Tie Dying Your Nails

Fair warning: this post contains lots of photos of toes...if you have an aversion to such things please move along…

Right about now, I’ll bet you’re wondering what my toenails look like…am I right?

What’s that? Not really? Well too bad – you get to see them anyway (lucky you) .

See? Kinda pretty, right? Ever since I learned about tie-dying (or marbling, as I like to call it), I’ve been a little obsessed. Now, I’m no spring chicken, so I don’t do those super-cool color combos like bright yellow, green, and blue…I prefer a more subtle approach: graduations of the same color family, a little sparkle, a little shine, and maybe even on a daring day (like the photo above) a pearl or diamond embellishment.

So if this idea is new to you, allow me to give you a quick run-down of the process.

First, gather your supplies:

Multiple colors of nail polish – needs to be good quality and NOT fast drying
A plastic or Styrofoam cup or bowl
Toothpicks
Lotion
Q-tips
Paper towels
Water

Now, let me start off by saying that you can do this to every one of your fingernails, but you’ll have to repeat the whole process every time ( = too much work for me), and so I usually choose to do it just to one or two accent nails. Same on your feet – most of your toes are too small for this anyway, so I’ve been just doing one of my big toes for accent, and then painting the other nine one of the colors within the marble.

Start out by having one coat (even if it’s just a base coat) dry on your nails, and cover your workspace with paper towels!

Step One: Fill your cup or bowl with water

Step Two: If desired, cover the toes you’re not going to be marbling with saran wrap. On the toe you are working on, liberally apply lotion all around the toe (including the back) up to, but avoiding the nail area. Don’t rub the lotion in…leave it thick!

Step Three: Drop alternating colors of the nail polish carefully onto the surface of the water in a bulls eye pattern. Work quickly or it will dry!

Step Four: Take your toothpick, and gently draw a pattern in the rings of color – again, working quickly.

Step Five: Carefully dip your toe, nail side down, into the water until it has made contact with your pattern. Before you draw it out again, take your q-tip and swirl up some of the excess of the polish in the water.

Step Six: Using q-tips, pieces of paper towel, etc. clean up around your newly swirled nail. If you had enough lotion on it, this should be very easy, with no nail polish remover needed.

Allow to dry, embellish if desired, and paint on a clear top coat sealant.

Ta-da!

And as I mentioned before, this can be done with some really bright, fun colors for a striking “tie-dye” effect!

Now go have fun making your nails beyewtiful!