Mani Monday: Tribal Inspired Design

Hello and welcome to another edition of Mani Monday! This week we are doing a tribal inspired manicure on my friend from work, who graciously accepted being my stunt nails again while mine grow back out. This manicure is time heavy, but wasn't super hard to do. Just took a while, so keep that in mind when you recreate it.

For this manicure you will need:

• A base color. For this I used the robins egg blue you see on the far right
• An accent color. I used the neon purple on the very left
• Black polish
• Clear top coat
• toothpicks, dotting tool, or tiny pain brush. I used the toothpicks and a tiny little paint brush. 

First paint your nails the base color, I recommend at least two coats so it looks nice and streak free and no nail is showing through. Let dry completely before moving onto next step.

Nest, using your accent color, so a shape or design on each nail. The easiest way to do this is to drip some of the polish onto a piece of paper and use that like a painters palette. I used my tiny brush to do these designs, but you can use whatever tool you are most comfortable with. From pinky to thumb: line at base of nail, line at tip of nail, triangle at base of nail, line along length of nail, and triangle at tip of nail. Go slowly on this, if you make a mistake you'll have to start all the way over. You can correct minor mistakes in the next step, but anything past some unevenness will have to be removed and done again. Let dry completely before moving onto the next step.

This is where I switched to a toothpick for better control. Here I used my black to either add dots, mini triangles, or lines. I really liked how the purple looked edged in black, and you can use that to even up your purple lines or triangles. To do the mini triangles, do a tiny dot where you want the point of each triangle to land, then go from the purple line to your dot and back again. This can take a while but it well worth it.

I tried to mirror what was going on with the thumb and middle finger, so a black outline on the triangle and two little dots in the blue space. Once done with all nails and they've had a chance to dry, slap some clear coat to help protect your hard work. Overall I really like how this looks and while it is way to time consuming to be an everyday look, makes a nice change up from single colored nails I think. Just remember, patience is the key to success here.