Nail Art: MoYou London Challenge Day 4 - Fantasy (Mermaid Nails)

If you do nail stamping, it's most likely that you know of MoYou London and their absolutely AMAZING array of stamping plates. Seriously, these things are works of art in and of themselves!

Well, in honor of reaching 10K followers on Instagram, MoYou London is hosting a challenge/contest!

Today's post is my first attempt at the challenge. The theme for May 4th was "Fantasy." I was planning on doing a mermaid-inspired manicure, so it worked out perfectly for this theme!



Much like any NOTD challenge, each day of May has a different theme.  You can see the list on MoYou London's Instagram feed. Each number corresponds to a day of the month.  Since today  is May 4th (For Star Wars fans, May the 4th Be With You!), the theme for today was "Fantasy."

I've been wanting to do a mermaid look for forever, but didn't feel like painting on all of those scales freehand.  I just got a ton of new MoYou London plates, including the one with this scale pattern on it, so figured I might as well put it to good use!

This scale pattern is from MoYou London's Sailor Collection 05, a collection of marine and scale designs. LOVE. I stamped using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep, which is officially my favorite stamping polish EVER. Look at that combination of stamping + polish.  Love it to death!

So, aside from the stamping, this manicure features a subtle gradient base using a dusty aqua blue creme (l'Oreal - Now You Sea Me) and a gunmetal/pewter grey (Essie - Fair Game). I stamped the scale pattern over this gradient, but felt like something was missing. My mermaid look needed more sparkle! So I added a coat of a fine, shimmery microglitter (butter London - Frilly Knickers) to add a nice shimmer to the scales.

The accent nail started with two coats of Essie - Fair Game (the pewter grey) to create a solid-colored base for the glitter. I then added two more coats of Essie - Hors d'oeuvres, a silver/platinu gold polish with various types of glitter. I really love how the larger glitter pieces in the polish almost look like fish scales when they're on the nail <3

So, what do you think? Is it a good mermaid look? Does it fit the Fantasy theme? I think it's fun and suits the warmer weather we've been having lately <3

Polishes / Items used in this manicure:

• Aqua Blue: L'Oreal - Now You Sea Me
• Pewter Grey:  Essie - Fair Game
• Silver Glitter (ring finger): Essie - Hors d'oeuvres
• Silver stamping: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Silver Sweep
• Fine iridescent glitter: Butter London - Frilly Knickers
• Stamping Plate: MoYou London - Sailor 05

You can find out more about MoYou London's challenge contest by visiting their Instagram account at http://instagram.com/moyou_london/ .  The list of challenge themes, as well as the rules, can be found on this post, and there's a FAQ that was posted the following day here.

Are you taking part in the challenge /  contest? I'd love to see your entries, so feel free to post what you've done in the comments!