On trend 2014: White Nails with Neon Ruffian

I enjoy the palette cleanser that white nails provide but find them a little stark and boring on their own so today I'm going to show you a way to add a pop of colour using a gradient ruffian.

I wanted a neon pop to this so I used Orly Hook Up and Holla and Lilypad Lacquer In Pink We Trust with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Wall. There was no particular order to where I put the neon polishes but my nail beds are only really wide enough for two colours- if you have wider nail beds you could put all three on each nail.

I have made a photo tutorial for this look so you can recreate it at home:

1) Freehand stripes of your chosen colours vertically on your nail- it does not matter what this looks like at the tip (one coat should do) but make sure you paint the whole nail to help the white polish level later on.

2) Top coat! Make sure you topcoat to prevent streaking of the colours onto the white later!

3) Paint a stripe of white up the middle of your nail leaving a small strip of the colours exposed at the cuticle

4) Paint up the sides of the nail so that the colour is seen in a crescent moon shape at the base of your nails. It will take two coats of white to make this fully opaque- have a tiny brush on hand to use with acetone incase you make a mistake (because you have a layer of top coat over the colours you can correct small mistakes without losing the colour)

Then topcoat your final design, clean up around your cuticle to get the perfect oval shape and you're good to go.

NB this design makes your nails look shorter but your fingers look longer- if you have short nails that you dislike you have been warned! This is easier if you use a white polish with a small brush (the OPI was a little too big for my tiny nails). If you use my tutorial I would love to see it :).

Tweet