American Tie Dye (Fourth Of July Nails)

Hey There Polished People!

In the US, July 4th is Independence Day! Lots of people celebrate by having BBQs and spending time with family, capping the night off with fireworks. I am a fan of fireworks, except for the “million angry hornet” type fireworks that shoot up in the air all willy nilly and you never quite feel like you know where they’re going to go. I love the “mortar shells” that shoot way up in the air and blow up. They’re illegal in my state though so let’s just say I’m speaking hypothetically. 😉 We usually celebrate the 4th at my aunt’s house and my whole family gets together and we eat and light fireworks, but this year my husband and I are going out to his parents and are having a fireworks-less BBQ with his family. I’m sure it will be fun, but I will miss the fireworks. The only thing I don’t like about the Fourth is (well I guess there are two things-) people who are careless with fireworks, and the fact that people seem to feel the need to celebrate for an entire week before and about the same amount of time after the actual holiday. Some rude neighbors of my parents already nearly gave me a heart attack yesterday when they blew up what sounded like a gigantic bomb in the street right in front of their house while I was over there, and my neighbors have been blowing moderately sized fireworks up the last few nights, giving my poor little dog, Minnie, fits. She gets so scared and there’s just nothing to console her. Anyway, I hope you all have a fun and safe 4th if you live in the US! Let’s get to today’s festive nails!

American Tie Dye Nails

Right hand- not too bad, huh?

Left hand. The “good” one. 😉

How To Get These Nails:

1. Base coat.
2. Paint your nails with one medium coat of NUP French White.
3. Immediately following the white polish, work with one nail at a time and follow the following directions.
4. Apply a thick dot of blue polish (FP Inkblot Blue) in a half-moon shape at your cuticle.
5. Quickly apply a thick half circle of white (NUP French White) touching the blue polish.
6. Quickly apply a thick half circle of red (OPI Big Apply Red) from the white to the end of the nail, don’t forget to wrap your tips with this color.
7. Grab a needle very quickly and drag 4-5 times from the blue out through the red. I hold my needle at a shallow angle to the polish, to maximize surface tension between the needle and the polish in effort to drag more of the polish out. You will work out your own method.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 on the rest of your nails.
9. When all your nails are done, apply a coat of Seche Vite and call it good! Impress your friends with your patriotically awesome nails! 😉 Ali (@ShoppingShon) on Twitter said these look like popsicles, and I agree! They remind me of those Rocket Pop popsicles that the ice cream man sells.

I hope you all liked these nails as much as I did. My husband was particularly impressed and said a few times how he liked these nails. That’s a big deal because usually he really couldn’t care less about nails 😉 Have a safe 4th and if you decide to try this method, tweet me a pic! As always, thank you all for reading and till next time- Happy Polishing!! 😀