4th of July Splatter Nails – How To

These are the colors that I decided to use for an obvious 4th of July theme.  All of these I picked up at Sally’s Beauty Supply.

I decided to use an old toothbrush to get the splatter effect I was looking for. 

These are my toes.  I prepped them by removing my old polish, cutting, filling, cleaning, and dealing with my cuticles.  

My first coat was a light coat of white.  Also only one of my toes on my right foot needs a little space so I use a tissue between them. Between every coat I dry my nails with a small fan.

 This shows a second coat of white polish having been applied.  I am not very good at getting the polish only on my nails while also getting it all the way to the edges of them.  With this method of polishing it doesn’t matter at all!

 In this picture I have splattered my nails with blue.  What I did was to pour out some polish onto some cardboard covered in foil.  I then dipped the toothbrush into some acetone and mixed it with the polish to thin it a little and make it easier to splatter.  Using my thumb or fingers I then splattered it onto my toes.

 I have now applied a coat of red polish in the same manner as the blue.   They kind of look right now as though I have blood splattered all over them, lovely.  At this point I let them dry for about a half an hour and then put a clear coat over them.  

Obviously I have lots of excess polish all over.  I have dealt with this in various ways.  The easiest I have found is to take a long shower after they have dried very solidly.  When my skin absorbs water and gets wrinkly the polish tends to be pretty easy to rub off of with a wash cloth.  For my toes this particular time I soaked in my spa for a couple of hours and when I got out most of the excess polish was gone!  Wow what a difficult thing to have to do!

 This shows how my nails look after they have been cleaned up.  I like the look but I realized some things that could be improved upon. 

 After I experimented with my toes I decided to do my fingernails as well.  I did everything basically the same except for a few changes.  First I only did one coat of white base polish.  Which I liked more.  I also changed how I did the splattering.  With my toes I did separate applications of red and blue.  With my fingers I poured out some of  the blue, red, and white polish into separate areas.  I also had three small bowls of acetone to try and not mix the colors up.  I quickly switched from color to color splattering my nails with many light coats of different colors.  In the end I like my fingernails much more than my toenails.  The color on my fingers has much more depth and detail.

I suggest you give it a go as it was pretty fun!