MANI MONDAY: WASHI TAPE GLITTER HEART

photos/post/design: Kristin Ess

It’s almost Valentine’s day!! Whether you’re celebrating or not, a heart mani always looks simple + sweet. After trying to get a perfect heart a million different ways, I finally figured out the best way to do it. Washi tape! You can order it online, find it at a stationery store, or I’ve even seen it at Target in the stationery section. Washi tape is much less sticky than regular tape so you don’t have to worry about it adhering and pulling off your base color so much. Okay, here’s how we got the perfect heart!

1. You’ll need a red, a metallic gold + a gold glitter. I used this for my red, this for my metallic gold + this for my gold glitter.
2. You’ll also need washi tape and small scissors. I used the kind for trimming brows.
3. Paint your nails with the red and let them dry for a few hours. I like to let the base dry overnight just to be safe.
4. Cut a 2-3″ piece of washi tape, fold it in half but leave the ends apart like you see in photo 4.
5. Place the open ends of the washi tape on your pointer finger on the opposite hand you cut with. Cut out a half heart that is a little less than half the width of the nail you’re putting the heart on.
6. Gently peel your washi tape open to see the full heart.
7. Place it on the nail and press the edges with a soft, dry, clean paintbrush.
8. Paint the metallic coat first. This will give you the perfect heart shape, which you can’t get when using glitter polish alone.
9. Now add the glitter polish on top of that.
10. Peel your tape off slowly while the metallic and glitter polishes are still wet. You don’t want them to dry to the washi tape.

You can use a detailing brush to add more glitter to the heart if you want to. Add a top coat once the glitter heart has dried. xo

VELVET NAILS WITH FAUX STUDS

photos/post/design: Kristin Ess

When it comes to beauty, we like to get experimental around here. Last week I was playing around with this new velvet nail polish I bought. I was going to make a gold metallic heart on top of the velvet, but quickly realized the gold metallic polish “beaded up” when I put a drop on top of the velvet. I’ve always wanted to do a studded nail tutorial but I feel like micro-beads are hard to work with. Picking them up and placing them just right can be pretty difficult. THIS quickly became my new favorite alternative. (Side note– I thought this whole velvet nail thing was going to feel really weird but it doesn’t! You get used to it so fast.)

The steps are simple…

• One by one, give your nails texture with a velvet nail polish. If you can’t find velvet nail polish in your area, you can always find “flocking powder” on a crafting website or just google it. First you’ll paint on the base color (which should match your flocking powder) and then shake flocking powder on the wet polish. Let it sit for 10 min and then dust off using an old blush brush or eye shadow brush.
• Next, using the mechanical pencil trick or a dotting tool, make metallic dots on top of the velvet polish. The dots will bead up and appear raised making them look a little more like studs than dots.

As you can see in the photos above, I practiced a pattern before I started applying my dots. You can do just one nail or you can do all 10. Good luck!

COMME des GARÇONS INSPIRED MANI

photos/post/graphic design: Kristin Ess

As most of you know, New York Fashion Week is wrapping up, but that doesn’t mean it’s over– there’s still London, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, etc... To get into the spirit of Fashion Weeks around the globe, we’ll be sporting this COMME des GAR ONS inspired mani! Not only is COMME des GAR ONS a super-chic brand, but it also has the cutest/coolest little heart logo. This is a very simple mani and since the heart shape is not supposed to be perfect, even the most uncoordinated can do this! Here we go!

1. Start with clean, bare nails.
2. Using a rich red color, make a rounded diagonal stroke on one corner of the nail.
3. Now repeat that on the other side of the nail and make sure they connect in the middle.
4. Clean up around each nail.
5. Throw a black heart in there for good measure!
6. Use a bobbypin to make the whites of the eyes. Make a dot, then drag it out a little on each side. Remember: this shouldn’t look too perfect. If you google the COMME des GAR ONS heart, you’ll see that the lines aren’t perfect.
7. Use a skinny hairpin (or U-pin) to make black dots in the center of the white.
8. Give it a good topcoat!

Hope everyone enjoyed NY Fashion Week!

Special thanks to my awesome friend Leon for giving me this idea.

THE TAPE TRICK

photos/post/graphic design: Kristin Ess

We get so many emails + comments regarding the tape mani. I’ve heard that many of you have trouble peeling the tape back without messing the mani. So here’s the simple trick!

1. Paint your base coat and let it dry for a full hour. Remember– you never want to make the base coat too thick because the thicker it is, the longer it takes to dry.
2. Take a piece of tape and blot the sticky side on your fingers and on the palm of your hand. When you do that, the oils from your hands stick to the tape making it significantly less sticky and easier to peel off the base coat.
3. Paint your nail, wait about one minute and then peel. Personally I don’t like the polish to dry too much before I peel because it gets “stringy” when you peel it. On the other hand, you don’t want to do it right away because if it’s too fresh, it can run.

Another option is to use painter’s tape. It’s designed to be less stick and to not peel off the paint that you stick it to. This is just a DIY option! Good luck ladybugs!

UPDATE: Here are the colors used in this tutorial- silver is by Obessive Compulsive + licac is by Essie.