I have to admit it- I haven’t always been a huge fan of nail polish. Whenever my little sister would beg me to let her paint my nails after she’d already finished both her fingers and toes, it was always with reluctance. I could always tolerate other primping pasttimes like curling my hair and experimenting with eye makeup, but even until high school, I never prioritized painting my nails as a part of the already time-consuming effort of dressing up to go out. In fact, it took me a while to even believe that people would care to notice that I had done something as mundane as had my nails painted. Honestly, this was mostly because I’ve always been a relatively impatient person: never detail-oriented enough to ensure that I wasn’t spilling nail polish onto my skin, always frustrated with the extra care needed when I moved around to avoid smearing a wet coat.
In college, though, I’ve recently been exposed to what I’ve been missing out on by always dismissing nail polish so quickly. I’d never seen painted nails that served as a perfect accent to a person’s ensemble, or even completely stood out because of their creative designs. What’s great about nail polish is how it’s so versatile, since you can use a variety of colors and designs to complement the most casual or formal looks. There are other ways of making impressive artwork out of your nails, but the following have become some of my favorites in proving that painting nails can be far from mundane, and definitely worth the time.
1. Crackle Nail Polish: After applying a plain-color base, you can paint over it with a brand of crackle nail polish to achieve an edgy effect. There’s an artistic appeal to this broken, imperfect design, especially when painted over with a top coat to give it shine.
2. Magnetix: A bottle of this nail polish should either come with a magnetic cap or a separate magnet. Holding the magnet over your freshly painted nails will create this effect that is simultaneously simple and dramatic. You can also try for a specific design like stars, arrows, or diagonals, although it might take some practice.
3. Water Marble: I love the colorful swirls that water marble can give your nails! You can pick your color combination to be as fresh, cool, or crazy depending on how you want it to complement your look. To achieve the water marble design, you’ll need some opaque nail paint and extra materials like a bowl of water, a toothpick, and some masking tape to make sure the design is applied cleanly. Here is a link to a really great tutorial on how to perfect five different water marble designs.
Which of these nail trends are you going to try this spring?
Crackle Image Credit: p-o-l-i-s-h.tumblr.com
Magnetix Image Credit: nailpolishenthusiast.tumblr.com