MUST HAVE SPARKLES!
There is this awesome fad going around that has many different names. Rockstar Nails, Glitter toes, Glitzy Nails… and so on. Basically it is an acrylic gel with glitter cured into it with a hard polish on top to make it smooth. This is a great trend but it has three downfalls. First, the nail must be filed down so it will adhere, in turn, damaging the natural nail. Second, it is very hard to remove. It must either be filed off or grow out. It can also be chipped of piece by piece, which also damages the natural nail. Third it cannot be duplicated as a manicure because of the flexibility of some nails makes the gel pop right off. The trend is so adorable that most are able to look past the negatives.
I have found a way to fix all those problems! I thought… why not use shellac as a base and top coat for the glitter? The Shellac polish I used was Hotski To Tchotchke and the glitter was Lapis by Martha Stewart. I picked two colors that closely resembled each other.
So what I did first was prep the nail like I would for a regular shellac manicure, then I applied the base coat and cured it for 10 seconds.
After that, I painted a thin layer of color on the nail (a color that would match the glitter I wanted to use). Before I cured the shellac, I powdered the glitter on the nail lightly but evenly on the nail bed then lightly patted it down into the polish to secure it before curing.
I tapped off the excess glitter and cured it for 2 minutes.
After the nails set for 2 minutes in the lamp, I brushed off the excess glitter with a brush and put two coats of Shellac top coat on with a 2 minute cure in between. I finished the nails off with a quick rub down of alcohol to remove the sticky top layer and BAM… GLITTER SHELLAC NAILS!!! They look absolutely AMAZING and my sister is going to wear this blue color to match her Highschool Homecoming Dance.
Hello. just to say thank you so much for your step by step on how to do glitter nails. I can finally do them properly and they look amazing!!!!
Hi I have been using shellac for the past 12months. I have had a few different reviews on it, some people it lasts 3weeks!!! Others will last not even a week before it chips. What am I doing wrong?
Also the shellac glitter u would start with base coat, cure that for 10secs then use a colour then glitter some wouldn’t cure in between is that right?
What did you use to pad down the glitter? What did you use the toothbrush for?
Karin,
The glitter is simply springled onto the nail. You can however use a brush to pad the glitter down if you want to. The toothbrush was used to simply remove excess glitter.
You used a regular nail polish as a color then the shellac glitter on top?
Hello Tina,
The polish that I used was shellac. For this particular set I used Hotski To Tchotchke because it matched the glitter that I springled on top.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Jocelyn
can you give the exact procedure as to how you did the glitter?
Thanks