I was watching Cars this morning when it suddenly occurred to me that one of Ramone’s custom paint jobs – he’s the ’51 Impala who owns the paint shop – would make an excellent manicure. So that’s precisely what I did, opting for his stylized flames-over-purple glitter number – it’s pretty badass for an animated car.
And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. Merry Christmas, friends!
I had a terrific response to these flame-licked nails I posted the other day – really, so many sweet compliments. And seeing as they were ultra easy in addition to popular, I thought I’d share the love AND my technique for how to achieve these fiery nails, this time with a Halloween-leaning bent. I suppose this glittery green fire could be Maleficent’s evil-conjuring fire, but really, one green, bad fairy spell is just like the other, is it not? Let’s get into this!
1. To begin, brush on two coats of a dark, opaque polish. For the more traditional fire nails I did the other day, I used a deep, blood red as the background polish. For these more supernaturally-minded nails, I used OPI’s Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm?, a dark, royal purple.
2.-4. Working quickly and going one nail at a time, brush on a thick coat of your base polish. Then, taking the three polishes you’re going to blend together for the fire effect (the other day it was orange, yellow and a glittery red, whereas here it’s Finger Paints’ neon green Silkscreen Green, Smitten Polish’s glittery green Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass and a basic white creme) dab one atop the other, starting with the neon green, then the white, and finally the glittery green, right at the tips of your nails.
5. While all of the above is still wet, take the fine point of a dotting tool and lightly drag it through the polish from the tips of your nails up towards your cuticles, “licking” out the flames as you go. The beauty of a fire-type design is that there’s really no wrong way to do it – fires are abstract and diffuse by design, so even if you fudge up a little bit, who’s going to know? 🙂
6.-8. Continuing to work one nail at a time, repeat with your remaining nails. I varied up the design a bit on my middle and ring fingers, swirling the flames up towards the centre of my hand, but you can make your flames bend and dance however you wish.
Not shown: Topcoat application and clean-up, but you already do that always, right? Right! 😉 Then in the final analysis you’re left with something like this. Flame on!
So, along with stars and anything involving the human form, I absolutely, positively cannot draw flames. You’d think flames would be so easy, too, all abstract and diffuse and imprecise. But NO, my flames always come out looking more like the lumpy ass end of a turkey, and for the love of all that’s good and frosting-covered, I DON’T KNOW WHY.
But these flames seem to be burning pretty brightly, a look I achieved with no more effort than dragging the fine point of a dotting tool through small, overlapping blobs of red, orange and yellow polish dotted at the very bottom of my nails. It was a ridiculously simple technique, and one that can be easily adapted to all sorts of different designs. I’m making no grand promises, but I hope to have my first video tutorial on these nails up for you tomorrow – really one of those designs that’s a show, don’t tell. Of course, I say that now at three in the afternoon when I’ve yet to even delve into the video editing software. Get back to me tonight around, say, nine and we’ll see what kind of mood I’m in then!
Finger Candy 