Everyday Nail Art #1: “Bling the Ring” + Glitter Ombre

With this post I’m kicking of a new series on simple and fun nail art that can be done easily at home and quickly at the salon. I’m not sure how many entries there will be in this series, but I’ve made a list of about 30 ideas so far.  Most would look great on long or short nails, so they’re great for designing on natural nails or enhancements. Many will be wearable, everyday looks but I’ll also experiment with trendy nail art ideas now and then, too. I hope you’ll find some of them useful, whether you’re looking for ideas to DIY at home, to ask your nail tech to try, or as a nail tech ready to try out client and clock-friendly nail art in the salon.

The base color for this design is Gelish Hidden Identity. After the base coat, I applied two coats to all fingers except the ring finger, which just got one. Then I swiped a small amount of the Gelish glitter polish My Jewels Keep Me Warm, brushing upwards from the base, to all the nails except the ring, on which I applied two coats for full coverage.

In this close-up you can see the slight glitter effect:

What do you think of this look? Would you wear this? let me know in the comments!

Old Nail Art

Found this lovely pic while going through files from 2010. I have no idea what the nail polish color is, but I know it’s stamped nail art with some hand painted dots.

Silver Lightning

For this design  I used Minx nail apps in Silver Lightning:

As you can see, my nails are very short but I still had problems with the apps bunching and wrinkling.  I heated the apps on a lamp before apply and I found that it helped during application, but about three hours later new wrinkles had appeared.

Bottom line: I was very disappointed by this professional product.  I’m sure I’d have to use acrylic or gel to “flatten out” my nails in order for them to look any better.

I’ll try to remember to post an update later about how long they stayed on and how well the apps held up.

UPDATE: After three days the nails looked terrible and I simply peeled off the app.  The edges were worn away and tattered.  Yuck!