30DC: Day 9 - Rainbow

Hey everyone!  Today's challenge is rainbow nails!  They look cool, don't they?  They remind me of beams of light, kind of like those diagrams they show in physics textbooks where a prism defracts white light into the individual colors.  To read about how I created this look, look after the jump!

First, I painted a white base.  Then I used a striper to paint on the individual colors in vertical stripes, like shown.  The lines don't have to be perfect or anything, long as you can see each color.  Then, I used a quick dry topcoat and let the polish dry for a couple hours (tape manis require patience, yo!).

You see that it's not completely opaque?  It turned out just fine anyway.  This kind of reminds me of a kid's watercolor painting of a rainbow, actually.

After letting the colors dry, I placed striping tape over the color, making sure to overlap the tape at one corner of the nail.  After placing tape on all nails, I painted black over each nail, making sure to remove the tape right after applying the polish (for crisp lines). I cleaned up some lines using my usual clean up method, an eyeliner brush dipped in acetone.

D'oh!  I forgot to clean up one of the lines.

Then, let your polish dry completely, and THEN add topcoat.  If you don't wait, then you risk smudging those clean lines you worked so hard to make!

You know what stinks about this challenge?  You create a mani that you really like, but you have to take it off almost immediately. :C

Colors Used:
White (you can't see it, it was only a base for the colors to really pop) - China Glaze Snow
Red - Essie Ole Caliente
Orange - Zoya Arizona
Yellow - Zoya Pippa
Green - OPI Don't Mess With OPI
Blue - China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway
Purple - China Glaze Grape Pop
Black - American Apparel Hassid