Cirque Ultrasonic + The Thirteenth Tale

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Matching my nails to the theme of the novel we read for book club has now become very much a thing for me, and this month's selection of The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield had the inspiration right there on the cover.

Cirque Ultrasonic
indoor, bright CF lighting
I've started with a base of 3 coats of Cirque Ultrasonic.  Each coat self-leveled very well, with slightly less VNL at each layer.  The first coat was a sheer wash of color, and the formula was slightly more watery than ideal.  By the 2nd coat, when it had another layer to grab onto besides just the basecoat, it stuck very well with no more creeping toward the cuticles.  The 3rd coat had a beautifully translucent opacity, much like very good quality china.

Cirque Ultrasonic
window-filtered bright daylight
The color is described as "linen" and that sounds utterly accurate to my eyes, like an unbleached white.  This jelly was part of a LE series for the NY Met Museum when they were hosting an exhibit on fashion in 2016.

Cirque Ultrasonic
indoor, bright CF lighting
For the book club design, I happened to have an image that was a dead ringer for the stack of books on the cover of the novel, from MJ plates JR-2.

indoor, incandescent lighting
This tale of crumbling, faded old pieces of paper torn from books or hidden away in treasure boxes suggested the rest of the design, using pieces of newsprint lightly transferred to my nails with alcohol.  To keep the look of paper, the whole design was matted.

MJ stamping plate JR-2
indoor, CF lighting
Rating:  4 out of 5 stars for Ultrasonic, with this most definitely being a base for many nail art projects to come.  This stamping plate also worked very well for me, getting good transference for even the very fine lines of the book pages.

Where to buy:  Since Ultrasonic was an LE, keep your eye out for blog sales & destashes to grab a bottle.  Unfortunately, though this stamping plate has loads of fun book-themed designs from several of my faves, MJ plates/My Online Shop seems to have closed down about a year ago.  I occasionally see one or two on Amazon, where I got this one a while back.

~Michelle

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