Polka Dot & Zebra Print Nail art

Today was our big outing with the Cub Scouts. As the Den Leader for a pack of 8 year old boys, the planning and execution wore me out. Unfortunately, 0400 this morning found me wide awake going over every last detail to make sure the event went off without a hitch (which it did, if you were wondering). I played on Facebook and surfed Instagram trying to get back to sleep with no avail. I finally gave up and decided to peruse YouTube for nail art. It never fails to relax me. While I was looking around at random doticures and gradients, I came across this video from Selina's Nail Art and I KNEW that I had to recreate
this look.

Orange & Black Polka Dots with Zebra Print

I am not a pink kind of girl, but I have an Orly polish that I love and I knew immediately it would go great with this look. What do you think? I am quite proud of how it turned out. I have never used the striping polish until tonight and was actually rather nervous that I would screw it up terribly. Lucky for me the zebra stripes are much easier than they look!


Below is a list of everything I used, in order from start to finish.

• Sally Hansen Hard As Wraps
• I really love this as a base coat. It feels (and smells) like a thinned down acrylic liquid and functions similarly. Once applied and let to dry it gives my nails a very strong base for which to apply other layers. I have noticed a HUGE decrease in broken nails since I started using it, and it has become almost impossible to bend my nails like they used to do.
   
• Orly Bonder Rubberized Base
• I have heard mixed reviews on this one, but I swear by it. It looks orange in the bottle but I haven't noticed any skewing of the polish colors because of it. It goes on and dries to a clear, tacky surface. It never feels completely dry because of the rubbery texture. I use it, along with Hard as Wraps religiously under every manicure and I have gone from chipped nails the day after my manicure to wearing the same polish for four or five days without touch up. The last mani I did (here, with the broken nail) lasted five days.
• Shany (white, no name)
  
• Orly Goth
• This is a really pretty black shimmer in the bottle, but once applied to the nail it loses much of the glittery look it has in the bottle. Also, even though it's black, it still takes 2 coats to cover without streaking. Even though it loses some of its shimmer, I still love this polish and would gladly recommend it to anyone who wants to try black but is scared of the flat black that is so common.
  
• Orly Melt My Popsicle
• I can't say enough about this one. It is probably in my top five favorite polishes right now. The picture doesn't do it justice (I'm still struggling to get a good photo set up). It is a very bright neon orange, reminescent of the construction cones you see on the highway. It goes on very smooth, and as you can see over the black nail, its pretty opaque on the first go.
  
• Stiping Polish (black)
  
• Seche Vite
• I put a coat of SV over the base coat before adding the dots, and then again once the dots had dried. On the zebra nail, I also added a layer over the gradient to protect it in case I messed up the zebra pattern. It was then coated with a final layer.
  
• Pure Acetone (for cleanup)
  
• Essie Apricot cuticle oil (after any completed manicure, I always make sure to massage cuticle oil into the entire 'U' of my nail bed. The acetone tends to dry my skin out and I am terribly prone to dry and cracked cuticles so this step is mandatory.

That's it! What do you think?