My First Ruffian: Zoya Deidra and Stacy

This was my very first ruffian manicure. From what I understand, since you have to put one color over another, the second color has to be darker than the first. So I chose Zoya Deidra as a base color.

Isn't she something? I was worried that Zoya Deidra was going to be pretty sheer, but she was opaque in two coats! The finish is a mix between a frost and a shimmer. It is just so gorgeous! The polish applied perfectly.

Now for the ruffian part...I thought, this is easy, no big deal. Well here is my logical attempt at the ruffian.

It didn't look right at all! I thought to myself, there must be an easier way! Lo and behold I typed in "how to ruffian" and the first link that popped up was a life saver. This amazing tutorial by Laquerized couldn't have been better. She even made cool graphic pictures to explain the steps. Now it sounds like what you'd do anyway, but the little details are what matters. I read it and I was like, well I thought that's what I was doing. I studied it, then tried again, and got much better results. To add some tips of my own, it's best to use a color for the top that is opaque in one coat. I also think the color I chose for the bottom was a bit close to my skin tone (as Laquerized advises against), but I can't quite decide. I think the frostiness helps make it pop a bit more, and it really does look more contrasting in person.

Zoya Stacy is a gorgeous berry wine color with a cream finish. I would say she's opaque in two coats, but I wanted to use her for this so I just made them a bit thicker than I normally would and it was perfect. She is a little dark, but I don't think she ever looks black. That's important to me in a dark polish. If I wanted it to look black I'd wear black. As you can see from the two right above, it really depends on the lighting how she looks at any given moment. I think it's gorgeous!

What do you think about ruffian manicures? Would you do one, have you done one? You can see more pictures of other ruffians here to get an idea.