Ah yes, the delcious nebulous amorphic nature of the lava lamp. When I was a youth in the 90’s, 70’s nostalgia was in full swing. Claire’s accessories was selling beaded curtains and magic mushroom inspired tie dye candles (that I was NOT allowed to light) and you couldn’t pry daisy motifs and happy face t-shirts out of my ravenous teen hands. Suffice it to say, having a lava lamp was a major indicator of coolness.
While there are definitely more on-the-nose lava lamp manicures out there, I’m more of a fan of a nod-and-wink approach to inspiration. What better way to modernize the lava lamp vibe than to throw in some #aestheticgirl details and a valentine’s adjacent color palette.
Step-by-Step:
First things first, you’ll want to lay down two coats of E-175S Boysenberry Candy using you rapplication brush of choice (I’m using a Thin Round brush) curing between coats.
Using a detail brush create a larger abstract blob-shape with E-127 Strawberry Latte, cure.
Using the same techniue add another abstract blob of F Gel Color Gel #2 (a dusty coral), cure. Be careful going too thick with super pigmented bottled gels, they self-level really beautifully but it’s also easy to create a layer so thick it can’t properly cure.
It’s ok to cure as you go with this next part, or if you like to live on-the edge and do it all at once- lmay the odds be ever in your favor. Using a dotting tool, start placing your larger oval-ish blobs first using F Gel Color Gel #53. This will help you ensure that you don’t overcrowd the nail and loose the floating lava lamp effect. Cure.
Now that you’ve placed the larger dots, go in and add additional dot detail. Cure.
Whenever I’m working with a raised design, I’ll always apply my top coat a bit more strategically. I always top coat on nail at a time. Using the Ultra Glossy Non-Wipe Top Coat Gel (say that 5 times fast, geez) I’ll scrub in a thin slip layer, ensuring that all the nooks and crannies are acocunted for. While that layer is wet, add a thicker layer of top gel and float it down the nail. Keep an eye on the line-of-light (the reflection of your table light) and watch it start to self level, be patient. Once the self leveling as starting you can start to attack problem areas- usually it’s going to be a little speed bump near the free-edge. Usually flipping the nail updise down for a few seconds and then dragging the product from the free edge to the apex does the trick (you can see me do it in the video).
Let your no-wipe top coat cool down for about 10 seconds, wipe it with a little alcohol (I use 70% or 99%) and then shine it up with some acetone. Turns out we should have been wiping these no-wipe top coats the whole time.
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