Before & After: Winter Blues

Hello!!

Today's post is the next in my series of Let It Snow! prompts, and this one is 'Winter Blues'. My first thought when I think of a 'blue' manicure is snow, but I've done about a thousand of those this year, so I decided to go another way. Since I started stamping, I've been wanting to use one of the cool dot gradient stamps out there, and I decided that a gray dot gradient would be perfect for the Winter Blues--a bit of gray from the long, dark, overcast gray days.

I started with a base of Color Club Bright Night, one of the colors from their new Kaleidoscope collection (which I will be reviewing shortly). It's a deep-but-bright royal blue creme that dries to a rubberized finish if you don't add topcoat:

Color Club Bright Night in the sun

Color Club Bright Night indirect light

Then I stamped with Pueen plate 06 from my new Pueen set of plates (would you guys like me to review this? Let me know if so), and China Glaze Elephant Walk:

This mani looks so much more basic and plain in pictures than it did IRL. I couldn't stop staring at it because I loved the effect that the graded dots gave--a little visual illusion leading to the end of your fingers. If you've never tried a pattern on your nails like this, you should--it has a very cool look. :)

On a serious note...I mentioned during depression awareness month that I suffer from depression. While it isn't the sort of depression I suffer from, the 'Winter Blues' are very real for a lot of people, and is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder. It isn't fully understood, but it's believed to be caused by the lower levels of light, and it seems to hit hardest in places where the light cycles during winter get very small or non-existent (like the Arctic Circle), and the incidence of suicides go up in such areas--but doesn't only impact people in those more extreme environments. So if you feel like you tend to get more depressed and unhappy during the winter, you may be having an issue with this, and you should talk to your doctor because it is very real, and can be treated.

Thanks for taking a look and please check out the other Winter Blues manicures linked below. :)

Xoxox,
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