We’ve all seen them before. Excessive images pinned to our board of gorgeous nail art that is always too good to be true. How do they do it? Is it even possible to do yourself? Forget the salon today. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my time “in between gigs” it’s that you have to get creative when you’re on a budget. Or in my case, when your manicure budget is cut completely.
So what can I do now? Of course the most obvious option is to go back to bare nails but that’s not going to happen. I mean really! So I used one of my Christmas presents on one more trip to the salon. I really like Castle Nails in Mockingbird Station. The staff is always great, they’re super fast and they have a 15% off special Monday – Wednesday.
Now to my first dilemma – picking from the 693 different colors that they have. On one hand, I’m free to be at home and go crazy with my color choice. Neon – sure! Black – always a favorite. Platinum chrome – why not? Well here’s why not. I also hope to be going on interviews in the near future, so I went with a very corporate-friendly pale pink. Classic, not screaming for attention and will go with a Burberry power suit.
Fast forward 25 days or so and my nails have totally grown out. I still don’t have a nail budget. *Deep sighs. The color still looks great. But my cursed fast-growing nails have totally grown out and it’s just a hot mess. What’s a girl to do? Well, after a full day of watching Season 4 of Grace & Frankie (Totally love this show. If you haven’t seen it, go turn on your tv now and start. I know you can multi-task.), and one (ok three) of my signature cocktails I decide I can do this. I’ve seen the pins. I’m ready to take this one on and share with you how I did it.
- You’re going to need a really grown out manicure that’s still in decent shape. I always recommend Nexgen. It’s the only thing that doesn’t chip in two days on my nails. But I’m sure any old manicure will do.
- Since I have the nice pink, I decided to go with a rose gold glitter. This also happens to be one of the only glitters I have, so yay me. I used Nicole by OPI nail polish in Inner Sparkle. This Selena Gomez limited edition super-fancy polish is at least a few years old. But I did manage to find it on eBay for you here.
C&C Tip: Going with a glitter is a lot more forgiving than a solid color. It’s mostly clear and you can push around the glitter to fit properly without it looking all jacked.
- Grab a small paint brush, your polish and a magazine if you’re messy like I am. This is where it gets a little tricky. I like using a small brush head like this one on Amazon. It’s so much easier to control. Just dip this into the polish and fill in the area that’s grown out on each nail.
- This is a good time for a refill. Go get one before you start on your right hand.
That’s it – just 4 easy steps. You can do a second coat if you need to. But I think mine came out just fine. They were a bit of a mess with glitter all over that night, but the next morning they look pretty decent. I think I could get another week’s wear out of them if I need to.
How do you think it came out? Expectation vs. Reality? I’d say not too bad at all. Please share some of your cheap or easy nail art DIYS. I’m clearly going to need some more inspo.
Love,
Sara
It works very well for me