Nail Art Tutorial: Gobstopper Nails

When I was having my super week off work, you might have spotted on my Instagram feed that I had dabbled in a little bit of nail art.  Now, I'm not an expert at all in the nail art department and have only just managed to get my nails to a nice enough length to have them painted full stop!  But I got quite a few likes and a lot of interest, so I thought I'd show you what I did and how I did it!

Now you could use this technique with any colours you fancied, but to make Gobstopper nails, I used Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, Barry M Gelly in Guava, Barry M Nail Paint in Coral and Maxfactor Nailfinity in Disco Pink.

So, imagine you've done the hard bit.  Your nails are shaped and ready to go, your base coat is dry and you're ready to go with "doing" your nails.  I started with a white nail polish as my base shade.  I used my Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, which is perfect for this nail art, as it's not a glaring bright white, it's a slight off white with the tiniest amount of lilac in!  Saying that though, a bright white would really help the next lot of shades pop.

Your white base doesn't have to be perfect, as it'll be covered with your gobstopper colours.  Don't worry if it's a little uneven in coverage, as chances are you won't be able to tell.  I only one coat of my white base, where as if I was wearing this shade on it's own, I would have probably done three.

When applying the colour streaks, it's essential to have your nail brush with practically no paint on at all.  You will be dry brushing the colour on to get the streaky, edgy effect.  You can wipe excess off on the rim of the bottle, and to be extra careful, you can wipe it off onto some paper.  It's important to wait until your base colour is dry too, or you'll drag the tacky paint with your dry brush.

When applying the colour, just apply it where ever you fancy (technical nail art right here!), but make sure you can still see your white base, and are leaving some room for your other colours.

Because it's dry brushed on, it shouldn't take long to dry at all.  And the next steps are just to do exactly the same with your other two shades!  You can see on the Guava shade that some extra colour ran down the brush and made it not so dry anymore, but it's not the end of the world and just adds to the effect!

When you're happy with your finish, you can leave it as it is or apply a glossy top coat for a high shine gobstopper!  If you try this, don't forget to tag me in your Instagram pictures (@ceejayell_) or tweet me them over at @ceejayell_!

What do you think of this look?  Is it something you'll be trying out?