Gold Leaf Tips

Greetings All!

I've had gold and silver leaf for nail art for ages, and in fact I've had this exact manicure in my head for a few months. I won't lie - I've been put off by how fiddly it is. At least, it sounded really fiddly whenever anyone else has used it. I thought that awareness might work in my favour.

It didn't! People, it's the most fiddly, frustrating stuff ever! It's weightless, and uncooperative, but at the same time it's strangely satisfying. Probably because it's been rattling round my head for ages. Would I use it again? Absolutely. Only on a day when I have a lot of patience though!

I've been picturing hot pink nails with shredded gold leaf tips. In my head they looked like flames (everything looks like flames in my head - what's up with that?!). Judge for yourself!

My thumb went a little bit wrong, and ended up mostly gold. Apart from that, I'm actually really pleased with how these turned out. They look quite close to how they did in my head, they're nice and 'shreddy' (it's a word!), and apart from the fiddliness, they weren't actually too difficult to do.

I started with two coats of Barielle Now That's Hot! I then prepped the gold leaf, shredding it with tweezers and scissors. You have to be careful with even your breathing near gold leaf, because any air seems to carry it off! I forgot that, and accidentally coughed...bye bye bits of gold!

I applied some slow drying clear polish to about two thirds of my nail. I started with the best, pointiest shreds to get my nails looking like gold flames, then added more to the tips to make it more solid. Little flecks of the leaf did get stuck to my fingers, but I managed to get a few of them on the nail nearer the top, and I like the effect! Two coats of SV got it smooth...enough.

Next time I'm going to attempt gold and silver together. Famous last words...

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