DIY Nail Art

Firstly, just want to apologise, it's another nail based post today but never mind, I'm on a bit of a nail hype at the moment! But anyway, today I'm going to be briefly talking about ways you can jazz up your nails at home, some of these ways you may have heard of and some of them you may not, so here we go:

So the first one is one you will probably all have heard of, and it's the Barry M Instant Nail Effects nail polish. This has been around a while now, and the same technique has been used by loads of other companies now, but when it came out it was a whole new idea. It works using solvents- when you apply it over a regular nail polish, the Instant Nail Effects reacts with the base coat which makes it crackle and dry up. The black polish on the right was the original, but now you can buy it in loads more colours, especially if you look at other brands like Models Own. My particular favourite has to be the one in the picture- it's a really gorgeous purple with loads of tiny little glitter particles, which looks stunning over a white or a black base coat. This one costs around £3.99, and they also now do a Croc Nail Effects which I'm yet to try.

Since Barry M released their Nail Effects, 17 also released this- the Magnetized Nail Polish. I wanted to try this as soon as I saw it, to see if it really worked and I have to say I was impressed. To apply, just coat your nails in the nail polish, the hover the magnet in the lid over you nail for 10 seconds, and it creates a swirly design on your nail. This is because there are magnetic particles in the nail polish, and they attract to the magnet which makes the swirly pattern. This comes in a few colours, all of which are lovely, and costs £5.99 from Boots, which is a lot, as it does chip quite easily.

Now on to Nail Wraps. When I first saw these, I was so excited to try them that I bought 2 packs of the Nail Rock ones on the spot. If you don't know what these are, they're simple- nail stickers in all designs that sticks your nail and are long lasting. Different companies do them differently. At Nail Rock, you first stick the sticker to your nail, heat it and the file it down to the right size, whereas others, like the ones here from Claires, are the same but without the heat. They looked so easy to apply, but I admit, I had difficulty. I found it hard to get the stickers down to the right size once I'd heated it. Maybe this was me, maybe my nails just weren't long enough, I don't know, but I will try them again once my nails are long  just to be sure. The Nail Rock ones are around £6.65 each, and the ones from Claires are £3.00 each.

These are some of the ones I have tried, but there are so many more ways to create gorgeous nails: for example, many companies now sell Nail Art Pens, which are just nail varnishes with a very thin nib so you can just draw onto your nails. If you look on eBay, you can buy huge sets of these in all colours for relatively cheaply. I also love looking up nail art videos on Youtube. There are so many and are shown step-by-step so that it's (kind of) easy to understand and follow, my particular favourite being CutePolish (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO3TCTnBnWo&feature=g-vrec). Check out these looks, and if you do anything really good send me a picture so I can see them!

Olivia Ellen XXX
@oliviaellen97