Almond Nails & a Half Moon Manicure

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Almond Shaped Nails, glitter, Half Moon Manicure, Half Moon Nails, illamasqua, nail polish, nail polish review, nails, Regal, Royal Blue, Sally Hansen, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

Don’t you just love a silver lining on a dark cloud? Last week was not so good, every day seemed like there was a raincloud over my head that kept getting bigger and bigger and naturally it’s the smallest thing that breaks you. Being an accident prone person I’m used to tripping, falling, walking into things, breaking things, and all manner of other clumsy occurrences. Unfortunately my nails are not immune from these abuses so although they’re very strong by nature, I’m used to them breaking and splitting from one accident or another. Last Thursday I slammed my hand in a door, felt the shooting pain go through my thumb and looked down to discover half of my right thumb nail missing. Here’s where the silver lining comes in- I have always wanted to try almond shaped nails so I figured this would be a great opportunity to kiss my normal squoval nails goodbye and shake things up a little bit.

Lovely Little Accident I’d Say!

I’m really impressed with the way they came out. I was afraid they would end up coming out more stiletto shape rendering me to look like a Basketball Wives reject but they came out looking really chic and stylish if I do say so myself. Perhaps the most surprising thing to come out of this is that my boyfriend who never ever notices anything immediately picked up on the change. I think the only thing he would notice about my appearance is if I cut ten inches off my hair, shaved off my eyebrows, or gained/ lost 40 pounds. Not only did he notice the change but he said he liked them. Color me surprised! There are a few things here and there that I find annoying about these nails like how I’ve scratched myself more than I would with my squoval nails and I fear poking an eye out so I haven’t worn contacts in a few days but overall I think I’m going to keep them around because I like the shape. And I can always throw on glasses.

Half Moon Manicure – Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Golden Rule and Illamasqua Regal

To go along with my new nail shape, I wanted to try the half moon manicure because the design would go well with the nail shape. For the base I used Golden Rule from Sally Hansen’s Complete Salon Manicure, a super fine glitter in gold. Although I knew I’d be layering it and one coat would have been fine, I used two coats to enhance the contrast. Regal by Illasmasqua is a royal blue as the name would suggest. I was very impressed by the color because I’ve been looking for a good solid blue and I got full coverage in two coats but the formula was very thin and runny. On the bright side I feel like that probably aided with how quick the polish dried and I worked around the runniness by putting less polish on the brush and making small, quick strokes on the nail.

Illamasqua Brush Handle

Speaking of the brush, another thing I liked about this polish was the brush handle. Originally when I saw the polish handle I thought it was your typical cube polish handle which didn’t bother me because I’m used to working with those type of brush handles. Turns out it was just a cap and the actually brush handle is circular and a bit on the small side but it was easy to work with. Overall I’m really impressed with how the manicure came out and hopefully this week will be much better than last!