Recreation: PGS Glitter Ruffian

I was a huge fan of now-defunct blog Pretty Girl Science, and I'd saved one of Nichole's posts on my Bloglovin' Nail Ideas folder, where all the really cool nail art posts go to languish, waiting fruitlessly for me to recreate them. (Never fear, PGS's Nichole still posts at Bedlam Beauty, while Amanda can be found at Some Weird Sin.) This time, though, I actually did one!

I had held off on recreating Nichole's black and glitter ruffian (original here) because the glitter she had used was so unique. She packed Octopus Party Nail Lacquer's Glow for the Gold and The Royal Tannenbaums for a multicolored glitter extravaganza. I didn't have anything similar, and it was the color combination that had won me over, so it sat. I had almost written it off as one of those manis that was built around a random indie polish I'd likely never own.

Then the wheels started turning again when I bought Sinful Colors Pride, a multicolored, multisized round and hex glitter topper that layers to full coverage relatively easily. To get the color effect I wanted, I started with my black base, then used a short striping brush to polish on a thin layer of NYC Fashion Queen into my ruffian shape to give the extra pop of gold that glammed up Nichole's mani. The pre-shaped design made layering in Pride super easy. It took about 2 coats with a little spot dabbing to get the glitter saturation I wanted, but boy was it sparkly!

I think that Pride is a little chunkier than the OPNL glitters Nichole used, but the overall look that prompted me to hit Save on that post is definitely there. I love how this mani turned out-a really classy take on a very, very high sparkle look that was, as she promised, quite easy to achieve. I was especially excited to have recreated it with easy to find, inexpensive shades. Both Pride and Fashion Queen are drugstore polishes (and you could actually use any gold glitter as your ruffian base for a similar effect), and my base is a basic black- Julep Cleopatra this time. I topped it with Sinful Shine Top Coat.

As a PGS devotee, I was sad to see it end, but two blogs are better than one, right? I was glad to finally recreate this throwback to their starter blog. What other glitter combos could be fun for this look? Have you ever recreated an indie look with mainstream polishes?