Pueen Encore Leadlight

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo una mani que hice con la técnica "leadlight" la que consiste en estampar una imagen sobre una base blanca y pintar por encima con esmaltes translúcidos o "jellies" lo que da un efecto acuarelado. Para mi mani de hoy usé de base OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls y estampé varios diseños de la placa Pueen Encore SE04B con esmalte para estampar negro de Konad. Después de que secara un poco procedí a pintar por encima con los distintos tonos de los OPI Sheer Tints (en retrospectiva recomendaría usar topcoat entre el estampado y el color, para que no se les corra el estampado como a mí). Para terminar a las flores les agregué un puntito en el centro con OPI Hot & Spicy.

Hi girls! How are you doing? I hope summer is treating you well :) Here it's winter and I'm still unemployed, so I'm using my time to try new things. I've been doing Blogilates since March and I just signed up for a 5k run (my local version of The Color Run). I've been training daily with an app that has a Couch-to-5k program and so far so good! I'm not a runner by any means, not even an active person, so this is a great challenge for me. I'll let you know how it goes!

Anyway, today I wanted to share with you my latest mani that I did on our weekly get-together with my nail polish buddy Ann. She had just gotten her Pueen Encore stamping plates and set of OPI Sheer Tints and we couldn't help but try the leadlight technique right away.

The "leadlight technique" is basically coloring over a stamped image with sheer or jelly polishes. So I started with a white base, two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then stamped over it with Pueen Encore SE04B plate and Konad Black.

I loved how the plate offered different options for small and large nails, depending on what you wanted to achieve, and that I got a different image for each nail but still with a cohesive style. The plated I used was well etched so stamping was a breeze with my usual squishy-firm XL stamper.

Then I filled in the flowers with the shades that came in the Sheer Tints collection. These are like very sheer jellies, which makes them perfect for this techique. I also liked the colors, they reminded me a lot of watercolors (my favorite painting medium). To finish it off I added some dots with OPI Hot & Spicy.

In retrospective, I should have added some topcoat between the stamping and the coloring, as you can see I have some smearing, but I have this problem too with watercolors, so I'll live with it lol.

Also, yes, my nails are super short now. I had a random break during a car trip and had to nub down. Why is it that I always break a nail when I'm not remotely near my nail repairing kit? Seriously, I passed my fingers through my hair and I felt them get caught up and boom, mayor break. I hope you don't mind the shorties for a while.

Have you tried a new technique lately? Would love to hear about them to add to my never ending list of manis to try :) Thanks for reading!