Ikat Nails Tutorial

Today I'll be showing you guys how to do the ever-so-popular Ikat design on your nails. You have probably seen this pattern many times, on everything from clothes and accessories, to furniture and home decor. The best part about this manicure is that you don't need to be perfect about it, at all. It looks pretty complicated, but it's actually super easy. Here's what I used for this mani:

Secret Periwinkle - China Glaze

White Creme - Wet n Wild

Up and Kim-ing Pink - Nicole by OPI

Black striping polish

Seche Vite

1. Paint your nail with your base color. 

2. Paint vaguely triangular shapes with your white polish. The best part about this is that there's really no way to mess up (tip: take all excess polish off your brush before doing this).

3. Paint some pink (or whatever color) blobs in the white shapes. Once again, there's really no way to mess this up.

4. I kind of skipped a step here, but using your striping polish, make short lines outlining the white shape. You want to be able to see them sticking out. Then, use the black to make little blobs in the pink part of the shape.

5. Apply top coat and you're done (tip: make sure the top coat's brush doesn't touch the nail; it will smear the design, as you can see on my thumb).

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The two hour manicure

Last night I decided I was going to do a simple manicure for the school week, and save the fancy stuff for the weekend. But of course, after painting my nails bright pink, I had the sudden itch to do full hand-placed glitter accent nails for the first time. So I did, and it took almost two hours. This is what I used:

Nail Tek II Intensive Therapy

"Up and Kim-ing Pink" from Nicole by OPI

"Make U Smile" from Nicole by OPI

Seche Vite

Dotting tool

(for the matte version) "Matte About You" from Essie

Matte-ified!

I still haven't decided if I like the matte or glossy version more. What do you think?

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Subtle Dot Gradient Tutorial

I've been wanting to try out dot gradients for a while, but I just hadn't found the right color combination yet. Luckily, I finally received my order of "Samoan Sands" by OPI last week, and I knew I had to finally try a dot gradient mani out! The color combination is actually inspired by a reddit post by /u/twelveeight. Anyway, here is what you'll need:

 "Samoan Sands" by OPI

"Chinchilly" by Essie

Top coat

Dotting tool ( I used the one with the largest dot)

Tape

1. Paint your nail your base color. Since "Samoan Sands" is a bit sheer, I decided to use it as the base color, so I wouldn't have to deal with painting it over the gray.

2. Use tape to create a diagonal line and paint the un-taped side with "Chinchilly" (make sure your base color is completely dry before you do this!!)

3. Use your dotting tool to create dots along the diagonal line (don't worry if the dots stick up, the top coat will even it out).

4. Make dots with the other color in between the first set of dots. Then make randomly arranged dots with the opposite colors. 

5. Apply top coat and you're done!

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Jelly Sandwich featuring "Paloma" by Zoya and "Make U Smile" By Nicole by OPI

Jelly sandwiches are a fun and easy way to take advantage of the sheer nature of jelly polishes.  For this look, I used "Paloma" by Zoya, from the NYFW Gloss Collection, and "Make U Smile" by Nicole by OPI from their Justin Bieber collection (yeah, yeah I know). I love how these turned out. "Paloma" is such a perfect, squishy looking jelly, while "Make U Smile" is a great hexagonal glitter. Let me know what you guys think!

The result of screwing around with dotting tools at 1 a.m. : subtle holiday nails

I ordered dotting tools off of Amazon a while ago, and decided to finally give them a try (the sloppiness is due to me still getting used to them). I didn't really know where I was going with this when I started, but I definitely like how they turned out!

Colors used:

White Creme - Wet N Wild

Angel Wings - China Glaze

Glistening Snow - China Glaze

No name red glitter - Black Poppy (PacSun)