Acid Wash BRIT Nails

Hi Goddesses

I've just done a guest post for Love for Lacquer - here it is xx.

OMG I'm on Jess's page.  This feels like that scene out of Pretty Woman when Julia goes to the opera and "nearly crapped my pants" lol.   

I am Debbie, from The Crumpet.  Mine is a smaller blog, and I call myself a "splodger".  I love writing, and painting nails, but I'm not a master swatcher like Jess (I'm just not that tidy or perfect).  So, for my guest post, I wanted to do something British (with all the Jubilee jubilations going on) and also something that was messily arty (it's my favourite kind, because then no-one can tell if you went wrong!)

I went for Acid Washed Brit Nails.  If you've got an hour to spare, these are really fun nails to do, really easy, and very effective.

To do acid wash nails, you need to build your colour up in layers.   This started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen White On.  Once that's try, you need to top coat it to seal it.  You don't want the acetone we're going to use later to eat through this layer.   You then add layers of whatever colours you choose.  As I wanted to do a British theme, I used SH Right Said Red and then finished off with CG Blue Year's Eve (wow, what a sensational blue).  Do NOT add more top coat at this point.

Once all the layers are dry, you take a cotton bud, dip it in acetone, and then start making patterns on your nails.  The more pressure you apply, the more the acetone will eat through the layers.

I wish I had varied my tools and used a small brush too.  I tried to do a Union Jack on the thumb, but it's a little clumsy - it might have worked better if I'd used something smaller.

I also like to play and so I varied the patterns I was creating - the middle finger is definitely my favourite, and the one I'll be using next time.

Phew, how did I do?  Was I ok ?  

Lots of love, and enjoy :)  xx

Acid Wash Nails

Hi Goddesses

I promised you a few special posts for Celebration 500 Month, and this is the first - Acid Nails.  I used being off last week as an opportunity to try both things I hadn't tried, things I'd wanted to do for ages and also a couple of "oooh I wonder what happens if ...." type things :)

Acid Nails is achieved using acetone and layers of nail varnish.  You might think all the layering makes it take ages, but actually, no, I didn't think it was too bad.  We're going to talk next week about Recycled Nails and this is a GREAT Day 2 mani.

So, I'm going to go into instruction mode :)   Your first step is a normal mani - so, base coat, 2 coats of a polish, and top coat.   For my base I used Albert Place from Nails Inc, a great intense baby blue that I'm using a lot at the mo (mainly cos it's opaque in 1 coat).

Once your mani has dried, you can then start applying layers of polish.  I'd suggest you want at least 3, but you can have more.   As this was my first try, I learnt lots on this mani, like who knew orange over even pale blue would create such an amazing rust colour?  I loved the colour, but it over-dominates this mani.   

Also, there's a red polish in there too.  Pardon ?  You can't see it?  No, me either, and that's because I put it on top of the orange - once I started doing acetone magic, they were just too close in colour to be distinguishable.   Finally, I did a coat of Orly Charged Up on the top.  I only used 1 layer of each of the colours that went on over the top coat - I know people who have used more than 1 layer, and I think there are times when it would be a good idea.  It's all about experimentation.

So, once your polish is dry, you start playing.  I just want to point out at this stage, that the only top coat you should have put on is the one over the first colour - no more after that!  The reason is that TC is a barrier.  You need to preserve the bottom colour (unless you want to eat through all the colours and show some nail), but using it in between the other colours will make your next job impossible.

Now the fun part.  Take a cotton bud, dip it in acetone, and swipe, press, whoosh all over your nails.  More pressure will eat through more layers of polish, less pressure will eat through fewer.   Make sure tho that you don't put acetone all over your nail as you'll have no top colour left!

I went for random patterns, and I like what I ended up with.  Partly this looks quite Aztec to me, but it also reminds me of oxidised copper due to that rusty orange and the pale blue.  I love the distressed look it gives off.

There is one however .... now that I've experimented, next time I'd vary my technique and use "implements" of differing thicknesses - so a thin brush, a medium brush, maybe even a dotting tool or cocktail stick ....

So there you go.  Next week I'll have another version for you  that's appearing as a guest post on another blog.

Til then, enjoy xx :)