Lana Del Rey Nails: Tutorial

Last winter, Lana Del Rey released her awesome music video for Born to Die. When I watched it, one of the first things I noticed about it were the nails (obviously). I promptly recreated the design on my nails and posted about it on the blog. The nails were tipped with a red Vv" outlined in gold glitter. Here is a video snapshot I took of the video:

I can see that a lot of you have been checking out that post, so I thought I might show you, step-by-step, how I recreated this look. 

What you will need for this manicure:

1. Clear base coat 

2. Nude polish (optional)

3. Red polish

4. Gold glitter polish

5. Top coat

6. Small paintbrush

Obviously, you can change up the red polish and gold glitter to other combinations if you wish!

1. Start with a clear or nude base

Here, I simply did a clear base coat on the nail. Use a clear polish if your nails are healthy and not stained - mine are slightly yellowed around the tips, but that will be covered by red polish for this manicure. If you are less inclined to show your natural nail, feel free to use a nude polish instead. 

2. Dot the middle of the tip

Using your small paintbrush and red polish, use a dot to roughly mark where the middle of the nail is on the tip.

3. Dot the middle of the sides
Using your small paintbrush and red polish, use two dots on each nail to mark the middle of the nails on  both edges.

4. Create the "V" shape
This is the slightly trickier part, but the dots are there to make it easier by guiding your brush. With the small paintbrush, connect each side dot from step 3 to the middle dot from step 2. Here, I usually round the lines slightly, creating a bulge and making the "v" slightly concave. However, if you prefer, you can make these lines straight but it takes a little more patience and steady-handedness.

5. Fill in the "V" shapes
Here, you can either use your small paintbrush, the polish brush, or a combination of the two. If using the polish brush, be sure not to stray beyond the lines of the "v"! Cleaning up could be quite the task here (you might have to re-start). To be safe, you could roughly fill in the larger areas with the polish brush and then fill in the leftover, hard to reach spots, with the small paintbrush.

6. Outline the "V" in gold glitter

This part may seem daunting because of the thin line, but it isn't. This is because glitter tends to be forgiving when creating delicate shapes. With glitter, it is not very obvious if the lines are not perfect and the individual glitter bits can be pushed around with a toothpick and pushed into the right shape. That is why I recommend using a glitter for the outlining as opposed to a metallic or opaque polish - glitter camouflages imperfections!

There you go - the infamous Lana Del Rey manicure. In my opinion, this is one of the best manicures out there right now. It is universally flattering and elongates the fingers. Plus, it is pretty sexy. Try out for yourself and you will see!

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Summer Orange Slice Nails

We have been having a serious heat wave in Ottawa which inspired me to come up with a super summer manicure. This one is just as juicy as the strawberry nails - I really liked the way it turned out! I used OPI's A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find as the base. This is an amazing orange - it's very reddish and a beautiful orange without being too bright or neon. It's actually quite flattering on the nails - if you're looking for an orange...I highly recommend this one!

Then, I painted an orange slice onto my ring fingers. I love the way this design looks as an accent. So sweet and summery! Now all I can think about is trying a lemon-themed version...keep your eyes pealed!

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Rainbow Leopard Print Nails

When people ask what my favourite manicure to do is, I usually mention this one among my top 3. The leopard print manicure is so great because it's easy and always comes together in a really awesome way. With just 2 super easy steps!
I decided to try it out using a rainbow background because, who are we kidding, we all love rainbows. First, start by painting your nails whatever colour(s) you would like in the background. I did a red, orange, yellow, green, and blue nail on each hand, starting at the thumb.

Step 1: Irregular spots

Then, using a toothpick or small paintbrush, paint irregular spots on the nail, leaving some space in between them (check out the photo to see what I mean). I used white for this manicure but you can use any colours you find compliments the base. 

Step 2: "C" and "U" shapes

Then, again with either a toothpick or a small paintbrush and black polish, outline the spots with "C" and "U" shapes, but leave a portion of each spot not-outlined. After you have done that, fill in the empty areas on the nails with black specks, tiny lines, and "C" and "U" shapes.

And that's it! It's super easy and always looks great. 

Rainbow leopard print nails

Plus, you can switch up the background and spot colours and try out different combinations which is always a plus. Here are some other versions of the leopard print manicure that we have done. Check 'em out!

 Gold and Brown Leopard Nails

 Grey and Peach Leopard Nails

 Grey and Periwinkle Leopard Nails

Pink and White Leopard Nails

 Purple Leopard Nails

 Silver and Blue Leopard Nails

 Silver and Fuchsia Leopard Nails

Turquoise and Neon Green Leopard Nails

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Nail Party and THANK YOU GIVEAWAY

We did another awesome nail party and, we gotta say, we had a blast.

I gotta come clean with you guys. We love you. I know that seems extreme but hear me out. It needs mentioning that every time we do a nail party, we are in awe of you. Nail parties are an interesting concept because we come to your house and join your party - all complete strangers - and there is definitely potential awkwardness there. But, without fail, every party is such a good time and every group of women is amazing. We always walk away saying "Wow, weren't they awesome? I could stay and hang out with them all night!" We are serious! Kudos to you, ladies. You are all so funny, intelligent, and a blast to hang around with. We are continuously surprised by how many amazing groups of ladies there are out there in Ottawa. So, thank you for being you.

In honour of your awesomeness, we are doing a free giveaway! We will be giving away two polishes from Essie's new mirror metallics collection - Blue Rhapsody and Nothing Else Metals.

How to enter: Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and send us a quick email at beautyschooldropoutsmail@gmail.com with your name to enter! Make sure to enter before next Friday at 9:00pm :)

Now, back to the nail party!

Adorable strawberry nails

Cute coral fairy glitter nails

Cool coral skull nails!

Mix'n'match nails featuring heart tips, an anchor, a rose, strawberries, leopard print...

...and an evil eye!

Everyone showing off their finished products!

The amazing ladies who inspired this post.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway!



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Fourth of July Manicure

Happy Fourth of July, neighbours-to-the-South! I hope you are all doing your best to take the time to enjoy today, like we did over here on the 1st.

For this manicure, I decided to keep it semi-simple by only doing something fun and sparkly on accent nails (ring fingers). I did a white base coat on the other nails, followed by a modified French tip using red & navy. On the ring finger, I sponged on red, blue, and white with a makeup sponge and added sparkly stars with a tooth pick and white polish. I finished it all off with a tad of holographic glitter.

The real reason why I did this manicure is because I am, in fact, moving the USA very soon! In August, I am heading down to Ithaca, NY for grad school at Cornell University. I am sad to leave Canada but very excited to hit the books again! 

So, this means that our business of nail parties will be on pause. We will still be booking parties until August 10th so get yours in soon! Also, I will be back for holidays so feel free to contact us to see if we could work something out. The blog is going to keep running - I figured it would be great to have a creative outlet during my studies, so please keep checking in to see what manicures I am up to!

Thanks so much for reading and booking!

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