By Alexandra Savage
When I was younger I used to spend a lot of time on Pinterest scrolling through nail art designs. I envied the ability to create intricate art with such a small space. Sometimes I would feel adventurous and attempt to recreate the looks that I found online, but my shaky hands and lack of experience would result in messy smudges everywhere. Last weekend, I decided to make another attempt and decorate my nails. Moving from thumb to pinkie, here are the five nail designs I tried to recreate with the limited materials I had in my dorm room.
Polka Dot Nails
I decided to start out with an easy design. First, I painted all of my nails a light pink so I would have a smooth base coat. I thought that polka dots looked simple, so I found this article from Instructables and got to work. I dipped a bobby pin in black nail polish and slowly created a series of dots on my thumb. I had to dip the bobby pin in the nail polish several times, and the dots were all different sizes. I still don’t know how the tutorial artist was able to create perfect circles. I would describe my dots as “squished” rather than round. If I had to try this again, I would also wait for the dots to dry completely before applying a top coat, as it smudged the dots a bit. I think with more practice I could perfect the art of the nail polka dot.
Straw Circles
In this design, the artist uses the open part of a straw to create hollow circles on their nails. This tutorial from DivaLikes stays true to what the end result actually looks like. I used a paper straw, which made it more difficult to prevent the straw from folding in on itself when it was wet. However, I’m fairly satisfied with this design. It was not easy to judge how much nail polish to put on the straw, and some of the circles looked a little chunky, but the end result still looked great overall.
Dental Floss
I didn’t look up a tutorial for this one and just eyeballed the design based on the Pinterest search. In short, the dental floss I used was too thick to replicate the desired effect. I thought if I twisted the dental floss I would be able to make thin lines, but it was very difficult to twist the floss and make the design with only one hand. As a result, my nails look smudged. If I try this again, I’ll buy the dental floss that’s connected to a stick so I don’t have to worry about maneuvering loose floss.
Tape Nail Polish
This was my favorite design. I used this guide from Style Motivation to place scotch tape on my nails and paint a diagonal pattern. All in all, I think this design has the cleanest lines out of the batch. I will warn readers to make sure the base coat is completely dry before placing the tape on your nails, or else the entire design will get ripped off in chunks.
Line Freehand
After searching freehand nail art on Pinterest, I came to the sudden realization that I was not able to recreate any of the popular designs on the front page. Some of these designs, especially the flowers, were intensely detailed. I don’t know how people manage to create these designs on paper, let alone a fingernail. Instead, I used a bobby pin to freehand a few lines on my nail. The lines were pretty uneven, but I’m counting this as a success for my first attempt.
Conclusions
Nail art takes a lot of practice and creativity. The tutorials on Pinterest generally represent artists that spend a lot of time perfecting their work rather than the average person. Perhaps I will spend more time practicing, but for now, I have some fun designs on my hands to carry around for the rest of the week.
