You’ll remember that a few days ago, I shared a fishtail braid nail-art tutorial with step-by-step instructions and photos. It featured dark colours.
This time, I decided to try Summery Fishtail Braid Nails with a brighter palette.
Originally I wanted to use green, pink, and silver, but I sadly couldn’t find my bottle of China Glaze Millennium! *Sniff sniff* So, I used white instead because it would provide some contrast.
In this post, I’ll show you more photos of this manicure. But, but more importantly, I’ll share some extra tips and tricks that I learned while doing this a second time around so that your attempt will be smooth sailing. 🙂
Summery Fishtail Braid Nails Swatches
All swatches have:
- Nubar Foundation Base Coat
- 3 coats of Orly Fresh (Provided by BeautyStopOnline)
- Stripes
- Green: Orly Fresh
- Pink: OPI If You Moust You Moust (Provided by PR)
- White: China Glaze Snow
- Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
Hope you enjoyed this different colour combination. It really reminds me of summer, but I can see how it could look spring-ish, too.
For Christmas, you could easily use green, white, and red for a festive look. 🙂 It would be an interesting twist on candy-cane nails.
P.S. If you haven’t seen my step-by-step Fishtail Braid Tutorial, go check it out. You’ll want to try it out in tons of different colour combos! 😉
Additional Tips for Creating Fishtail Braid Nails
- Pigmented Polish: I recommend using more pigmented polishes so that you won’t have to do 2 coats of every single stripe.
- Thicker Stripes: I used thinner stripes here, and it takes a significantly longer time to complete the manicure since you have to paint more stripes per nail. Also, the more stripes there are, that means more polish is overlapping. This leads to the lacquer on your nails being very thick. I suggest using thicker lines like in my tutorial or even thicker than that.
- Colours on Your Tips: Although no manicure is perfect, try to keep the lines as even as possible so that you end up with the same 2 colours in the tips of all your nails (except your thumbs – you may need more stripes on those).
Random Note: After wearing this manicure, I trimmed my nails. Haha, they start to look wonky when they grow long.
How long have you ever grown your nails? Will you be getting on board the fishtail braid trend yet? Do you like this brighter colour combination? (I think this one pops more, but I like the richness of the other version I did.)
Those look great Mary! They almost remind me of those “fishbone” braids you see some people sporting these days (which I don’t think I would EVER have the patience to tackle). I will be trying these braids again very shortly, maybe on the weekend 🙂 Thanks for the tips 😀
(and because the “comment luv” doesn’t work for me, here is my latest blog post: http://www.ericasnailsandmore.blogspot.com/2012/07/im-melting.html)
Hey Erica!
Thank you! Same here – when it comes to braiding hair, that’s a whole other thing!
So weird how CommentLuv isn’t working for you. 🙁 I have no idea why not. Did you try clearing out your computer’s cookies and/or trying to comment using a different computer?
I like them! Some of my nails are shorter than others, so some of them looked a little off, but this is such a cute idea! I love it!
Brianna recently posted: Summer Fun Challenge- Day 8: Fun in the Sun
Hey Brianna!
Definitely this is my favourite nail trend in a long time. I think that anyone can participate in this because it doesn’t require tons of colours and you don’t even need special tools. Yay for nail art for everyone! 🙂
This is so cute I’m going to try it. Thank you for a new outfit for my nails:)
Hey Samatha!
Woo hoo! Happy painting! 🙂
This manicure looks so pretty and fun!
To answer your question, I have let my nails grow extremely long. To the point that I could not comfortably hold a pen. Now I keep them decent length, since I work in a lab, but still want my pretty long nails since I don’t spend all my time in the lab! 😛
I may try this out this weekend, but I’m not sure. I did just get three brand new polishes that would look good together though…
Hey Angie!
It’s good to hear that your work doesn’t completely define you or your life. That’s refreshing! I know that a lot of people make work their whole life, but that’s not really a healthy way to live. Everyone is so much more outside the lab, office, etc.
Hehe, but I’m giggling now thinking about you with some crazy 12-inch talons holding a beaker in the lab. 😉 Hope the contents aren’t explosive!
Sounds like pretty good timing to me. TRY IT! TRY IT! TRY IT! 😀
Look at you, sporting pink! 😉 I keep seeing these fishtail braided manis and they keep making me want to try them! But wow, you make it look soooo easy. My only concern is how my dominant hand will look. 😛 But I’ll definitely give these a go (maybe with neons? I don’t think I’ve sported them enough this summer!) and keep your tips in mind. Great post, as always!
Carmela recently posted: Nail Art Wednesday: Shooting Star Nails
Hey Carmela!
I know, right? I think the only reason I was fine sporting pink was because the green was mixed in there, too. 😉 Green makes everything better in my world.
This design IS easy. It’s just tedious, especially if you make the lines really thin like this. I really suggest doing them thicker so it’s faster and you don’t age while painting your nails. 😉
Oh, I’d love to see a neon fishtail braid manicure on you.
P.S. Doing this design on your dominant hand isn’t too difficult as long as you take your time. Don’t rush! I wore this as a full manicure – both hands were identical. You just need to rest the palm on a flat, stable surface. That will help you make cleaner lines. At least that’s my ‘trick’. (My hands are seriously VERY shaky, and this ‘trick’ is the only thing that works for me.)
I love this look, the color combo reminds me of Lily Pullitzer clothes! So summery. You must have the patience of a saint and the steady hand of a surgeon.
Hey ProcrastinatingAgain!
Hehe, funny name. 😉
Haha, when it comes to nail art, yes, I’m very patient, but my hands are very shaky. I find that resting my palm while painting helps to steady my hand a lot!
The summery fishtail braid nails featured in this article are absolutely captivating! The intricate design and vibrant colors truly evoke the essence of the summer season.