Coral Chevron Skittlette

I've been noticing lately, I've learned so much about nails through this whole process of blogging that it's rare I find something new or surprising. I love being able to learn new things about nails or new techniques to try so I was really excited about today's discovery. I'm not new to the concept of skittles or painting my nails all different colors, but I've been hearing about skittlettes quite a bit and I'll admit I didn't know what the difference was. A few googles later I found this great article about skittlettes that ChitChat Nails did for SoNailicious. 

It turns out that to have a true skittle manicure every single nail has to be different. If a manicure with an accent nail has one nail that stands out then you can think of a skittlette as a manicure with two accent nails. I've been doing nails like this forever and just didn't know what to call it. I love ChitChat Nail's description of how this technique came to be and her tips for creating a successful skittlette, so if you have a free minute her post is definitely worth checking out.

Here's what went into my skittlette: 

The coral nails are two coats of NYC Tropicoral from the City Samba collection. I was sent this polish to review and I'm quite happy with it. It went on smoothly and had a nice opacity in two coats. The first thing I thought when I saw this collection is that the colors reminded me a lot of the OPI Brazil collection that came out this summer which I didn't want to dig into my pocket deeply enough to afford. I love that NYC came out with a similar line of bold summer shades that are a lot easier on the wallet. These run about $1.99 when they're not on sale which of course I love since I'm cheap at heart. Another cheapie trick- I used Tropicoral to paint a plain gold stud to perfectly match my manicure. Why buy a whole separate set of colored studs when you can create any color you want with polish you already have?

The gold nails are two coats of LA Colors, Deluxe topped with two coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Golden Rule. For my fancy chevron accent nail I started with two coats of LA Colors white. When that was dry I stamped over it with Bundle Monster plate BM-201 and Mundo de Unas black. I stuck on my special painted stud with a bit of clear polish and then topcoated the whole thing to make it shine. I absolutely love this combination of colors.

What's your best kept nail secret? Anything that's surprised you after years of doing your nails?