Black Lace Mani

Today's manicure is a nice way to lighten to look of dark nail polish.  By using black lace images instead of a full black nail, you still get the chic, edginess of black nail polish, but with a bit more softness and sophistication. Now normally, I tend to shy away from doing a full set of black nails, but I'm rather pleased with how this manicure turned out:

Black Lace Mani - Right

I used Messy Mansion's Plate MM44 for the lace images. They were stamped with Konad Special Polish in Black.  I used Sally Hansen's 'Big Smoky Top Coat' as the base for this manicure. I put one coat of the smoky top coat over my regular base coat, and then stamped the image over it.  I followed up with a coat of my usual clear glossy topcoat, and then added nail art rhinestones to my ring fingers. I finished the manicure with another coat of clear, glossy topcoat over the rhinestones to seal them on the nail. 



Black Lace Mani - Left

The photos above are with flash. In normal lighting, the nails look a touch darker, but there still is enough contrast between the stamped image and the negative space that you can see the design. I must say that I'm really impressed with the MM44 plate. This was my first time using it, so just before I did my nails, I experimented with the images. This is the 'laciest' of all the lace plates I own - the images are more delicate and intricate than I've seen on other lace stamps. I really like it! I can't wait to try to incorporate these images into other manicures!

Polishes Used