I have some (rather belated) pastel and negative space curved chevrons nails for last week’s “negative space” prompt for Twinsie Tuesday.

I’ve never much liked negative space manicures as my nails are so stained. They’re not too bad at the cuticle end, but by about half way down, they start to get very yellow. You can avoid yellow nails by buffing them or scrubbing and soaking in all sorts, like bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice. But seeing as I permanently wear polish on my nails, they are always covered up, so I never saw the point in whitening them.

Even when negative nails came into fashion, I could not be bothered to restore my nails to their natural colour, so I’ve largely avoided creating them. This time around though, I thought I had to make the effort, so I tarted up my natural nails first.

I didn’t buff or scrub though; I camouflaged them. I firstly painted two coats of Ciaté Bloom Boost, a treatment that’s supposed to brighten your nails. It is a clear base with a blue tone to it. It fluoresces under UV light, so my guess is that it’s that quality that helps to somehow illuminate your nails. While it didn’t completely mask the yellowing, it certainly helped an awful lot.

On top of that, I painted two coats of Barry M Nude, and voilà, I had “naked” nails.

I used some curved chevron nail guides to block out a part of my nail and then painted on two very pale pastel polishes from L’Oréal: Lemon Meringue (yellow) and Nouvelle Vague (lilac).

I don’t much like this nail art – I can’t get used to the negative space look on me – so I expect they will now go viral. It always happens with manicures I don’t like!

Please take a look at all the other manicures from the Twinsies this week:

• Alaina at The Little Canvas
• Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland
• Amanda at Fashion Footing
• Amber at Nails Like Lace
• ChiChi at I’m Just Me…ChiChi
• Lisa at The Polish Playground
• Marisa at Polish Obsession
• Marisa at Polish Those Nails
• Megan at A Beauty in the Business
• Sara at The Call of Beauty
• Sarah at Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer
• Savannah at Addicted to Polish
• Sharon at Behind Green Eyes
• Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer