Tour de France Nails

The Tour de France started this weekend and I went to watch the Grand Départ in York so I painted my nails for the occasion. For those who aren't cycling fans the yellow nail respresents the yellow jersey which the race leader wears and the red polka dot nail represents the king of the mountains jersey which is worn by the best climber in the race. The base colour I used was OPI's Alpine Snow, this is my favourite base to use for most nail art designs as it is a nice bright white colour and I find OPI polishes to be good quality and last longer without chipping.

How to get this look:

Apply a clear base coat and then two coats of white polish. It is important to paint two coats of colour when using white polish so you get a bold bright white colour.

Use nail art pens in appropriate colours for the individual designs on each nail, for the logo have a photo in front of you to copy very carefully and practice a few times on paper first using your nail art pen to perfect the lettering and size.

When you apply the top coat to a design like this on a white base you must be very careful as smudging is very likely to occur. (As you can see this happened to me on my polka dot nail!) Let your nails become dry to the touch before applying the top coat and on nails with an intricate design like the logo you should dab the brush on the nail leaving blobs of top coat until you have covered the whole nail. You will have a thick layer of top coat if you do this but I find this is the best way because if you drag the brush across the nail how you would usually apply top coat it will smudge the nail art and this will be very noticeable on a white base.

Union Jack Nails

This is one of my favourite designs to have on my nails. It's fairly simple but very eye catching and when I have my nails painted like this I get a lot of comments from people, even strangers, who love the design. For my colours I used a blue and red polish that have a bit of glitter in them to make them extra sparkly and a bit more girly (you can't really see the glitter in the photo but it gives a good sparkle effect in natural light) 

How to get this look: Start by applying a clear base coat and then 2 coats of a dark blue polish. Using white polish and a thin brush and such as the striper brush in a duo nail art pen draw a straight line down the middle of the nail and then another line across the nail so you have a cross. Now draw 4 thinner lines going from the middle of your nail to each corner also in white. Next, using red polish and a very thin brush or a nail art pen if your brush is too wide, draw a red cross on your nail inside the white cross you already have being careful to leave some white visible at either side of the red line. Repeat the same for the four remaining lines drawing a red line from the corner of your nails towards the middle but don't join them up in the centre leave a small gap of white. Let your nails dry for a few minutes and then apply a top coat.