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I am more anal retentive about my nails than anything else, probably stemming from my childhood habit of nail biting and cuticle chewing. I have no idea when I started but by the time I realized some people had really nice looking hands and fingernails I was way down that rabbit hole. During the time that I first was trying to stop biting my nails, maybe 8-9 years old, I developed an absolute disdain for chipped nail polish and I didn’t even wear nail polish. Chipped polish was the “throw some paint on that crap” version of my chewed little digits and I judged everyone who had chipped nail polish VERY HARSHLY. I grew up in a poor neighborhood, in a trailer. My mom didn’t wear makeup or paint her nails and I was never raised with an idea that I should try to alter my appearance. Yet I still became wide eyed and horrified at the site of chipped polish, very similar to my feeling about old, peeling stickers; it viscerally offended me and made my skin crawl.

It took years for me to break the nail-biting habit. I bit all the way in to my teens when once a year I would stop for a month or two before delving right back in. I finally did stop biting my nails in my early 20s and at once began getting french manicures at a Korean Salon. They were everything I grew up wanting; clean, fresh, simple, classically manicured nails. The tiniest chip and I would run to the bathroom with my self made chip-kit and fix it up. A few years later I began getting more in to bright neons and glitter polishes. Now that I am past my mid-thirties I alternate between french manicures and bold glitter polishes. I am still incredibly peculiar about my nails and CANNOT go out with chips in my polish.

Thankfully I got in to gel polishes last year and that is saving me a lot of time in the painting/drying area and a lot of money now that I can do Salon quality manicures at home. I have been doing gel polish at home for about a year and a half now and have gotten much better at my technique (thin layers, not pressing hard with the brush, capping) but have never done anything more involved than a french. I have been seeing some really neat nail art lately and decided I wanted to try to do a Pokemon theme. Unfortunately all my colors that weren’t black or white were ALL GLITTER. Not great for nail art or a Pokemon theme. So I ordered some appropriate colors for the theme, some other flat colors because realizing I had 16 glitter colors made me feel a little too sparkly, a dotting tool, liquid latex peel-off tape, and some different sized and shape brushes.

I was pretty excited to try something though so I decided to do a very simple 2 color design that I’d seen in an ipsy Nailed It video titled Aries Horoscope Nail Tutorial. I did mine a little different than the video though.

I chose an aqua/sea-foam color and a chunky silver glitter as opposed to maroon and a fine gold glitter for my colors.

I used the flat color as the bottom layer, the video has the glitter on the bottom. My flat color is too light to layer on top of my chunky silver layer.

I did not put a matte top coat over my color layer.

My diagonal lines are much more acute.

Bling Gel Polish in Mint Green (57) & Gellen Gel Polish in 154 (no color name)

I am actually really happy with how they turned out! I figured I’d be disappointed (especially on the right hand) but I was not. The design is so simple it is hard to mess up but is visually very dramatic and stunning. Now, they’re not perfect, but they will be next time! One guy told me my nails looked “all perfectly hot rodded out”; awwww best nail compliment ever! I am super excited to get my other polishes in the mail so that I may try my hand at something a little more detailed.

Does anyone else do their own nail art or gel polishes at home? Let me know below in the comments!