Pink Sparkly Nail Tutorial (Glitter Free!)

Let me prelude this post by saying, I have always hated nail glitter. It just never looks right on me. I feel like I'm 12 and wearing free nail polish from Shout magazine.

But I do like a little bit of spangle...so I did these cute nails last week, please leave a comment if you like them!

I used a Barry M Gold Metallic polish and my base coat was hot pink NYC. It's actually a little corally in real life, and I like to use it as an accent nail with the rest pale pink too :-)

Base coat. Ewww my cuticles look shabby here, I think I need to give them some serious TLC.

Get your supplies ready - I'm using a make-up sponge, as it has a very dense texture compared to a bath sponge, and it's just the right size. For a more mottled look, you could cut up a kitchen sponge. Just remember, you will have to throw it away after (I use all the sides first). So, like, if you have a sponge with sentimental value or something, don't use that. If you do have a sponge that has sentimental value, I'd love to hear THAT story.

Make two thick lines with your base colour and your metallic on a flat plastic surface with no texture. I used this wipies pot because I happened to have it next to me, but an old CD case or a piece of acetate from a strawberry punnet would work just as well. You can use a cocktail stick to blend the two colours together slightly for a more ombre effect. Press the sponge into the polish and sort of bounce it up and down a little. Then put more polish down and do the same thing again. Load that sponge right up!

So your sponge is loaded and now you can stamp the colour onto your base coat.  I like it heavier in gold at the top and pink at the bottom but you could easily sponge the whole nail gold, or even a mix of gold and silver! Lightly press the sponge against the nail (It helps if your base coat is totally dry) and 'bounce' it slightly a few times. Lift the sponge up to view your handiwork.

Now you have a cute ombre effect. I turned the sponge around and stamped a little more pink over the gold, and hey presto:

The tiny raised bits that you see in the second picture from the bottom, by the way, are little bubbles from the sponge. They don't last long!

You can check out my other nail tutorials by clicking here :-)