Swirl Nails - Fun Summer Nail Design

While it’s still a few days till our European vacation, we’re already feeling the happy vibes, right down to our nails! Summer Swirl nails are a result of a burning desire to try our hand at painting swirls. It looked so complicated yet insanely beautiful on nails. The “Now or Never” principle finally overcame our fear as soon as we got the right polishes. Happily, this design was easier to do than it was expected. Yep, the entire manicure was done free hand!

The stripes were super easy to paint – just paint horizontal stripes on your nail with different colours using a striping brush (a very thin brush). As for the swirls, you just need to paint with the same thin brush one triangle of a different colour at a time. Clean your brush before using next colour and paint next triangle right next to the first. By painting triangles like that, one by one, you’ll create a swirl pattern. Then, stick a stud on top covering the cheeky bit where all triangles connect.

Make sure you’re using good quality, highly pigmented polishes that you know behave well on your nails. Stay away from too sheer or guppy polishes. The last thing you want is one poorly painted triangle to ruin the whole nail design. We used Essie and Maybelline polishes and they were perfect!

Another great thing about the swirl nails design is that it can be painted on one accent nail. For instance, imagine this design but with a swirl on ring finger and other nails painted in bright pink or mint – that would look fantastic too!

Will you be trying the swirl nails? Or, have you already done something similar? Either way, we’d love to see it! Instagram or Tweet photos of your swirl nails by tagging them #sonailicous.

Used: Essie Ridge Filling Base coat, Essie polishes: Mint Candy Apple, Fiesta, Play Date; Maybelline polishes: #230 Tangerine Tangy and #400 Pedal To The Metal; Sally Hasen Diamond Flash top coat.