I’ve seen it a lot on Pinterest and I’ve been wanting to do a “quilted” matte effect. Considering it takes a lot of precision, striping tape, and a steady hand with placement, I keep putting it off. Recently I put a glossy top coat over Julep Quinn, which is a matte “Satin Finish” polish without thinking, so I figured this would be a good chance to try the quilted matte since the polish really does look better matte.
My initial intention was to do every nail, but like I said… it’s a lot of precision work with the striping tape that I got too impatient for! So I only did it on my thumb. It’s harder to see in this picture, but you can kinda see it. My biggest problem is the precision placement. I feel like I have a good eye, but then when I go to place it, it just doesn’t translate. After putting on the striping tape on my thumb, I made the necessary executive decision for my sanity.
Originally I was also going to use essie matte about you as a top coat, but when I decided that I was only going to do my thumbs I decided instead to use Cult Cosmetics Wax That… wax effect top coat. This is the only polish I’ve bought so far from Cult, and I have to say when I first got it I was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t really see much difference in “wax effect” and a matte top coat. So I haven’t really used it much, and figured since this whole thing was experimental, what could it hurt? Well, it helped. For the first time, I think I do see a difference in the wax effect and a standard matte. It’s not so much a matte, but more of a semi-gloss. You can click the picture below to see the full size image.
I think it was wasted in this application, but I could see maybe dripping it onto a mani to get a gloss with drops effect? Might be cool. But that’ll be attempted another day.
Overall, I think I like the effect but a few things should be done…
- Use a gloss polish and standard matte top coat
- Do every nail
- Figure out how to take a better picture.
I love my Foldio but it’s really bright, so the light easily gets reflected in my super shiny manicures. Tips appreciated!
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