Dandelion Nail Art and Jin Soon Tea Rose

Hi!

I've broken today's post up into two parts: nail art, and then swatches (because of my photography non-skills... more explanation to come!)

Part 1: Dandelion Nail Art
This week I did dandelion nail art. I've been wanting to do this design for a long time and I finally got around to it!

I started with the pink base color, Jin Soon Tea Rose, then drew the flower stem with a detail brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme. Last, I added the white petals with Sally Hansen White Out. 

My photos are a little weird this time, apologies! I don't know why, but my camera kept making everything dark, and it looked weird when I pumped up the brightness in Photoshop... digital cameras, sigh. I did want to make the flower a little more circular and dandelion-y, but that didn't work out so well. Besides that, I'm pretty happy with what I came up with! 

Part 2: A Mini-Swatch and Review

I was originally intending to do a separate post on swatches for this polish because I like it so much, but I only took one good photo before I did the nail art so I figured it wasn't really worth it. Ugh, starting to hate my camera!

Anyways. The base color for this design, Jin Soon Tea Rose, was actually sitting in my untried pile, despite it being a very expensive and high-quality polish! I'm glad I tried it out for this design. On the product site, it's described as an "unusual light coral pink that is startlingly sweet and feminine". I think that pretty much captures it!

Besides it being a beautiful color, it was also very fun to apply. Like all Jin Soon polishes I've tried, it applies beautifully -- no streaking, opaque in two coats, excellent brush... pretty much everything you'd want in a polish.

The only issues I had were (1) that it dries about 3 minutes slower than average polish and (2) when it does dry it has a kind of rubbery jelly texture that makes you feel like the polish will just come right off any minute (it doesn't though!). However, both those problems can be solved with a coat of Seche Vite so I wouldn't say they're major issues.

What do you think of this polish? What do you think of this nail art design? Also, do you have any tips on making sure that your skin/background are a consistent color in every photo? (I don't have a lightbox but I'm planning to make one myself when I get time)

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Snail :)