Bamboo nail art with Zoya Shawn green polish and China Glaze Devotion

The phrase bamboo manicure is actually used to describe a form of torture where bamboo bits are pushed beneath the victims' fingernails (ouch). That is not what I've done here, so I'm avoiding the phrase. Here is a bamboo leaf nail art design with Zoya Shawn green nail polish - stamped with China Glaze Devotion. It has fewer stalks; I'll explain that in a minute.
Zoya Shawn is a green nail polish that doesn't make me sick each time I look at my nails - unlike many other greens. I'm afraid I forgot to photograph the polish swatched by itself. It is mossy; it is olive; it is deep; it doesn't scream green and it is my favourite finish - creme. What's not to like? Shawn makes me think of the rainforests, of the Amazon, the Congo and Borneo. Of leaves wet with rain. Enough blarney.

A tad streaky with just the one coat, Zoya Shawn gives full opacity with two coats. Decent staying power and I think it looks sophisticated when worn alone. But since when do I wear polish alone? Photographs taken in natural light - there was no direct sunlight all day. It's going to rain cats and dogs soon.

I'm going to tell you the name of the dang best polish series for stamping nail art - the China Glaze Romantique Collection. They're better than the Konad specials. The image plate loves these polishes. The scraper/card loves them. The stamper adores them and picks up the image so well.

Here, I'm wearing China Glaze Devotion stamped on top of Zoya Shawn. The image plate is M66, though I've only used one-thirds of the image - a cluster of bamboo canes. All you have to do to get half of an image stamped is apply polish only on parts of the image that you want to appear, and scrape accordingly. And I didn't clean the image plate or stamper even once until all my nails were stamped. Of course, sleeping without a top coat did have a few niggling effects. No top coat yet, I wanted to show you the clarity of Devotion.

I just had an idea for a torture-themed manicure series; I have a detailed book on forms of torture. If only I can figure out how to make those designs appear on my nails!
This bamboo design is my entry for the "green" round of the Falling Through The Rainbow nail art challenge. Next up is blue, and I'm so excited, because I have way too many few blue nail polishes and can't wait to choose them all from them.