Plaid Fingernails with Jade

Last year, I was asked to write a guest blog post for the inaugural Plaidurday. Being a true lover of plaid, of course I said yes! I’m happy to have been invited to guest blog again this year. In my first post, I showed you my wardrobe. Since I am a beauty blogger as well, I thought I would write something beauty-related this time around – I’m going to show you how to get PLAID NAILS!

You see, it’s not every day that I get to wear a plaid shirt. Some days I like to mix things up a bit and go colour-blocking, some days I don the Little Black Dress. However, there are always some ways to keep plaid in the outfit, and a plaid manicure lasts all week!

To begin, here’s me this week in one of my favourite plaid shirts.

And here’s the awesome plaid manicure that you’ll be learning to paint today. I picked 4 shades to put this look together, namely turquoise (actually, it’s supposed to be Tiffany blue), yellow, lavender and navy.

To begin, paint your nails with a base colour. As we are going to be layering the pattern, to prevent gloppy nails, it would be best if you could use a shade that goes opaque in one coat. Try to pick something cheery!

Next, paint a strip of colour vertically. This makes one of the plaid colours. I chose yellow because it just pops against the turquoise.

Pick another colour and paint another strip. I used lavender because it looks awesome next to yellow!

Using a darker colour, draw a vertical line on both sides of the yellow strip (or purple, whichever you prefer). I used navy because it’s dark enough to define the pattern, and remains interesting on its own. In my opinion, if I used black, it would ruin the look as it’s too severe.

Just in case you are wondering, I did not use a special nail art pen. I simply picked a bottle with a thinner brush, made sure I flattened it out against the inner rim of the bottle, and used the brush on its profile.

Be careful though – this step has the potential of ruining the manicure so practice first! Alternatively, get a nail art pen with a fine tip.

Finally, draw two horizontal lines across your nail. There you have it, a plaid nail! Repeat for the rest of your nails. If you like, you can leave a finger or two plain (i.e. just painted with a base colour). Don’t forget to finish with a glossy top coat!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I would love to see photos of your plaid nails.

Here’s wishing everyone a very HAPPY PLAIDURDAY! Picked your plaid yet?

J