Polished – DIY Dotted Half ‘n Half Nail Art

Hey nail art/nail polish lovers! I’m here again with another SUPER easy nail art tutorial. This time I followed a tutorial by one of my favorite nail artists, Naomi Yasuda (I want my nails done by her so bad!) The Dotted Half ‘n Half tutorial was really easy to follow; 3 nail colors, aluminum foil and a dotting tool or a standard hardware nail (that’s what Naomi used). Got it? Let’s go!

Since it’s summertime, cue Summertime by The Fresh Prince a.k.a. Will Smith (that’s for the young ones that didn’t recognize his rap name), I decided to power up my colors. I chose Collide by Illamasqua, Naked by deborah lippmann and Koliary by NARS from the Thakoon Limited Edition Collection.

Before we go full throttle in the tutorial, let me share my polish disaster. I had a bit of a nail polish melt down before I started my nail art tutorial. Somehow, my beloved Koliary escaped from my hands and fell to its death! The blue goodness spewed ALL over a corner in my bathroom floor and I screamed bloody murder, seriously complete devastation fell over me. Koliary is my FAVORITE blue and there it was all pretty and blue on my bathroom floor. It was a lovely splatter and I considered keeping it there, but it clashed with my bathroom decor. After NARS and I had a touching, yet swift memorial service on twitter (“Taps” played softly in the background)…

I headed out to Nordstrom and purchased the LAST bottle! Talk about luck. Ok, back to the tutorial! Naked is by far, one of my favorite nude colors and it was used as the base color.

Remember to use a base coat and apply 2-3 coats of your base color. Let it dry a bit before you swipe on your half and half color coat. Koliary was my half and half coat and I applied it to my ring and thumb nail. I’m going to show you the half ‘n half technique on my ring finger.

Above is my base color. As Naomi recommended, I painted a horizontal line first and then filled in my color with a criss cross motion all the way to the tip of my nail. Pretty easy! She suggested using tape if you’re not too keen with drawing a straight line, just make sure your base color is completely dry to avoid smudging.

After the half ‘n half application, form a small puddle of the color you want to make your dots with on your aluminum foil.

Use your dotting tool (shown in this nail art post) or a standard hardware nail and start dotting. For my Naked half I did smaller dots and flipped my tool over larger dots for my Koliary half. If you’re using the standard nail, use the tip of the nail for small dots and the nail head for large dots.

My thumb was done the same way…

You’ll need to replenish your polish puddle throughout the dotting process because it will get tacky. I chose to do larger dots on my Naked nails.

Fun! The pink and blue hues really pop on the nude color. Allow a bit of drying time prior to applying your top coat, you don’t want the color from your dots to drag across your single or half ‘n half colors. Follow up with a few Quick Dry Drops (my favorite nail drying agent by OPI) and massage in some cuticle oil around your nail bed.

Voila! Finished look. So many color combinations can be done. Black, red and white; nude, black and red; purple, pink and turquoise… Endless possibilities.

I like it! Will you try the Dotted Half ‘n Half?

xx Sereeda

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2012 at 9:48 am. It is filed under Beauty and tagged with deborah lippmann, illamasqua, koliary, naomi yasuda, nars and thakoon, polished. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.