I Can't Afford That - Tokyo Street Style Nails

Hey y'all! Welcome to my new regular feature, "I Can't Afford That," where I take manicure inspiration from expensive fashion things that I do not have enough money to buy.  I may never wear these outfits, or pretty dresses (I will probably not even touch them or be close to them ever), but at least I can recreate elements of them on my nails. That's kind of the same, right? Right?

Anyway, today's manicure is inspired the above photo (taken at Tokyo Fashion Week by Hbnam for Style.com), which I found through one of my favorite fashion blogs, The Man Repeller.  Omg that hair, and I am a sucker for a good pencil skirt.  I guess since I don't know who makes the skirt, or the hair, it could potentially be not outlandishly expensive, but I don't think I could afford emotionally to dye my hair blue ombre (as awesome as it looks), so let's go with that in order to stick with our theme.

I did three gradients, two were pretty subtle and come out best in the photos, two try to capture all that lovely lovely hair ombre.  Then used striping tape to create both the larger cross and the hatched accent nail.

This was my first attempt at gradient, and my first ever striping tape mani, on top of that I did the whole thing very late at night after coming home late from lab so it's all a bit messy.  I still have never been able to prevent streaking on my nails after any kind of tape mani.  Nevertheless, I love the overall effect, especially from a distance where you can't see the little smudgies!

Here are the colors I used:

Essie Maximillian Strasse-Her
Revlon Dreamer
Butter London Blagger
Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White Out
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out

P.S. You can now officially follow us on Bloglovin! Click the link below.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin