Leather

Studded leather nails

Inspiration: This post by girlinboots + studded leather

A week ago reddit user girlinboots asked r/redditlaqueristas for inspiration for a heavy metal-esque look. My idea for her was a leather-like texture with silver dots in a halo:

When my nails are already painted, my spoons gets what they deserve

So, today I thought I'd try it out on my nails instead, because even if that was a tiny spoon, it's still three times the size of a nail, and might or might not translate well to a manicure. Here's the result:

And here's a quick tutorial I threw together. Sorry that it's a bit small - this blog is not cooperating with me for the moment.

There's nothing complicated going on there, just a few simple steps:

1. You'll need a toothpick or other dotting tool, and three polishes:

• Black polish (I used China Glaze Liquid Leather - how fitting!)
• Black shatter (I used Isadora Black Tag)
• Silver [glitter] polish (I used H&M Silver Glitter)

2. Start out with a full coat of black polish. It should not be a matte.

3. Add a coat of black shatter. This dries a matte, which together with the shiny black underneath gives an interesting texture and leather-like reflections.

4. Add silver dots around the nail, using a toothpick or other dotting tool.

And that's it! If you use a topcoat, the leather-like structure becomes less pronounced as the shatter and base colour will have the same shine, be it matte or glossy.

My only regret is my choice of silver polish - it floated out into big blobby dots while drying. A denser silver with somewhat larger glitter would probably look a bit better. Oh, well.