Friday, 28 September 2012

Watercolour Drip Nails

I'd been wanting to do watercolour nails for a long time, but the technique I've tried where you drop acetone onto blobs of polish didn't create the effect that I wanted. While the acetone does make a neat ring effect in the polish, I wanted a bit of a more brushstrokey, splodgey  look. I think I've achieved that with my American Apparel sheer polishes.

The best thing is, these are super easy to do with some good jelly polishes. I'd like to make a proper tutorial for the watercolour and drip effect in the future, so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in!

Polishes:
Left to right: American Apparel "Manhattan Beach", "Summerland Beach", "Pacific Beach", "Redondo Beach", "Moonlight Beach", OPI "Don't Touch My Tutu", Sally Hansen "White Out"
Directions:
  1. Start off with a white base. I used two coats of a sheer white, OPI "Don't Touch My Tutu" to keep the transparency, but I don't think a solid white base would make a difference with all the layers we'll be doing.
  2. Take a jelly colour, and make random strokes and splodges.
  3. Repeat with all of your colours until your entire nail is covered.   
  4. Paint over everything with one coat of a sheer white. 
I really liked the resulting look, but I wanted to add some hard edges in there to break things up a bit. Then I remembered I haven't tried drip nails yet either, and this was definitely the perfect opportunity.
I loved it so much, I went for a full-blown drip mani.
Again, please let me know if you'd like to see a full tutorial for this! I'll be back next week with another "Alice in Wonderland" design. Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!






8 comments:

  1. YES!! Please do a tutorial - this is so cool!!! Could this pass for watermarble? I'm doing the 31 Day Challenge and dreading watermarble day - anything I can do to get out of it is a-ok in my books :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hahaha I'm not sure this would count as watermarbling xD I really admire bloggers that can stick with these challenges...such dedication! I think taping off your nails and having a smaller surface area (like a shot glass) for the water will make watermarbling go by much easier. Good luck! :)

      Delete
  2. I love absolutely every single bit of this mani! Thats a really beautiful blend of colours! And the drip effect is a perfect touch for this nail art! :D

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving a comment! They make my day!
Please do not use this section to drop links that are irrelevant to the post's content. I reserve the right to remove these. If you'd like to contact me, please e-mail me.