Nail Art Style: galaxy nails

Showing posts with label galaxy nails. Show all posts

Hi everyone! For the next two weeks I'm super-duper busy so my posts will be short and sweet. I'm back at my parents' in York for a while, and unfortunately it was neither appropriate nor physically possible to bring all of my nail polishes with me! But never mind, because I've got another set of falsies to share with you.

You may have seen these before in a previous blog post, as well as on my Facebook page and Twitter feed. I know that the whole galaxy thing has been done to death, and most people know by now how to achieve the look, but I just wanted to talk you through my technique.

The equipment:

Sinful Colors 'Black on Black'

Rimmel 'Azure'

Barry M 'Shocking Pink'

Jacava 'Mont Blanc'*

e.l.f. 'Fairy Cream'

Models Own white nail art pen

Glitter

Kitchen sponge

So basically I started out with black bases, and used 2 coats to ensure opacity. Once dry, I applied 'Azure' to the edge of a kitchen sponge and pressed it on randomly. Then I did the same with 'Shocking Pink'. When I was happy with flashes of blue and pink, I repeated the process with white, and then took my nail art pen and began to add the stars. I didn't worry too much about the sizes or spacing of the dots, because obviously there's no set pattern to galaxies!

Before everything was 100% dry, I sprinkled on a blend of glitter. I got quite a few tubes from good old Wilkinson's the other day, and I really like the effect of combining a few colours. For even more sparkle, I added a coat of e.l.f. 'Fairy Cream', which is a gorgeous shimmery polish with flecks of gold and red through it.

What do you think? Do you like my galaxy falsies? These will be available to buy in the very near future, and colour combinations can be changed to suit your needs. What's even better, the price tag will be EXTREMELY purse friendly! Make sure you keep checking my Facebook page to keep updated :)

Firstly, I cannot WAIT until my Essie 'Matte About You' arrives, because these nails would look soooo much better with a matte top coat. I'm going to try and save them for the next couple of days, so hopefully I'll be able to upload another photo with them 'mattified'. Secondly, I apologise for the subsequent confusing tutorial. I'm normally really organised with my stages and take lots of photos to make for a detailed description, but I wasn't entirely sure of the direction I was heading in until I'd actually finished the manicure! Hopefully it's helpful though... Anyway, I was planning on doing galaxy nails again, but so many people have being doing it recently that I thought I'd be a bit different. I decided to combine a starry night sky with a storm, and I love the final effect!

The equipment:

Models Own 'Blueberry Muffin'

Models Own 'In The Navy'

Rimmel 'Azure'

Rimmel 'Grey Matter'

Barry M 'Grey'

W7 'Black'

Models Own white nail art pen

Rio yellow nail art pen

Nails Inc. 'Bling It On' silver glitter

Fine gold glitter

A fine nail art brush

A kitchen sponge

I started out with 'In The Navy' on my thumb and index finger nails, and Models Own 'Blueberry Muffin' on my ring finger. The picture shows my middle finger nail with white polish on, but disregard that! My little finger also had a 'Blueberry Muffin' base, and my middle finger was half and half. In simple terms: the starry nails have a navy base, and the stormy nails have a pale blue base (and of course the half stormy/half starry nail has a half navy/half pale blue base...

Once dry, I applied Rimmel 'Azure' to the kitchen sponge and applied it randomly. I did the same with Rimmel 'Grey Matter' to my stormy nails. Then I used a darker shade, Models Own 'Grey', to further develop the storm clouds.

Then I used my Models Own white nail art pen to add some stars. I dabbed a little bit more 'Azure' over some of the dots, just for a bit of variety! On my stormy nails, I dabbed on some black nail polish, and once dry I used my white nail art pen again to create lightning. Then with my yellow Rio nail art pen I went over the top sections of the bolts.

As you can see, I added a moon to my index finger nail. The half-and-half effect can be seen on my middle finger, and I made sure that it blended nicely by sponging grey across to the starry half, and 'Azure' across to the stormy half.

You can't really see it on this picture, but I added some sparkles! I used silver glitter on the starry sky nails, and fine gold glitter on the lightning bolts. The lightning bolts are probably my favourite part of this manicure, so I reckon I might just do a full stormy mani in the future! As I said before, if my matte top coat arrives before these nails chip (or before I get bored...) I will take another photo :) I'm certain they'll look better matte, however I've heard that matte top coats are extremely unforgiving and often highlight any mistakes!

What do you think of my Stormy Starry Sky Nails?

Since my blue water marbling worked out so well (see blog post below), and I want to keep my nails like this for tonight, I thought I'd do a post about a few of my favourite nail designs from the past few months!

This was my first attempt at gradient nails. The effect was very subtle as I used colours from the same 'family' - grey, pale blue, and white. I used an old makeup sponge to achieve the effect, painting on horizontal lines with the colours and then pressing against my nails so they blended into one another. I then added a black vine pattern using my trusty nail art pen! (I think my little finger nail must have gone wrong, as it often does being so little. But painting over in pure black makes for a good statement nail!)

My butterfly nails! At this point, my nails were so gorgeous and long, so I had much more room for intricate designs. I began with a gold shimmery base, and then applied the wings. I started with two blobs of my desired colour (pink, purple or blue), and once dry, I used a corresponding Rio nail art pen to do the shaping and shading. I then used white to add light patches, and finished off with my black nail art pen, carefully applying the bodies and outlines. I love how these turned out quite sketchy and abstract, and the added silver gem makes then extra girly!

Ok so these are admittedly boring compared to some of my designs, but I don't see anything wrong with a good old Frenchie when your nails are in tip-top condition! I always wait until they're reasonably long, and feeling strong. I use a basic white nail varnish to carefully apply the tips (I generally use 2 coats), and once dry, I add two top coats of my chosen pink/peach shade. For these I think I used my NYC 'Pinstripe White' and 'Carrie'd Away', but Essie 'Not Just a Pretty Face' also makes for a lovely pinkish top coat.

Finally, my galaxy nails! I admit my cuticles aren't really up to scratch here, but I didn't want to apply any editing as it may have taken away from the effect. So I created these after seeing all of the galaxy nail art flooding the internet. It's such a lovely, easy design, and has received the most compliments out of all of my manicures! I began with a black base, and once dry, added patches of shimmery yellow, turquoise and purple. These weren't in a specific place or a uniform size, I just dabbed away using a cotton bud. I then added spots of white using a nail art pen, and while still a little bit tacky, I used another cotton bud (of course!) to press down on top of some. This was all a random experiment, but as you can see from the turquoise/white section in the centre of my index finger nail, it made for a lovely effect. Once dry, I added a sprinkle of glitter. The best thing about these nails is that they always turn out completely different, and you can achieve the look so easily. I will definitely be trying these again, and I'll make sure I do a more detailed tutorial involving pictures :)

So here's what was supposed to be yesterday's post: galaxies. I didn't know how these were going to turn out but I'm pretty happy with them. Though my nails are waaaay to short, I don't think they've been this short since I used to bite them. I have to leave the house in less than 5 minutes so this is a super quick post, hope you like them!