Leather Effect Manicure Experiments

I'm a bit in love with the Sinful Colours polishes, and I've noticed recently swatches flying around of a new Luxe Leather Collection, which doesn't appear to be available anywhere near me just yet.

But my  mad curiousity to see leather effect nails, general impatience and that annoying little thing in my head that wont let me rest once I have an idea, pushed me on to start thinking of cheats to get my leather effect nails NOW. 

First I remembered I have a box of off cuts of leather somewhere, I dig it out and select a few pieces of the thinnest leather I can find in there. I then try to make nail shaped decals out of the leather with my nail scissors but couldn't get them to stick at all, even the thinnest leather I found in that box was still too thick to stick on my nail. Bummer. :(

So I decide to try something else, I applied my base coat and polish, let it dry for a while and kept my eye on the drying to catch the moment when it's almost completely dry, but still soft enough that you'll leave a mark on it if you touch the surface with the tip of your nail, that last moment where it's still possible to leave the faintest finger print on your perfect polish surface. When that moment arrived I grabbed a small piece of leather, and pressed it gently into the polish on each nail.

What I was left with reminded me of the actual texture polishes and looks kinda cool!

I thought it would look more leather like if there was a matt effect, but it wasn't successful. I tried to add a thin layer of matt topcoat to the finished textured polish, but the top coat softened the effect too much and it was barely visible anymore. Then I tried again by applying a layer of matt top coat, letting that dry for a moment and then pressing the textured leather directly into the drying matt top coat. That didn't work either though because the matt top coat drys too fast, it wont take the imprint of the leathers texture, and if you press too hard it peels up all the layers of polish with it. 

So in the end I settled for a smooth matt accent nail which I think still adds to the leather concept a lot, but I am curious to try a black polish thats already matt and doesn't require a top coat (suggestions in the comments please!) and see if I can mould that in the final stages of drying.

I'm still happy with how my leather mani worked out, I think it's subtle but still quite cool, and I have to say I enjoyed playing with textures and might explore this area a bit more!

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