June NCC #3: First attempt at tribal nails

I love the look of tribal art on nails, but it’s always eluded me how people get those intricate designs so neat. I’ve tried with a small brush, and it looked so messy. I finally got one of those Sally Hansen I heart Nail Art pens from Target and started doodling. The polish (or whatever it is within the pens) comes out quickly and was pretty runny for me, but the designs were mostly easy to draw onto my nail!

Unfortunately, I didn’t let the designs dry for enough time – I slapped on some Seche Vite thinking it’d be similar to other nail art where it wouldn’t smudge. Well, it didn’t necessarily smudge… but it did make the black lines in my design almost bubble up. So it doesn’t look great, but maybe I’ll just let it dry longer next time.

Anyways, take a look:

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See? I like the pattern, but I’m disappointed in the detail of the black lines. Here’s another pic:

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I used Polish My Life Stripped as my white base polish. I also wanted to see what it’d look like with some leadlighting over the manicure. So I used some jelly polish I just purchased – Sally Hansen now has a line of sheer jellies in their Triple Shine line. I used Sea Through, a gorgeous teal green, and Vitamin D-Light, a lovely orangey pink.

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I’m looking forward to using the Sally Hansen jellies more! Look for more leadlighting coming 🙂

And here are some other Nail Challenge Collaborative Black and White manis:

 

6 thoughts on “June NCC #3: First attempt at tribal nails

  1. Sandra Lewrey

    Great design! But nail art pens don’t behave very well with a top coat, either under or over top of one (learned that the hard way.) I’ve recently started using an itsy bitsy dotting tool for some of my more detailed work and it’s working out pretty well, actually.

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