MANI MONDAYS: SPECIAL EDITION

(I know I'm doing this on a Sunday night, but I will be out of the house basically all day tomorrow)
So, instead of just linking you to the Dormify website to view this week's mani, I've decided to add a couple (three, to be exact) for you to use this New Year's Eve!
Hopefully you have a few Christmas parties in between because they are too glamourous to be ignored or wasted on only one day. Enjoy!

This first manicure is a salute to the new trend of painting the nail on your ring finger a different color than the rest of your nails. For this mani I used Essie Chinchilly, Essie Mink Muffs and Forever21 Shimmering Silver Nail Polish. 


Step One: Clean nails, add a base coat, and let dry. Now paint all nails with Chinchilly and Mink Muffs. I used Mink Muffs on the majority of the nails and Chinchilly on the ring fingers. 

Step Two: Gradient glitter on the ring finger. I know you know how to do this because of the not-so-in-depth description on Dormify! More practice!

Step Three: Add top coat, and you're done. Pretty simple, but makes a huge statement. Even work appropriate. Show me a boss who doesn't support a glitter gradient, and I will show you a unicorn... or some other mythical creature that doesn't exist.

The second manicure is my personal favorite of the three. It just looks so... BA to me. I could see anyone from Lady Gaga to Natalie Portman with this manicure. It's simple, but edgy. Girly-girls can wear it to add a punk twist to a pink cardigan, or punk girls can wear it to work as a stick-it-to-the-man type of thing. I used Essie Licorice, loose gold glitter sparkles, and you'll need some paper hole protectors like I've used in manis past as a guide.

Step One: Clean nails, add base coat, and let dry. Then paint all nails with base color and let dry to a point. Keep it tacky if you can, but don't fret if you cant. You can use a clear polish like Essie Let It Shine if you need to.

Step Two: Start adding sparkles. Dump out a little pile of glitter and start pressing them one-by-one to the ends of your nails, much like a french manicure.

Step Three: Now use a paper hole protector to measure (and help guide you) where the next layer of sparkles will go. When you're all done, add a layer or two of clear polish and let it dry completely! Now rock it out!

This last manicure is by request from Morgan. She found this pin on Pinterest to use as inspiration, and we were both pretty pleased with how it turned out. We think it looks a bit like Lady Gaga nails. I used Essie French Affair, a gold glitter nail polish, loose gold glitter sparkles (because you can never have enough glitter), and a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black. 


Step One: Clean nails, give 'em a base coat, and let them  dry. Once they're dry, paint nails with base colors. I used 3 coats of each color. Glitter polish on only the ring finger nails.

Step Two: Make sure the glitter nail polish is a little  tacky during this step, otherwise the loose glitter wont stick. Add a clear coat if you need to. Now, pile on the glitter! No, seriously. I covered Morgan's nail in glitter to make sure that it was Gaga-licious. I added another clear coat and another layer of glitter after the first layer dried.

Step Four: Use the art pen to outline each nail. This can be tricky. I had to two two rounds of lining to make sure the pen lines were dark and solid. Don't be afraid to let it leak on your skin. Better to be a little sloppy around the edges than to mess up on the actual nail. Let the pen lines dry as long as possible before adding your top coat to avoid the ink running. I've never used a Sharpie marker on my nails/nail polish before, but I have heard of people using them for nail art. I'm not sure how well they work, but you could try using a Sharpie marker if you don't like how art pens work.