Do French!

I love all variations of the french manicure. From the crazy to the simple pink & white. I feel like it makes my nails and toes generally look better, and it can hide tip flaws when the rest of the nail looks nice. I usually work with a white tip and a clear coat. Sometimes I go a bit wild, when I can.
My main problem with French manicures is that I chip my nails often. I hate spending forever trying to do a perfect french, to only have it chip within 24 hours.

A fun french manicure

For these nails I used square french tip guides, which didn't come out perfect as I removed them too soon. They should be left on just long enough for the polish to begin to set but not to completely thicken/dry. Remove too soon and you'll smudge, remove to late and you'll pull strings or chip. I usually leave the guide on about 60 seconds after painting the tip. You also want to try to get as little polish on the actual guide as possible.

Oops, I painted on a hair :(

For the colors I used MAC Earthly Harmony for the base, and OPI Ski Teal We Drop for the tips. It makes for an amazingly lovely combination. These two polishes were born to co-exist!

In this photo, you can kind of see the orange sparkles in Earthly Harmony

It needed a tiny bit more pizzaz in my book. After painting I used a water decal on my middle fingernails only. I found one in my Viva La Nails setup where the colors matched perfectly, at least the teal did. The flash made the blues look lighter but in real life they looked exactly the same.

Working with water decals is a pain, I'll do a how to post soon

I finished with Rimmel London 10 day lasting finish. Which as of now is my new favorite top coat. My manicures have been lasting anywhere from 2 days to over 1 week longer (on my toes, where I change things less often). I kept this design on my nails for about 4 days before the chipping began on my thumbs. During that time I got quite a few comments.

So what do you think? Posh and pretty?  Or over the top?

Polishes were purchased by me. Water decal was part of a blogger review pack from Viva La Nails.