Festive Ruffian

Two posts in one day?! I know, but I'm disappearing for the New Year and I wanted to post a celebratory manicure before I have no computer access.

This quick and easy manicure looks great in any colour combination you can think of. You can mix cremes and metallics like I did, or textures and glitters; whatever you can imagine.

A Caribbean Christmas

Season's greetings everyone! Sorry that missed last week's post, but the festivities took me away from my computer for a while. I'm off again for the new year, so I'm doing a quick post on my Christmas day manicure.

Since I'm all about the glorious Caribbean climate, I decided to do a tropical scene on my nails. Here you can see Santa tanning on a sandy island in the middle of the beautiful blue sea.

Christmas Nail Art Skittle

This is my first snow-free Christmas in five years, and I'm so excited about it. Experiencing Christmas in different countries and cultures is interesting. In North America the snowy weather sets the atmosphere for hot cocoa and days spent indoors, usually at shopping malls where the sales are incredible! In the Caribbean there is a heavy focus on food and our local 'carols'; Latin American-inspired beats and Spanish lyrics mix in with our own Caribbean sound to create parang music, a sound that is really quite unique to our region.

Still, no matter where you go (or at least where I have been), there are facets of Christmas that are unchanging, and those constants are what I chose to feature in my Christmas skittle!

Rose Manicure

After last week's simple two-colour manicure I was in the mood for something colourful and exciting. Of course, I still wanted nails that my supervisors at work wouldn't raise their eyebrows at, so I tried to keep the colours a little bit on the darker side for this pretty floral nail art.

Yellow Spots and Stripes

The nice thing about living in the Caribbean is that we have two seasons: Rainy season and Dry season. If you think that's a joke I'm actually 100% serious. We have no such thing as Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter. It is warm and lovely all year round and we can wear whatever colour polish we want at any time of the year and it's always going to be in-season and on trend. Welcome to the good life! ;)

Because I'm not held back by seasonal hues (and I felt like wearing something light, playful and bright), this week's manicure is a lovely yellow and white colour scheme with polka dots and stripes! 

Newsprint Nails

In the realm of nail art, newsprint nails probably score a 9.95 out of 10 for how easy and pretty they are. I really thought there would be more work involved in executing this manicure, but the hardest part for me was deciding which articles I wanted to cut out and press on to my nails. Seriously. Talk about first-world problems, right?

Matte Pink Paisley

Another week another manicure! I can't believe it's been over a month already since I started blogging. So much has changed, and I'm not just talking about my nails ;)

This week I've done a pink-on-pink matte paisley design. The monochrome colour scheme helps to prevent what is generally a busy pattern from becoming too loud, and the matte finish ties it all together for a design that is detailed, exciting and workplace approved.

Work Appropriate Glitter Half Moon Manicure

For my first week of work I had strict orders from my mother: no wild nails. I get it; it's an office job with a strong focus on client services, and even though I do work with children at least once a day, I probably should stay away from the cupcake nails and Hello Kitty accent fingers that I got used to at my old job.

As I sat there, rubbing last week's manicure off of my fingers, I tried to think of something that could pass in the workplace while still staying true to my inner nail art fiend. It's a tricky balancing act, let me tell you, but I think I figured it out.

Pastel Colour Block

This week I've got some super sweet nails for you! I don't know about you, but I love pastels. They're so soft and pretty and they work well with just about every outfit. There's also something about the pink-purple-blue combination that is really feminine, and it takes me back to the days of Lisa Frank!

This is one of my favourite nail art looks because of how simple it is. All you need are 4 colours, tape or a thin brush and topcoat! Easy!

Tutorial: Nude Dotticure

It's not often that I do nail art on my toes. I'm not sure why. I mean, sure, eight of the nails are too tiny to do much on, but my feet provide me with two large canvases in the form of big-toes, and I really ought to take advantage of that more.

Since the nails on my big toes are so...well, big, I love doing dotticures, because the large space allows more room for the design, making the finished product look more complex. If you're not familiar with the term "dotticure", it's just an easy way of describing nail art that is done mainly with dots. Haha no surprises there!

For this design, I decided to do rings of dots in alternating colours. It's really easy to achieve this look, but it looks so great and detailed once it's done that people will marvel and wonder how you did it. People are so often convinced that this is a complex look, but to show you just how easy this is to recreate, I made a tutorial (toe-torial? no? okay, I'll stop).

Hannibal Nail Art

This week I've got another serial killer show inspired manicure for you; Hannibal. If you haven't caught the first season of this NBC series, you are missing out my friend! Its imagery is so wonderful and the acting is sublime. I could sing praises about this show forever, but I decided I would try to show my love/obsession with some nail art instead.

This is my design.

Dexter Nail Art

Hey there! Welcome to my blog, Topcoat Therapy!

For my very first post I've got a killer manicure for you! In the lead-up to Halloween I thought it would be fun to visit everyone's favourite serial killer, Dexter. Now, I know that there's no shortage of Dex-icures out there. A quick Google Image search will fill you up with ideas for your own awesome nail designs, but since the series recently ended, I thought I would pay homage in the best way I know how.