Valentine’s Day Nail Art Tutorial

Valentine’s Day is slowly becoming my favorite holiday. I may be partial because I’ve been dating my boyfriend for three years now and we’ve had a lot of great Valentine’s dates. The pink hearts and lovey-dovey greeting cards made me happier and sappier than I ever thought I could be. To celebrate my newfound love for this holiday, I decided to create a fun and easy nail art. Check out after the jump!

What you’ll need:

• White nail polish (I used OPI Alpine Snow.)
• Light, baby pink nail polish (I used Essie Fiji.)
• Lilac nail polish (I used OPI Do You Lilac It?)
• Latex-free cosmetic sponge
• Liquid latex (Optional, but this makes cleanup much easier.)
• Clean up brush and acetone
• Medium and small sized dotting tool

1. Apply your base coat as normal.
2. On the thumb, middle and ring fingers, apply two coats of white, two coats of the lilac on the pinky and two coats of pink onto the pointer finger. Apply a quick dry top coat to all nails. Let dry for 20 minutes. You will sponge a gradient onto the thumb and and ring fingers, so that quick dry top coat is crucial to the base polish not lifting during the sponging. This is the time to apply the liquid latex around the nails that will be sponged.
3. Onto the latex sponge, paint a stripe of the lilac and slightly touching it, the pink. Apply the lilac close to the cuticle with the pink at the tip of the nail. Sponge the two colors onto the nail in rolling and dabbing motions. Wait for the nails to dry 10 minutes and repeat until the color is opaque. Remove the liquid latex when done and clean up around the cuticles.
4. After you reach the desired opacity, take some white nail polish onto a dotting tool and create the heart. Using the medium sized dotting tool, make two dots next to each other white a little room in between. Using the small sized dotting tool, put a dot below and in the middle of the two dots. You now have a general heart shape! Connect the dots and fill it in.
5. Apply the final top coat.

There you go! I wish that I had applied a glittery top coat like China Glaze Fairy Dust to the nails that didn’t have the hearts. They needed something else!

Let me know if you try this out!