Leopard Print Nails Guide

Recently I decided to try painting a leopard print pattern on my nails by hand. I think I have been pretty successful! If I can do it then so can you and it looks super cute.  You will need base coat, a background nail polish colour, a different colour for your spots, a nail art pen or brush with black nail varnish, dotting tools & top coat.  Here's a step by step guide as to how I did it: 

1) Apply your favourite base coat

2) Paint all of your nails with two coats of your chosen background colour and leave to dry-I left mine for an hour.

3)Then use your dotting tool and your other chosen nail polish to paint        spots which are long in shape rather than round dots like you would do for a polka dot effect. I placed a blob of polish onto a piece of kitchen foil to dip my dotting tool into. Your polish will tend to get thicker as it dries in the air while you are dotting. You will need to keep replenishing the polish you will be dipping your tool into otherwise your spots will not look very nice.

4)Leave these spots to dry for about 15 minutes.

5)Take your nail art pen or brush (I used the Models Own nail art pen/ brush combo but only used the brush part) and carefully paint a black border to the spots that you have made. I did mine by taking it one side at a time. I left some of the spots borders not completely joined up. You could also make your black border lines more wavy rather than smooth to emphasise the leopard print. I found doing my right hand more challenging as my left hand kept shaking but if you persevere and concentrate it turns out well. I found that the Models Own nail art varnish would go a big stringy due to the length of time it was exposed to the air while I was painting.

6)Leave your animal print pattern to dry properly.

7) Apply top coat very gently over your leopard print nails or you may find that your leopard print pattern will smudge if you accidentally drag your brush over it with too much pressure.

I used Nails Inc's Caviar Base Coat, Nails Inc's Royal Botanical Gardens as my background colour, Models Own's Sophie's Pink for my spots, Models Own's black nail art pen and Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat. You can buy a pack of 5 differently sized dotting tools from Amazon for about £2.00.

I love how this has turned out. Have you tried leopard print nails before? Let me know how you got on.