Gone are the days when the most popular way to decorate your digits would be to slap a coat of carnation pink or berry red on them. Instead, nails are taking a cue from the runways, moving toward color, color and more color.
Pastel hues such as blues, lavenders and yellows are just as popular as bright neons, says Kari Freshour, co-owner of Masters of Cosmetology, a Fort Wayne beauty school.
“It’s not your normal nail polish now. Now any color will do,” she says, adding that the most popular colors this season are purple, turquoise and yellow.
An easy way to incorporate some of spring and summer’s trendy shades is through an at-home manicure.
Crackle
A huge current nail trend, Freshour says, is crackle polish.
“You put one color on and do the crackle on top of it,” she says. “You know how you can antique an old dresser? That’s what it looks like.”
To use, paint your nails with one coat of polish, say a watermelon pink. When the nails are completely dry, paint a layer of the crackle over the pink, say, in Sally Hanson’s Vintage Violet.
As with all of these options, top with a clear top coat to protect the manicure when the nails are completely dry.
Pop of neon
A hand full of neon might seem a little over whelming, but there’s an easy way to use the colors without looking like a 13-year-old did your nails (not that there’s anything wrong with that … ahem). Pick a neutral like a gray or a taupe and paint nine of your nails that color, leaving one of your ring fingers bare. Paint just the one nail in your bright hue of choice, like Essie’s Turquoise & Caicos.
The trick to picking such seemingly opposite colors that will go together is to make sure the polishes have a similar finish. Don’t mix a glossy silver with a matte pink – keep them both glossy or matte.
Patterns
Another trend Freshour points to are designs on nails, whether they’re with entire decals that you can cut to fit the exact size of your nail – think painting your nails blue (try Zoya’s Phoebe) and then fitting a zebra-stripe sticker straight over them. You can even create a pattern with just a nail brush, like polka-dots.
While you do need a sturdy hand to freestyle dots on your nails, it’s not nearly as difficult as you’d think. Start with a very light color, such as white or pale pink. Paint your nails, and wait for them to completely dry. Then choose three contrasting colors to use for dots. Starting with the lightest of your contrasting colors, place polka dots along the top third of your nail. When those have dried, add dots in a second color. Then, a third.
This is definitely a case of “less is more.” The colors of the dots will stand out much more if the background color is allowed to show through.
