Creative Style: Fun But Formal Nails

This is my first dabble in Nail Design tutorial’s. Mostly because I have too many friends who do this sort of thing so much better than I do. Some of them even make a living by creating nail designs on their customers and one of them, my dearest friend Miriam, even vlogs about her amazing nail designs on YouTube. She is so much better at all of that than me, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you go and see some of her wonderful tutorials.

However since my mission is to bring creativity into everything, and fill my blog with ideas and even a touch of glamour, you can consider this the first in a hopefully long series of tutorials and ideas for bringing a little more creativity into your personal style.

First and foremost, I believe you must always have clean hands when you start any project but especially when you are going to do your nails. Clean hands and clean nails are a must if your design is going last. After all you wouldn’t put make up on a dirty face would you? So my advice is to either remove any old varnish or just wipe the nail surface with some nail varnish remove to get rid of any excess grease, dirt or residue soap.

Step 1: What Do You Need?

For this design you will need:

• Four colours regular colours of your choice.
• One matte colour.
• Nail varnish remover.
• Cotton buds or pads.

For my nails I used: Peach, pale pink, dark pink, red and matte black.

Step 2: Let’s Get Started!

Any good nail artist will tell you that every great design starts with a base coat. The great thing about base coats is that they don’t need to be expensive, even just a plain white colour will do for a base coat, basically all you are doing is protecting the nail from any colour staining. Once you’ve done that you can start by painting on your first colour. I used the peach colour first and I painted the entire nail with it.

Step 3: The First Stripe.

So now you have one coat of your first colour, this is where the fun begins! I’m sure you all have a much steadier hand than I do, but as I don’t mind a bit of freehand wobbling I painted a low stripe of the pale pink colour next on my nails. I was going for a sort of sunset theme.

I painted this colour right to the tip, as you can see in my slightly dodgy photo. Once again I only used one coat of this colour, but it you want a brighter colour then I would suggest using two coats of each colour.

Step 4: The Second Stripe, and The Rest…

To get the stripe affect I painted each consecutive colour leaving a margin of the colour below and painting the colour above to the tip.

With the matte black I did an extra coat, making sure that it was dense and solid colour. Then it was just a case of a little clean up with some nail varnish remover and a cotton pad and I was done. I did consider adding a final coat of top coat to make sure the design lasted, but then I realised that the top coat would make the matte black glossy and spoil the effect.

I like the matte black tip, it gives the design an edgier look. I half wish I had longer nails because I know this would design would look way better on a long nail tip and nail body.  But I never could type half so fast with longer nails.

So What Do You Think?

I’m sure that there are plenty of you out there that could take this design and make it look even better. It’s an idea, and ideas are the seeds of creativity fostered by its Mother, Necessity. You can quote me on that! I’d love to read your comments and even see photos of your version of this idea. That way I can laud you all! I’d love to hear what you think of this post too. Till next time then.

Davita