Valentine's Day Nails

Happy Valentine's Day! I love this time of the year - it's such a great excuse to paint your nails! And what colors do you see more often in almost all nail polish lines than pink and red? So in order to do my part to celebrate this commercial holiday, I have two nail designs to show. The first up, is my pro-Valentine's Day manicure, followed by my (somewhat) anti-Valentine's Day nail design.

So first, onto the pinks....




This first manicure is all the hearts and pinks that one Valentine's Day manicure can handle (in my case). I don't think I could pull this nail design off any other time, and I really wouldn't want to. So, lots of pink(s) and a little heart on each nail just to doubly get the point across.


Kinda reminds me of this lovely Valentine's Day pic:

Image from toxicbeautyblog.com

But, back to the Nail Design.


I started out with three pinks I thought would look nice together - (from left to right) Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear Fuchsia Power, Orly Basket Case, and Love & Beauty Orchid (from Forever 21).




So I started out with the lightest color in my collection (which I always recommend doing when layering), and painted two coats of it. Orly Basket Case is a nice medium light pink cream, so there was no spotty coverage or anything like that.




On from Step 1 to Step 2. I cut two small slices of painters tape, no wider than 3 centimeters each. Because nail polish has more plasticity as it dries, you want to paint each nail separately, so you can peel off the painters tape as soon as possible, so you don't get any pull on the layered nail polish with the blue tape that has just come off. I first painted the darker shade of pink at the tip of the nail using Sally Hansen Fuchsia Power, and then I painted the silvery-pink stripe in between the two pieces of tape using Love & Beauty Orchid.




On from Step 2, I added heart decals that I got in a set from the manufacturers of Seche Vite at my local beauty supply.

I did not see a need to use tweezers to pick up these decals, so I simply peeled each one up and put it near the bottom slanted end of the silvery-pink stripe, so that there was some minimal symmetrical and asymmetrical balance. I then used Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat to cover this nail design.




Now, onto the Anti-Valentine's Day Nail Design!




For this design, I still wanted to use colors that could be associated with Valentine's day, so I used red nail polish as a base. The goal of this look was to be a darker version of my first Valentine's Day mani, so I added black detailing rather than more red or any lighter color.


The two colors I chose to use were Zoya Dovima (that dries matte) and Maybelline Express Finish Crimson.




I used the same process for the pink manicure on this anti-Valentine's manicure, but three pieces of blue tape were needed instead of two, where two pieces set up the line at the beginning of the nail, and the last piece sectioned off the edge of the nail for the black accents to be painted in. After I painted each nail and removed the tape, I added the accent sticker. These are stickers from a set that can be found at Rite Aid.

And here's a last view so you can see all the sparkly goodness of Dovima on the accents. I really like the way the nails with the silver stickers came out. What do you think?



So, that's it for my Valentine's Day nail art. (And yes, I wore this around with my right hand having the red manicure and my left hand having the pink. It was quite fun to be supportive and against Valentine's Day at the same time.)

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day (or just a wonderful Sunday if you don't celebrate this commercial holiday).

Thanks for looking. Bye for now.