Nail of the week: Traditional Thai Inspired Nails

I am really loving this week's nail design. Since my family is from Thailand I have been wanting to do a Thai inspired nail design for quite some time. I chose this particular pattern because it is very Thai, this scroll design can often be seen in Thai patterned material or in carved wooden work in Buddhist Temples. My nails are quite long and thin so I don't think it looked AS good as it might if I had flatter nails but I was pretty happy with this result. (I included the design inspiration above) It lends kind of a cool tribal look to my manicure. For the background color I chose a new polish I picked up this week at the Icing store in the mall. I had been trying not to buy any new colors lately since winter is always the slow time in my store and I don't like to buy more then I can use. But I made an exception with this one (mostly because it was on sale for only $2 ;) ) but also because it is a "Mood Swing" (read: color changing) It is in the shade "calm/energized" and it is a beautiful cream navy blue that was supposed to change to a turquoise shade when your hands are exposed to any heat or hot water.

Much like the "scented" nail polish, mood changing polish is a little bit of a gimmick but I thought it might be a fun background to my nail art. The quality of the polish was quite good, as with most Icing polish, it was not streaky and was completely opaque in two coats. It dries matte, so you will need to add a glossy topcoat if you do not like a matte finish, but it does dry very fast. I tested out the color changing before adding the topcoat and design and noticed it did work quite well. (NOT PICTURED) The problem I had with this is that after adding my design and two layers of topcoat to protect my design the color changing....well it didn't work nearly as well. The color still changed but lightened to more of a medium toned blue rather then the bright turquoise.

The color change after submerging my hands in warm water

So in short this polish is really only going to work to full capacity if you just wear it with possibly one thin coat of topcoat over it. This is not really for me since I rarely wear just plain polish, however I still liked it. As you can see in the first picture most of the time it is actually more of a gradient look which I thought was quite pretty. And for the $2 price tag I thought it was something a little different and fun. I hope you enjoy this weeks nail art design. Thank you so much for reading! Have a great week :)