Floral Nails Tutorial

I am no expert at doing nail art, but I have posted a few photos of my floral nails on Instagram and had some requests for a tutorial....so here it is! I know the focus has almost totally shifted from flowers to fall leaves in the last couple of weeks, but here it is anyway for the last few weeks of summer!

Here's everything I use when I do floral nails.

I choose a light colour for the base, and then two different shades of one colour, in this case purple, for the flowers. I use two different colours to make them look a little more "3D" I guess.

My weapons of choice for this manicure:

Seche Clear Base Coat

Seche Vite Top Coat

Base Colour: Essie, Mint Candy Apple 

Flower Base: Essence Colour on the Go 

(There was no name for the colour on the bottle, but Essie's Big Spender is pretty similar)

Flower Center: Essie, Play Date

Leaves: Revlon, #571 Posh 

+ Tootpicks for dotting 

Do your base coat and your base colour and let dry completely. 

Drop some nail polish onto a clean surface. Best to not use paper because it will dry fast. I'm using the underside of a Bath and Body Works candle lid, just to give you some perspective on how professional things are around here.

Dip the toothpick or whatever tiny tool you have chosen, and start dotting. 

The best advice I can give when doing this is try to be precise but work fast, because the drop of polish that you're dotting from will get tacky fast and not 'dot' on your nail very nicely. 

Workin' my way up my nail...it usually takes me about six 'dots' to get the right size for the base of the flower.

Done with the bases of the flowers. Sometimes I do little 'half' ones that are going off of the nail to make it look more uniform.

Wait for these to dry. 

Next, go in and add the lighter of the two shades of your chosen colour to the insides of the flowers.

Last but not least, go in and add a little bit of green for the leaves. I add one to each side of the flowers, but put them in different places on each of them so they're a little more random.

I usually do my ring finger and my thumb with flowers...I have done my whole hand before but it was just a little too busy for my taste.

I finish off with Seche Vite top coat, and that's it!