Of Spikes and Socks

So here’s a great example of a manicure that wound up in a very different place than it began.  Initially, I was going to cover that candy sweet pink gradient with a dainty rose print, something very English garden.  Then I got out my black and white polishes and my dotting tool, and next thing you know, I’ve got the colour and design of a pair of knee high socks I owned in high school (in grade 13 when I was living somewhere near the fashion junction of Clueless and your local patchouli-scented skate shop.  Wow, I loved those socks.  Funny thing to say about polka dotted hosiery that was actually fairly unflattering, but I did.) 😉  Then I added some silver spike charms up by my cuticles for maximum snagability (no way I’d wear these charms around my precious socks, bitchin’ – oh hey, El! – though they are.)

Calamity Carol

As in Carol of The Walking Dead.  Although…alluringly alliterative though it may be, is “calamity” really the correct descriptor for Carol Peletier’s very particular brand of post-apocalyptic madness?  Girlfriend’s ice cold, and I kind of love it.  Or I loved it right up until she suddenly – and abruptly, because this is The Walking Dead – began acting completely contrary to her long-established character, running off alone to ruminate on man’s inhumanity to man, when she should have been back in Alexandria terrorizing small, frightened children with her apocalypse cookies and impressively detailed death scenarios.  I totally hate-watch The Walking Dead, so I actually don’t have much of a stake in it one way or another, but I’d like to see Carol get her mojo back next season – every apocalypse needs its rage goddess.

Personal feelings on both the show and the comics aside, I love the idea of The Walking Dead, as evidenced by this TWD-themed polish from Dollish Polish, Look at the Flowers, Lizzie, a mucus-hued favourite.  Straight up, this polish looks like snot – ain’t nothing wrong with that!  Here I topped Look at the Flowers, Lizzie with two sweet flower studs and a couple of badass silver spike strips.  I definitely think Carol – any version, really – would approve.

Tough and Tender

For those days when you want your pretty, glittery nails to sport their very own brass knuckles.  Except on your nails instead of your fingers and silver-plated, here a couple of favourite spiky nail charms from Daily Charme atop Glam Polish’s Six Impossible Things.

Spike Strip

It occurred to me the other day that one of my favourite nail art designs, a chicken scratch sort of knit pattern, also looks a great deal like tire tracks.  So as these things go, twas but a hop, skip and a jump later before I was elbow-deep in lacquered tire treads, here Lilypad Lacquer’s holographic Rainbows in Space over Essence’s Color & Go in Chic Reloaded, a shimmery green-to-grey-to-purple multichrome that (quite appropriately for this manicure) reminds me of an oil slick.

Then because I can’t ever leave well enough alone, and also because my monochromatic tire track design was looking a bit bare, I laid down two silver spiked nail charms right at the edges of my cuticles on my middle two fingers.  Et voila, a spike strip!  Nail art punnage at its finest, folks.  But all the same, just know I’ve got my eye on you, crash queens and moto babies, and drive safe.