Sort of Skittles

One of my favourite colour combinations is gray and assorted brights - usually bright yellow or bright blue. Think Swedish flag and school-uniform gray and you're right there. I'm also becoming terribly fond of orange as a colour, which is something I've avoided like the plague up until now. I'm also fond of a mixture of gloss and matte finishes - this is something I've always had a weakness for. Show me a video game box that is both matte and shiny and I'll go mental for it.

So for work this week I went for something that ticks a lot of my boxes.

• Gray - check
• Various brights - check
• Matte and shiny - super check

I'm so easily pleased. 

These were done by using a roll of Scotch magic tape I got to wrap my Christmas presents with - just tape off half the nail and paint to your will. Make sure to peel off the tape before the polish begins to dry though, else it gets a bit gloopy and stringy and will pull and stretch.

These were done with a base colour of BarryM Gray, which I topped with a coat of Seche Vite before taping off half of my nail diagonally with Scotch Magic tape. The Magic tape doesn't stick too hard so there's not much chance of ruining your base colour, which is nice. Most of the colours took more than one coat to get nice and bright - it only occurred to me after I'd finished everything that a coat of white underneath where I was painting the bright colours would have helped them look considerably brighter - but the tape has to be removed and re-applied after every coat if you're doing more than one.

The brights are, from thumb to pinky, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper, Rimmel 60 Seconds in Funtime Fuschia, BarryM Block Orange, BarryM Cyan Blue and BarryM Yellow. These were topped with my trusty Rimmel Matte top coat and BarryM White was painted on with my trusty little paintbrush.