This mani was both fun and frustrating.  The fun part is that I love the design and I love the colors; the frustrating part is that I used some no-name brands, which resulted in difficulty painting as well as the polish rippling once I added the top coat.

The green nails are painted with 3 coats of Summer Brights Pastel Collection “Light Creme Green Mint” (a bottle I picked up at CVS).  I have to say I’m in love with this green; the camera just doesn’t capture how the color softly glows and I love that it’s bright without being obnoxious.  It applied a little uneven so it took the three coats to get a solid look.  It’s topped with dots of blue Expressions “Mint” and purple China Glaze “Neon Flying Dragon.  Seche Vite base and topcoats.

The orange nails have a Sally Hansen “White On” base, then two coats of the orange-scented Ross-obtained Expressions “Orange”.  They’re topped with dots in Sally Hansen’s “Sonic Bloom” and “Coral Reef”.  PSA – Don’t ever buy the Expressions brand polish – actually, if you want to buy it for a little girl I’m sure that would be great because they’re cheap and scented with pretty simple ingredients, but the polish didn’t apply evenly and when the top coat was applied it became horrible mess…it never really dried completely.

To do this design all you need is something to make dots with.  You can either drop a couple dollars for an actual dotting tools set or if you’re like me and not willing to spend the $1.50, just stick some pins into the eraser end of a pencil or grab some toothpicks.

The design reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, maybe cartoon dinosaur eggs?  Even with the cheap no name polish issues I’m still happy with the way this turned out.

What’s your favorite cheap polish?