Nail Tutorial: Happy New Years!

Happy New Years! Here are the nails I did for a party I'm going to tonight. My outfit is black and metallic so I thought a design like this would suit it well. I figured it would make a nice tutorial, so here you go!

Here are my supplies. I'm pretty much a Sally Hansen addict, so you'll notice many of my polishes are various sub-brands of SH. I used "Midnight in NY" for my base color (how fitting is that!) with "Hi Ho Silver" and Essie's "Good as Gold" for my dotting and gradient polishes. For base coat I use Sally Hansen Complete Care, and my top coat is NYC "Grand Central Station" which is essentially a miracle of a polish - it's ridiculously cheap, dries fast, and is easy to find. Lastly my tools I used are a dotting tool (which easily can be substituted for a toothpick or something similar), a makeup sponge, and a plastic baggy (not pictured) for a polish-pouring surface.

As you might expect, start with your base coat. After that dries, paint on your base color. Both of my polishes needed two coats but if they didn't I would have only painted two anyway - the base gets covered up quickly so perfection really isn't necessary. I painted my accent nail gold as in my case, my silver was less opaque and so made for a better gradient than if I had done gold on silver.

Here is where the bag comes in! I used a disposable bag as a surface to pour a tiny bit of my gold and silver polishes together on, which I then mixed with a paper clip. I feel this makes the gradient easier and a little harsh though honestly the gold and silver are so similar that for this nail art this step probably wasn't necessary.

Then you create your gradient! Started by slowly dabbing the gold/silver mixture on at about the middle of the nail and eventually move down making the mix purely silver as you go. End the gradient by making the very tip of your nail completely silver - and don't worry about the mess! This is easily cleaned up.

 Now it is time to pull out your dotting tool! I used the same plastic bag to create individual puddles of silver and gold and went crazy. I kind of just dotted randomly but I'm sure the design would also look great with a more organized pattern. After you're done alternating silver and gold (or you could even dot both silver and gold on each nail), just put on a top coat and you're set! Warning though, if you're impatient like I am and put on your top coat too hastily, you might end up with this blurry monstrosity:

So to avoid that, wait a few minutes before you add your top coat. Then just clean up (I normally just scrape the extra nail polish off in the shower) and you're good to go. Good luck, and have a fantastic New Years!