Showing posts with label nails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nails. Show all posts

02 April, 2014

Nail Art Tools

 Over the years, I have gained quite a large collection of nail polishes, which I will show in depth sometime soon. But i'm also always on the lookout for new art tools to use to make the nail designs look a lot more professional. I've already shown you some of my designs, so I thought today I would move on to the tools I use. All of these were extremely inexpensive- I literally brought all of these for around £10 off ebay, they're so cheap!
Okay, so obviously these weren't under £10, but I think they were only around £18 for 36 of them! They come in quite tall bottles too, which all started off full to the brim. I bought these unbranded colours simply because the brush is a fine tip for extreme nail art designs. I use these for most of my designs because they are so easy to use, and the colour ranges are incredible. 
I'll start left to right with these ones! When I first brought the finger for my false nails, I thought it was the scariest thing I had ever seen! But it has come in handy so much. I now use this every time instead of getting the paint on me or anywhere else. It was only around £2 too! 
Secondly are the extra fine brushes. These are just paint brushes that I cut down to the sizes I wanted. The white/pen-like brushes are actual nail art brushes, but i've only used them a few times. I don't use the brushes as much though, since I can't really get on with them. They are a lot harder to use than I thought. Each set was around £2-£3 depending on the seller.
The black and white 'wheel' kind of things are literally stickers. I've used these quite a bit for when I want straight lines, as they are easy to pull off, or even to give straight/thin lines to a nail design. Once a top coat is added, they last for quite a while. Again these were dead cheap (2 for £1).
The wooden sticks are basically cuticle pushers/cleaners or whatever they are called. I got them in a nail set for christmas quite a while ago, they're extremely cheap to buy though. I use these to help add gems or touch up a design without having to use big brushes. They are mainly used when I do water marbling though. (Post soon to follow).
Lastly are my dotting tools. Hopefully most of you will know what these are already. They are literally just plastic tools with different sized balls on either end. I bought a pack of 5 for around £2, if that! These are a must for anybody wanting to do even simple nail designs. They help to easily add layers of paint or spread the colour easily. I really can't praise these enough, and they're so simple to use too!
So the close up of my brushes don't make them look very good at all, but they are. You can pretty clearly see that I cut the first three myself, since they look more staggered- I know I didn't really do a good job of it, but they still work fine. I needed them shorter! The last three are still the original size, which is probably why I find them so hard to use, since they are so long. I've also found (as you can see above) the small hairs tend to part, which makes it even harder to create the thin/neat lines.
I hope you all enjoy my nail art obsession. I'll more then happily show you techniques, tips and tricks on how to use these tools too!

28 March, 2014

Nail Art Designs

Today I thought I would let you in on my nail art designs. If theres one thing I love doing, its designing nails. I've done it for around two years now by simply watching youtube videos, or copying pictures of other peoples nails. Now I am in no way at all a professional, and I know that a few of them aren't perfect, but I try my best. I found it easier over the years to use fake nails too, as working in retail, it's basically a waste of time to do my own, as they chip the very same day.
I recently bought myself a set of around 25 fine tipped nail polishes, which nail salons work with to get the fine details, so i've been practicing with them too to make my designs. Together with my already large collection of nail polishes, I must easily have 50+ different bottles to play around with. I picked 22 designs that I have accumulated over the weeks of messing around with the polishes, which I am quite proud of. I used many different techniques too (water marble, sponges, dotting, tape.. etc), which I may show you how to perfect later on if you like this!
Hopefully it will inspire some of you to attempt a few different nail designs in the future! :)