French Manicure Nail Tutorial

For the last few months I've had bare nails just because I haven't had any time to paint them properly. So I thought I would do something really simple and pretty in time for summer, and thats a French Manicure. Now the last time I tried to do this was years ago and it completely failed but this time, I was a lot better. I think any nail art just needs practice to perfect it and with that in mind, don't worry if it doesn't work out exactly right the first time. I will say that this tutorial is very similar to my 'Cupcake' Inspired Nail Art which you can check out if you want to.
Now the first thing I do is cut and shape my nails correctly. I find that French Manicures always look better when the nail is squarely rounded; by that, I mean that the shape should be more square than not but the corners are rounded. I think that this makes the nail look professional but beautiful at the same time, which is exactly what a French Manicure is.

At this point, you can put tape around your nail bed to avoid getting it all over your fingers but this depends on how well you paint your nails. I don't usually do this but I think it looks good. I didn't use tape for this just because I only painted my nails to take the photos.

The next thing I do is start creating my white tip; now you can use a base coat first but I don't really think its necessary for this look because the white is only on a tiny part of your nails. Depending on how good your white varnish is, is how many coats off it you need. I would say two coats is probably best because it gives just a solid block of colour on your tips and that makes the nail look SO much better. Anything more than two coats is usually more risky because the more layers you put on the tip, the more 3D it becomes and therefore the longer it takes to dry. This increases how likely you are to smudge or ruin your nails so I would definitely stick to only two coats.

The next step that you would usually expect is to wait for the tips to dry then paint your entire nail with the French Pink. However, I'm skipping this step because my nails naturally are relatively pink and adding another colour to them just doesn't look right, especially since my skin colour is darker than the French Pink. It also dulls down the intensity of the white tips that you've spent the last ten minutes perfecting, so I leave my nails bare.

I still use my Elegant Touch Rapid Dry for Nails just to set the tips before I put a top coat on. This gives my nails a slight shine which looks nice with the white and then thats it! You are DONE.

Check out my last blog post: UPDATE JUNE 2014 - where I tell you what happened in my life last month