One Direction

I don't even know how to begin this post because I never know how to begin when it comes to One Direction. It was barely more than a month ago that I had virtually no feelings about One Direction, but then my best friend convinced me to go see their movie with her, and now I have so many feelings about One Direction. Anyway, we don't really need to get into it here, except that I needed to explain why I bought nail polish from Office Depot.

Each color corresponds to a member of One Direction and to an adjective, which is printed on the other side of the bottle. Zayn/unique, Louis/original, Harry/nice, Niall/confident, and Liam/true. (They make sense if you are familiar with the dividers.) So obviously I had to use all five colors together in one manicure, at least for the first time I used the polishes. I could've just done both hands with one color on each nail and called it a day, but I wasn't sure I'd like the look of that, and besides, it wouldn't really capture the camaraderie of One Direction. So I decided to something color block-y.

I painted all my nails white to begin with (if I were redoing this manicure I would only give the color block nails (and the Zayn/unique nail) a white base, but I had a job interview in between phase 1 and phase 2 of this manicure and I couldn't very well go with half of my nails painted). I decided to do five color block nails and five solid colored nails, partially in the interests of time (I was rushing to get this manicure done before seeing the One Direction movie again) but also because I thought it would look better than a full set of color blocks. I'm really pleased with that decision; I think it brings the whole manicure together while making it more interesting.

left hand

For the color block nails, I carefully added bits of each color, making up the pattern as I went. Once all the colors were there, I used the white from this nail art kit to draw in the dividing lines. I was a little afraid it wouldn't be opaque enough, but it was, and it was fairly easy to handle. My lines aren't perfectly straight, but they're close enough. Of course, everything looked slightly messy until I added a coat of Seche Vite, which smoothed things out.

The formula on these is not bad considering they cost $2 each and I bought them at Office Depot. They apply fairly smoothly, and I have no complaints about the brush. Louis/original was opaque in one coat, and Harry/nice took two.

right hand

I was expecting Zayn/unique to be sheer, and it was. I was happy with it after three coats, but I'm sure that white base was helping out there. Liam/true was sheerer than I was expecting -- I used two coats but I think I should've gone with three. Same with Niall/confident. You can see in this picture that both of them are a little patchy.

Overally I really love this manicure, and I got lots of compliments on it. I took these pictures with my phone while I was on vacation, so sorry for the poor quality. And sorry that I don't have a DFTBA photo, but you know, One Direction never forgets to be awesome, so, it would be redundant.