Today’s nails are inspired by some nail art that
Dashing Diva created for the Cushnie et Ochs show at Fall 2011 Fashion Week which you can see
here!
I’m sure you’ve all been seeing a lot of this style manicure recently and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t completely sold on the look. And I also thought it would be a nightmare to apply. Now that I’ve finally tried it, I’ve surprised myself at how much I actually like it and it was way easier than I expected. It literally is a case of pouring the beads over your nail and letting them stick!
It doesn’t show in the pictures, but these beads are so sparkly in real life. My nails are like mini mirror balls!
It’s a long post today! More after the crack ↓
I used Barry M Gold Foil and Silver Foil as base colours. One nail at a time, just after painting the second coat of colour, I held my nail over a plastic container and sprinkled the bullion over it. There were a few gaps so I placed a few of the beads using a sticky toothpick to fill them in. Finally, I used a toothpick to shape around the edges and flick off any beads that didn’t quite fit nicely!
I didn’t add a topcoat because I just knew it would all go wrong at the final moment like these fiddly things have a habit of doing! If you’re planning on wearing this style for more than a few hours though, it will definitely need a top coat to seal everything in and make it last.
There are countless places online where you can buy the Bullion or ‘steel balls’ to create this Fish Egg manicure and you might even be able to find them in a craft store near you.
I got these from eBay here for 99 pence with free P+P. However, these are kind of big for nail bullion. They are very tiny but still big in relation to other bullion I’ve used in the past.
(eBay Listing)
My absolute favourite bullion EVER is from Viva La Nails here. They have a great selection of colours at £1.95 per 5g pot and Viva La Nails is a great place for nail art supplies so have a look around!
(Viva La Nails Product Page)
If you want a great selection of colour, Born Pretty have a set of 12 colours for $5.41 and each colour comes in a little pot so you won’t have any mix ups! However, if you’re so inclined, you can have fun mix and matching your own colour combinations.
(Born Pretty Product Page 7% off with the code SA5X31)
If you want to see more Fish Egg manis today, loads of lovely ladies have also posted theirs!
Jeanette at The Swatchaholic
Twitter ♥ Bloglovin’ ♥ Tumblr
