Fashion Nail Polish

I must be getting old as my daughter’s idea of a cool color for nail polish and mine are getting so far apart it’s not funny.   Her latest buy was some yellow nail polish – yes I said yellow, and we’re talking bright yellow {{shudder}}.    Luckily the hot color for 2012 is one that we both love – mint green.

It’s summer in Australia where I live and for the past month the fashion and beauty editors have been talking up mint green as being a fantastic color for summer from clothing, shoes and accessories right down to nail polish.    Then I came across a Northern hemisphere site that was pushing mint green as the hottest color for 2012 and as a nail polish I love it!

Now you could wear mint nail polish just on it’s own like you can any other nail polish, but there’s other ways to really get your nails to stand out this year.

1.  Mint nail polish all over the nails.
2. Mint nail polish as the main color with silver tips
3. Silver nail polish as the main color with mint tips
4. Mint nail polish as the main color with white tips
5. Mint nail polish as the main color with silver nail art
6. Mint nail polish as the main color with diamante nail art

In case you can’t guess mint and silver look awesome together…..mint and white can also look good but my recommendations for having fun, fashionable and funky nails means you need to purchase the following supplies –

Even Lady Gaga stated in her Marry the Night video that she saw mint green as being the next hot color so I’m guessing that means all of her little monsters will be buying up this nail polish so grab some quickly!

Just applying the nail polish as is on the nails is one way of wearing it as well as being the easiest way of carrying off this color, but there are other ways of rocking the mint……

You have the classic French manicure and then you have a totally up to the date twist on it using mint.   The three options that I would go with are –

• Mint with silver tips
• Mint with white tips
• Silver with Mint tips

Of course I’m sure there are lots of other combinations that could work, but I don’t want to ruin all of your fun.   You can rest assured that the three above look awesome and you can let me know if you find some more funky combinations that work with mint.

If you want a cool, somewhat retro disco look then you can try this way of getting your mint on.   Add mint as your base color and then add a silver glitter top coat – it will still let the mint shine through, but that silver glitter will catch all of the night lights and really make your nails sparkle!

This is a great look – if you want to know more about how to apply shatter nail polishes then check out opi shatter nail polishes.

Now let’s talk about the color combination that you want to try – firstly apply the mint as the base coat and then add a shatter nail polish over the top.   Now you could put the black and it would be an okay look, but the black would become more prominent and you really want the mint to be the stand out, so here’s what I suggest – silver or white.

Personally I think a silver shatter looks awesome over mint and both of the colors can hold their own against each other.   White can also look good, personally I think that silver is better, but I did see mint with white shatter on a beauty page recently so it’s obviously hot right now.

I love nail art, but when it comes to using nail art brushes my hands just aren’t steady enough and the number of stencils available to purchase both on and off line are going down as people enjoy stamping.   I haven’t tried this so I don’t know how it would work.

I have used nail pens – the tips are a fine point and it’s like drawing a design onto the nail with a felt tip pen – awesome.   Unfortunately the only nail art pens I’ve been able to source online for you are the Sally Hansen ones which I haven’t used and the reviews have not been good.

If you can find a nail art pen then I would definitely look at getting some to draw designs on to your mint nails – the looks are worth it as they are truly unique to you.

One way to bring a little magic to plain mint nails is by adding rhinestones and this is a very easy way of making your nails stand out in the crowd.

You will need rhinestones (as listed above) along with a pair of tweezers, mint nail polish and a clear top coat.   Decide in advance how you want the rhinestones on your nails – some people will just put one stone on a nail, others will have a big rhinestone and then a medium and a small one running upwards and across their nails – the patterns are entirely up to you.

Apply your base coat of mint and allow to dry.

Apply a second coat of mint and while the nail polish is still a little tacky you can add your rhinestones using the tweezers to keep control of them.   This eliminates the need for any glue as the nail polish will keep them in place.

Apply a top coat once the second coat has dried – this will help to make sure the rhinestones stay in place (an insurance policy so to speak).

So there you go several different ways to make people go wow over your mint nails, so the next question is –