NAILS | BCD NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 17 "Bracelet Nails" for #MANIMONDAY

This is as naked as I will ever be. I am of course referring to my nails in my attempt at the latest in South Korean nail art trends - "bracelet nails". When I first saw this trend cropping up on Instagram, I wasn't sure what to think, but like a lot of nail art trends (with the exception of crackle polish) this has grown on me. It was also the PERFECT opportunity for getting back on the BCD Nail Art train which has derailed all of us in the last month. I always have so many polishes to get through as I don't do plain swatches here as there are numerous other bloggers that provide that service and do a great job of it! I personally hate massive swatch sessions as they take the fun out of nail polish for me. I'm sure you all can tell that I can paint my nails so why not let this be a space for something a little fun?

bracelet nails nail art

Nail blogger Lucy from Lucy's Stash has a great tutorial (here) on how to do bracelet nails, but the gist is to leave your nails essentially bare so that the VNL is visible. I pre-cut bits of sewing thread in black, blue, red and yellow. I got my thread from Daiso, but it did fray so higher grade thread would be my suggestion for a totally flawless manicure. I started off by making sure my nails were as clean as humanly possible of old polish and cat fur and applied two coats of OPI - Nail Envy in the shade Pink to Envy* as my nails are quite yellow from the copious amounts of polish I use on them.

You are more than welcome to start applying thread while the base coat is wet, but because base coat dries pretty quickly, I applied a clear nail polish to act as my adhesive. Here, I am using Essence - Absolute Pure*. Actual polish will buy you more time to arrange and position your pieces of thread. If you find your thread sticking up at the edges, use base coat to smooth them down. When you are ready, apply base coat to where you would like to place your studs. Try to choose smaller studs as this is meant to be a fairly delicate-looking manicure representing the look of thin bracelets layered with each other. Once you are satisfied with your stud placement, thickly top coat your manicure to smooth out the thread. I used the Essence - Gel Look Plumping Top Coat* as this is a naturally thicker top coat that doesn't give quite as many bubbles.


bracelet nails nail art

Another way to do this manicure is to just draw the lines instead of using thread, but there is something realistic about using thread isn't there? I won't lie and say this didn't take a bit of time, but it's worth it for the nail art bucket list!


Check out Traci's (@drinkcitra) creations for this challenge and stay tuned for 15 more designs of #BCDNails! Tag us if you feel like joining in!


Click here to see the rest of my BCD Nail Art!

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