There's no better time to play up your girly side than the holiday dedicated to L-O-V-E: Valentine's Day. Sure, a flirty red pout is fun and so is wearing that sassy new dress out on date night, but we at The Stir have an extra special V-Day treat for you! Kick things up a notch this year with this fun and playful Valentine's Day manicure.
To do this on your own, you'll need a few things: Dividers, red, white, and pink nail polish, and a whole lot of patience. Yes, it's going to be time consuming. However, I believe that you can do this. Besides, it's all in the name of love, right?
Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to re-create this fun look on your own:
First things first, you'll need the right color palette. Feel free to go with an all-pink or all-red theme, or mix things up like I did. I opted for Burning Red, Snowfall White, and a top clear coat from Mattese Elite, as well as a Pink #22 from Nail Girls.
First up, the base coat. If you're going with my color scheme, apply two coats of red to all of your nails aside from your ring fingers. Paint your two remaining naked nails with a base coat of white.
Now, make sure to give this coat plenty of time to dry. I'm not talking, like, 20 minutes here. I'm talking a solid two hours. If you don't, you'll risk ruining your base coat once things get a bit more complicated
Now, it's time to break out those dividers. Place two circles next to one another, overlapping across your nail. Repeat this step across both hands. Then, paint your second color (in my case, pink) on top of the dividers.
Allow this coat ample time to dry as well. Then, remove dividers, and repeat, nudging the dividers up a bit more to create your third band of color. When you're done, it should look like this!
I decided to freestyle here and there to fix a few chips, but for the most part -- the dividers did a great job of separating my three layers.
That's it, you're all set. Go ahead, try it, and let me know how it goes!
Are you a fan of the Valentine's Day manicure?
Image via Emily Abbate