Hi everyone! It's Becca here :)
This is a sparkly, fandomy twist on the classic French manicure. I've done each finger differently, but you could adapt it for each house - I'll give you more ideas for that at the end :)
The full manicure - Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw. The reasons for the order are all my own weird ones - the nail I use for accents most often is the one I like most, so it's my house - Gryffindor. Slytherins and Gryffindors have a history of not getting on well, so I put calm, loving Hufflepuff between them to diffuse the tension. That left Ravenclaw on my little finger! My thumbnail is a combination of all the houses.
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| Apologies for the lack of cleanup, I clean at the end rather than as I go! |
First, I painted my nails with as many coats as was necessary to achieve opacity.
Then, I added glitter! I'll take you through each nail in turn. You could use tape to ensure an even line, but it's not really necessary as the glitter does a pretty good job of hiding any wobbly lines. You'd also need to make sure the polish was completely dry before adding tape, which generally means letting polish dry overnight or at least for most of the day.
Index finger - Slytherin.
This was three coats of BarryM's Nail Paint in Teal, followed by individually placed glitters from Avon Colortrend glitter top coat in Silver Plated. I placed them individually because I thought it echoed the shape of the Slytherin ssssssssssssssssnake :)
Next up was Hufflepuff, this was 3 coats of Essence Colour & Go in 137 Wanna Be Your Sunshine with 2 coats of L'Oreal Confetti Top Coat. If possible, I would have gone for a polish with only black glitters, but this one works quite nicely.
Gryffindor was 2 coats of Natural Collection nail polish in Raspberry, with one coat of W7 Tinsel Town. I picked a bar glitter to match the lion's mane c:
Ravenclaw was 2 coats of 2true Glossywear Nail Polish in Shade 14, topped with 2 coats of Avon Colortrend glitter top coat in Rose Golden (which passes quite nicely as a bronze in a pinch!).
Finally, my thumbnail was a base of Rimmel London 60 Seconds nail polish in 800 Black Out, with dots of the other colours topped with their respective glitters. Then I topped every nail with a coat of MUA's clear nail polish.
You could adapt this manicure in many ways. You could do all one house colour, you could do all glitter tips with one or two full glitter accent nails - you could do a glitter gradient like this accidentally Slytherin-coloured manicure I did a couple of weeks ago. If you were feeling very patient, you could place the glitter to make the initial of whichever house it is! You could even use different colours - I wonder how it would look with pastels instead of brights or shimmery polishes? There are so many possibilities with a coloured polish and a coordinating glitter! If you recreate it or adapt it, I'd love to see :D
I'll finish with a shameless holding-my-Gryffindor-scarf shot. How could I not? ;)
Over to you - what do you think?
~Becca :)
