Tips on Painting Your Nails

Painting your nails is supposed to be a way to express yourself through color and design. Just like any other accessory, it's fun and usually adds to your whole outfit. On the other hand, it can distract and even take away from the outfit when it's sloppy and all over the place. My top five tips are as follows:

Supplies- There needs to always be a damp paper towel at hand to correct mistakes as they happen or at least before they dry. It is also of course, great to have a bottle of nail polish remover handy for dried on unwanted polish. Making sure that the polish that was just painted on your nail doesn't come off in the process of removing excess would require a small applicator for the nail polish remover. Pointed cue tips should do the trick. Most people though, don't have those right off hand so small pieces of twisted up paper towel should help as well.

Using your hand as a tool- When the nail polish leaks too far off your cuticles or over the sides of the nail, the best way to rid it before it dries is just to use your other fingernails. It's simple, but it works. Just firmly scrape excess polish off with the other hand's thumb. (The thumb so far has worked out best for me however any fingernail will do just fine). That will give you the cleanest and most precise look.

Technique- When taking out the brush each time, make sure to sweep it around the rim to help get an even amount of polish on all sides. Then gently stroke the brush onto the nail. You should let it glide on like hot butter in a pan. As long as it feels smooth when being applied, it most likely looks just as good.

Type of Polish- Sometimes it's just not your fault for messy looking fingernails. In fact, it's practically inevitable when using clumpy or chunky nail polish. Nevertheless, you can easily avoid buying this kind by simply shaking the bottle. If you hear nothing, that's the sign of bad quality polish. Like wise, bottles with a small ball bouncing around inside means the polish will be thin, slick, and easily applicable.

Other Tricks- Getting creative is a large part of painting your nails. Most people though think of again the colors and designs when getting creative, but what about how you put the nail polish on? If you've tried everything else, and you're just naturally a messy painter, try using tape. Line each cuticle and side of nail with a piece of tape, that way there's no talent involved. All you have to is paint and the tape should block stray drops and strokes of nail polish from traveling any farther than the fingernail. The tape just about does the whole job for you. You may want to reuse a couple of pieces along the way; otherwise you'll probably end up using more tape than you'd have hoped.