Swarovski Crystal Twinkle Toes and Full Set of Bling!

This week my Swarovski Crystal Nail competition winner came over to claim her prize and she had fully loaded big toes with a few accent crystals on the remaining toes which looked lovely. I used the OPI Axxium DS Radiance as the colour gel on top of the base gel which is often the preferred choice for those who don't have a full set.

Later on in the week I did another full set of toes, but this time I used OPI Axxium overlay gel which is the file off system. This client was about to go on holiday so needs something really hard wearing and long lasting. This system should certainly do the trick.

Swarovski Crystal Nails

 

I had the pleasure of doing a lovely lady's *Bling Nails* pedicure this evening. I applied authentic Swarovski Crystals to her big toe nails and OPI Axxium gel in DS Radiance on the remaining toes. I then finished them off with a cost of clear top cost to protect and seal them.

I chose to use gel as it is hard wearing and also offers better value for money as it lasts longer than doing it on to polished nails. The crystals alone cost about £12 and with the cost of the OPI gels on top of that it is expensive to do.

Instructions

• Apply a layer of UV gel base coat and cure under a UV lamp.
• Apply the first layer of the super sparkly OPI DS Radiance and cure under the UV lamp.
• Apply the second coat but don't cure yet.
• Start to apply individual crystals to the nail (I used SS7 on the big toe but I have SS5 for the other toes as they are smaller and I want to give a really professional finish).
• Once the nails are covered, cure under the UV lamp.
• Carefully apply a coat of clear top coat, taking sure not apply too thickly otherwise the sparkle is reduced and the crystals can look like beads rather than bling.
• Finish off with a finishing wipe and apply OPI cuticle oil.

I would love to know what you think about these and if you have had Swarovski Crystal nails then I would love to know what your experiences have been.

I price this treatment at £30 for the big toe with OPI gel on the remaining toes or you can book to have a full set for £50. I am offering a special 10% discount until the end of 31st July 2012.

Crystal Manicures and Pedicures

I have recently had a lot of enquiries for Swarovski Crystal manicures and pedicures and have run out of kit, so I have ordered some OPI Axxium DS Radiance as the embedding gel and Swarovski Crystals. All in all it set me back quite a lot as I anticipated that I would need about 500 crystals for a pedicure/shortish set of nails and OPI doesn't come cheap in the UK, however I went to the beauty wholesalers earlier on today and took a closer look at Sally's range and thought that it would be fun to have a play around with their own range. I ended up buying ASP Base Coat, Disco Ball gel and Clear gels, as well as a pack of 250 standard crystals. The Disco Ball gel is a clear gel with holographic glitter micro glitter. It looks stunning and despite some not so favourable reviews, I found it to be really great to work with. It came out with a great effect and overall I think that it's a brilliant cheaper alternative. As a nail professional I will still offer the premium quality version with OPI and Swarovski as I am a bit of a nail snob and want to give my customers the absolute best finish, but I would certainly not be unhappy if a nail technician gave me a set of nails like this (I'm referring to the middle one just in case you were wondering!). Unfortunately the iPhone doesn't have a great zoom and I have used Instagram to give a different effect, but I think that you get the idea.

I would really like to know what you views are on Crystal Manicures/Pedicures, and if you have any experiences then please feel free to comment.

Just in case you were wondering, I offer the Swarovski and OPI version for £30 ($48.57US) for just the big toe/one finger on each foot/hand with OPI Axxium DS Radiance gel, with gel on the remaining fingers or toes, £50 ($80.95US) for a full set of toes and £60 ($97.14US) for a full set of finger nails. Nails Inc offer the Crystal Manicure in their salons for a hefty £120 ($194.28US).