’t be bored while you wait and tempted to rush things.
By the way after following these steps, I still had to re-do several of my nails because they came out crappy, lol. And some of them probably still need re-doing but I decided to just go with the flow because I’m going to re-do my manicure soon anyway. 
Why would I go through all of this trouble for a manicure? Uh, because look at it:
CHROME, baby. That’s exactly what I wanted it to look like. I know I have polish on my fingers but I hadn’t cleaned up the manicure yet. It’s not perfect by any means; there are a bunch of faults with the manicure, but my goodness. I love the look. This color would look really cool as a base for some nail art too, so you could cover up any “oopsies” with rhinestones, painted flowers, konading, etc. Just remember to make sure everything is totally DRY before you do your art on top. ;)

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