Mermaid Tail Nail Art

This mermaid tail design has to be one of my favorite nail designs since I started doing my nails. I did this on a whim and ended up loving it so much that I wore it for days!

I love mermaids! To me, they're whimsical and beautiful creatures. I have always loved Ariel from The Little Mermaid - that amazing red hair and wide-eyed look. Envious of all her red hair though I can't imagine myself looking good with red hair. :S Then there was Splash with Daryl Hannah as Madison the mermaid (I've got to watch that show again!). Mermaids + my love for a good Tom Hanks rom-com = yes, please!

Image from Google

So anyway, here's what my nails looked like for days:

Taken in natural sunlight

The colors for the base, all of which I used 2 coats of:

• Thumb, pointer and little finger: China Glaze - First Mate
• Middle finger: China Glaze - Frostbite (3 coats)
• Ring finger: Orly - Snowcone

After the base colors, I painted one coat of The Face Shop - BL601 (a sheer teal glitter) on all my nails. It's the glitter you can see on my thumbnail. I wanted to give my mermaid tail a hint of glitter and since I only ever used that polish once, I decided that it would be a good time to finally bust it out.

The colors I used for the scales on the tail:

• China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint
• Love & Beauty - gold glass flecks
• The Face Shop - BL602 (a pearly purple)
• A random gold glitter polish

I sealed it all in with Seche Vite. I'm running low already and it's only been a month! I'm sad because they don't sell Seche Vite where I am. I suppose I'll have to go get local top coat and endure smearing and long drying time so as to not waste my Seche Vite. :/

Taken in natural sunlight

How I did these nails:

I started with base coat, painted 2 coats of blue polish, used a nail art pen to draw the scales (if you don't have a nail art pen, you can use acrylic paint and a brush or use nail polish and a toothpick/dotting tool) and filled in the scales with color and finished off with top coat.

Admittedly it is quite time-consuming to work with a toothpick/dotting tool and black polish to draw the scales but it's what I used to do before I got my hands on any kind of tools. So if I can do it, you can do it too! Just avoid painting your nails too close to bedtime or else you'll have to risk doing only half of what you planned on doing.

Taken indoors

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken under yellow lighting

Taken with flash (but half-ruined by the shadow of my hand)

And this is what my nails looked like on Day 4. Barely any tip wear! I should have wrapped my tips to make it last longer but I'm so bad at wrapping my tips. Any tips on wrapping tips? No pun intended.

I asked my sister which blue tail she liked best and she said she liked the China Glaze - Frostbite best. Hmm, at first I liked the China Glaze - First Mate better but now I like them all!

Mermaid tail nail art, who knew, huh? (read in Flynn Rider's voice when he discovered the frying pan's awesomeness)

What the heck, I love everything Disney (take me to Disneyland, please!!) so one day I might have to do Disney Princess themed nails.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it... and including The Little Mermaid pictures ;)

Image from Google