Nail Art with Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient and stamping with matt top coat

I'll state up front, but not apologise, that this is a picture heavy post! I built this mani up over a few days, and I loved every stage of of it! So I took pictures of all the steps!

The starting point was Chanel Bel-Argus, which on it's own is a fantastic metallic blue, unlike anything else in my collection. But since I don't normally go for metallics, it's unlikely I would have had a dupe for it really.

Chanel Bel-Argus

This is three coats plus Seche Vite quick drying top coat - the colour was opaque at two coats but I'm over-sensitive to brush strokes so I sponged on a third coat thinly to fix the finish. The colour is amazing - it reminds me of the tropical Morpho butterflies.

With these butterflies in mind, a couple of days later I added  a sponge gradient with Chanel Azure.

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient

I don't know if Chanel had this sort of thing in mind when they released these colours together, but I think they were just made for each other :)

I love stamping for easy nail art effects, but I have a bit of a conflict because I like to wear my nails long too, and the stamping images are usually too small.......... so my stamping adventures are usually confined to when I cut my nails short. Or the complicated process of double-stamping (stamping the image twice on each nail) which doesn't work with all plates because there is no way of lining the images up on some of the designs, and in any case is tricky! But then I had an idea............. if I added a gradient to the tip of my nail, and then stamped in the same colour as the the gradient on the rest of the nail, I could get a design using just a single stamp. So I tried it out stamping with Chanel Azure over this gradient mani:

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient and stamping

I really like how this turned out! I used one of the wavy / zebra patterns from the Cheeky Wild at Heart plate - these designs are all quite big anyway.  Here are a couple of macro shots of the stamped mani in full sun to show how rich these colours are:

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient and stamping

And finally, still thinking of dusty butterfly wings, I added a matt top coat (Mavala Color-Matt).

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient and stamping with matt top coat

I prefer the matt version, it shows up the pattern much better. I took these pictures in indirect sunlight indoors near a window, but finally, back to my opening full-sun macro:

Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure sponge gradient and stamping with matt top coat

I think this has to be one my favourite manis of all the ones I've ever done. Someone said it reminded her of these guys and I have to agree, although I never thought of Avatar as I was doing the nail art!

I purchased Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure from my local House of Fraser. Mavala Color-Matt top coat is my staple matt top coat and is readily available in chemists and department stores in the UK. I bought the Cheeky nail art plate from Cheeky via amazon.co.uk - although it shipped from China it was here in a couple of weeks and is great quality - I'd definitely buy from Cheeky again.