How To | Daisy Accent Manicure

It (was) Monday!  

So, I thought I would do a Monday Manicure tutorial!

This tutorial was inspired by the many daisy mani tutorials that have been popping up all over my YouTube feed.

Since Spring is slowly turning to Summer (who am I kidding, Singapore has no seasons), I decided to do one too as a nod goodbye to wonderful Spring. 

Read on if you'd like to know how to get these pretty daisy nails :)

These nails are pretty simple to do.

I have to say though, as with any nail art, you do need patience and time to complete it.

I took roughly 15-20mins to paint each hand, not including drying time.
If you do not have either, I'd suggest just getting nail stickers instead.

(Flea stalls @ *Scape sells them at 1 for $2....or is it 2 for $5? 5 for $2??? Anyway, my point is, they're pretty cheap.)

Accent Daisy Nails

What I Used:

1. Nature Republic - nail file

2. O.P.I. - Avoplex nail and cuticle replenishing oil

3. O.P.I - Avoplex high-intensity hand and nail cream

4. Essence - Colour & Go in 27

5. essie - Lion Around

6. Sally Hansen - Xtreme wear in Silver Streamers 580

7. O.P.I - Alpine Snow

8. Sally Hansen - Double Duty strengthing base & top coat

9. Seche Vite - dry fast top coat

10. Sally Hansen -  moisturising polish remover for dry, brittle nails

11. My dotting tools - toothpicks and bobby pins

12. Cotton wool for cleaning up

I actually did all my nail filing and cuticle care the day before, using 1, 2, 3.

It takes a while for the skin to absorb the oil so if you plan to do manicures, do the hand and nail care the day before.

If you're lazy (like me sometimes), it's perfectly alright to skip nail care just before doing a manicure.

Just do it after! :)

HOW TO:

1. Protect your nails, use a base coat! This will help prevent staining and yellowing of your nails as well.

2. Using a blue polish, paint the nails you want as accents. Here, I chose to accent my middle and ring finger nails. Then, paint the rest of the nails a pastel pink. (You can choose any colours you want, with or without accents and even paint the daisies on all your nails instead of on the accent nails, etc. My point: the design is entirely up to you. This is only a guide after all :)

3. Here comes the fun and artsy part - creating the daisies! First, drip some white polish on a piece of scrap paper. You will need to add new drips every now and then -when the polish starts to get tacky- while you 'draw' the daisies. 

4. And now we draw! Using toothpicks (the rounded end) or the ends of a bobby pin, dip it in the white polish. Find a spot on your blue nails and stamp that first dot. I started at the bottom left of my nail so that there is more space for me to make more daisies.

5. Now, stamp two more dots, one on each side of the first dot you made, and you'll get something like the image shown. 

6. To complete the 5-petal daisy, stamp another 2 dots, one below the each of the 2 dots you made in step 5 but make sure that they are overlapping and you'll get....

7. Daisy petals all over the nail! Depending on how much surface area you have, you can create as many daisies as you want. For me, I have enough to do 2 fulls and 2 half daisies. For the half daisies, just repeat steps 4 and 5 at the edges of your nails.

8. All that's left to complete the daisy is its capitutlum! Drip a drop of the same pastel pink polish you used on the scrap paper. Again, use a toothpick (rounded end) or bobby pin, dip it in the pink polish drop, and stamp a dot right in the  middle of the daisies. [I know, it's usually not pink but it's my Spring interpretation!]

9. Repeat steps 4 to 8 on the other accent nail of your choice if you wish to have 2 accent nails. Image shown is the final look! If you're wondering about the difference between using a bobby pin or toothpick, I used a bobby pin for my ring finger and a toothpick (round end) for my middle finger. Somehow, I think using bobby pins gives you a rounder dot. If you like your nails like this, skip step 10 and go straight to 11! 

10. I decided to jazz the nails up a little by adding a black and silver glitter polish to the pink nails. I think it makes the overall look more interesting than just having plain pink nails. Instead of glitter polish, you can also do polka dots, stripes, or even more daisies!

11. The most important step: top coat. You want to protect your design and make it last as long as possible. However, let the nails dry a little first before adding the topcoat. You don't want to smudge the beautiful daisies that you've painstakingly draw. It took about 10-15mins for mine to be dry enough. Also, the thing with topcoat is that YOU CANNOT BE STINGY. Use a thick layer of topcoat to prevent the brush from dragging the polish and ruining your design - I learnt this the hard way when I started to do self-manicures. I used Seche Vite's fast dry top coat because, girls (and guys), ain't nobody got the time to wait for the nails to dry.

12. If you messed up, don't worry. Now's the time to clean up! 

Tip: use a toothpick (sharp end). Tear a little cotton wool, wrap it round the sharp end of the toothpick, soak it in your nail polish and voila, a super precise tool to help you remove polish around those silts around the nails. My only gripe is that you gotta keep making these toothpick removers as it's usually one-time use only. But it provides more precision than q-tips/cotton buds and the wool won't get stuck on the still tacky polish.

TA-DA.

PRETTY DAISY ACCENT NAILS.

Sometimes, it gets boring doing manicures. So what I do, is watch TV shows while I paint my nails!

For this tutorial,  I was watching

Let me tell you. It gets distracting sometimes. But this is a good way to catch up with TV shows :)

Oh yes, an infographic to help you out:

It's easier to make dots with a rounded-head bobby pin.

~~

I hope this tutorial inspires the lot of you. 

Rock some daisy nails as Spring ends!

As usual, I would love to hear from you. 

What did you think of this nail tutorial? Would you like to see more nail tutorials? 

Tell me your thoughts via these channels!

1. Comment in the box below!

2. Twitter me @ChapalangGirls

3. Hit us up on Google+ at +Chapalang Way 

If you recreate this nail tutorial, I'd love to see it! You can tweet me at the link above, or Instagram your nails! Tag me @christinehzy and use the hashtag #TCWnails.

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If you would like to watch the tutorial video by TotallyCoolNails from whom I drew inspiration from, click here!

Till next time.
Love,
Christine