Nail Tutorial: Galaxies

 

 Here is the galaxy tutorial, as I promised! I must admit I'm not quite as satisfied with this rendition compared to my originals, but the methods remain the same so I decided to post the tutorial anyway. I know that these nails look very complicated, but I promise you they're some of the easiest and least labor intensive I've done!

  

Here are all the polishes I used! From left to right: NYC "Grand Central Station" (top coat), Sally Hansen "Complete Care" (base coat), Sally Hansen "Midnight In NY" (base color),  Sinful Colors "Let Me Go", Orly "Chantilly Peach", Sally Hansen "Marine Scene", Milani "Green Glow", Sinful Colors "Tokyo Pearl", Orly "Love Each Other", and last but DEFINITELY not least, Wet N' Wild "Kaleidoscope". You can really use whatever colors you want for the "nebula" and/or base but the trick is that the base must be very dark (hence why black works well) but most importantly, all the "nebula" colors MUST be sheer/pale shimmers. Opaque or cream colors would not layer well and would break up the blending very quickly. The only other thing I used besides these polishes is a makeup sponge that I cut into smaller pieces to get more use out of.

I unfortunately skipped ahead a few steps in taking pictures, so here we are. After applying base coat, apply your base color and wait until it is mostly dry - it doesn't need to be completely invincible, just not easily destroyed when you touch it. After that point, pour your first color onto a surface (I used a plastic bag.. again) and start randomly dabbing it on with a makeup sponge. The beauty of this design is that randomness looks the best, so please don't try to make them uniform. I went from dark to light in my order of sponging ("Marine Scene" -> "Green Glow" -> "Chantilly Peach" -> "Let Me Go" -> "Tokyo Pearl") and I feel that works the best by making the lighter colors pop. The above picture shows 2/5 of the polishes dabbed.

Again, we're jumping ahead. This now has "Chantilly Peach" added on top. As you work through your progression of colors for the "nebula", I suggest slowly centering the lighter colors towards the middle to create a sense of depth. I don't have a picture with just "Tokyo Pearl" added on top, but I tried to define a center of my "nebula" and dab it there, keeping it a little less faded than the other colors. After adding "Tokyo Pearl", I just used a swipe of the almost clear "Love Each Other" to add a bit of a Milky Way-esque shimmer strip.

The layer that really gives the nails the galactic feel, however, is the glitter topcoat. Although I'm normally really finicky about polishes and tend to steer clear of Wet N' Wild and the other $1 brands, I've found no glitter polish can really compete with "Kaleidoscope" for creating well spaced and appropriately sized/glittering stars. A thin coat is all you need, these nails are thick enough as is. After the glitter dries for just a teeny bit, just slap on a top coat and you're done!

See, wasn't that easy? Enjoy, and good luck!

PS: Please forgive me for the horrible picture quality today, for some reason the lighting is really odd in my living room and so I was in a rush to get these pictures done while natural light still remained. Hopefully you still get the gist of everything!