Today is officially the start of Shark Week!

Do you usually catch the series on the Discovery Channel? Will you be sporting shark nails?

Since I had wanted to do some nail art, Shark Nail Art seemed appropriate now.

It’s a super easy design that doesn’t require a lot of tools or colours. (You probably already have all the colours to create these shark nails because they’re staples.)

You can just do one shark on an accent nail, however, whenever I do freehand nail art, I enjoy painting all my nails because it gives me more practice, and I love seeing the variations from nail to nail – the human touch.

I was inspired by the shark nails by Bethany from Beauty Junkie. (Go check out her cute shark nails!)

In this post, I share with you swatches of this look, and then further down, I show you step-by-step with photos and written instructions how you can easily recreate it with my Shark Nail Art Tutorial.

Hope you enjoy this freehand nail tutorial!

Hehe, look at the baby shark on my pinkie finger. He’s a bit of a messy eater! 😉 Makes me laugh!

Shark Nail Art Swatches

All swatches have:

• OPI Nail Envy Maintenance Nail Strengthener (Used as a base coat)
• OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook (Blue)
• OPI My Signature Is “DC” (Silver)
• OPI I STOP for OPI (Red)
• OPI Angel with a Leadfoot (White)
• OPI Who Are You Calling Bossy?!? (Black)
• KBShimmer Clearly on Top Quick Dry Top Coat

Artificial Light Photos

Natural Light Photos

*~* Shark Nail Art Tutorial *~*

What I Used:

• OPI Nail Envy Maintenance Nail Strengthener (Used as a base coat)
• OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook (Blue)
• OPI My Signature Is “DC” (Silver)
• OPI I STOP for OPI (Red)
• OPI Angel with a Leadfoot (White)
• OPI Who Are You Calling Bossy?!? (Black)
• KBShimmer Clearly on Top Quick Dry Top Coat
• OPI Dotting Tool
• 2 Nail Art Brushes
• Piece of foil (to be used as a palette)

Note: I purchased the base coat, as well as the brushes. The OPI colours and dotting tool were provided by PR in the past. (The ones I’ve reviewed in the past have links to the individual posts.) The KBShimmer top coat was provided by Harlow & Co.

Step 1: After Applying a Base Coat, Paint All Your Nails Blue

You don’t necessarily have to paint your nails blue. Use whatever colour you have that will contrast against the other shades.

I chose OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook because I remembered the formula being easy to work with, and it reminded me of the water. (Click the link if you want to see my old in-depth review I did on it way back in 2012. The polish is from the OPI Euro-Centrale Collection.)

Step 2: Begin Painting Your Sharks

You can paint these using the brush directly from the bottle, but I wanted to create some guidelines first.

To do this, I used a nail art brush to draw a triangle with the tip pointing towards my cuticles. Then, I took the regular brush from the silver polish to fill it in.

I used the piece of aluminum foil as a palette to hold a few drops of silver nail polish. Then, I’d dip my nail art brush into it. (I like doing this more than just dipping the nail art brush into the bottle.)

You could use a grey, creme nail polish, but I wanted extra dimension, so I went with a blingy, sparkly silver, OPI My Signature Is “DC”. It’s from the Coca-Cola Collection.

Tip: If you use a creme base colour, you can make your sharks sparkly. But, if you used a glittery or sparkly base colour, I recommend using a creme for your sharks. Using this rule of contrast will help your design show up better.

Step 3: Give Your Sharks Big Mouthes

Using a red (preferably a red that’s bright, not vampy), use the brush from the bottle to paint mouthes in semi-circles near the tips.

I used OPI I STOP for OPI, which is from the Brights 2015 Collection.

Step 4: Give Your Sharks Sight

I put a few drops of OPI Who Are You Calling Bossy?!? onto the piece of foil, and then used my OPI dotting tool to place two dots above the mouth. (This black polish is from the OPI Peanuts Collection.)

Step 5: Become a Shark Dentist

Here’s the really fun part because you can be really messy!

Placing some white nail polish onto the piece of foil, I then dipped my OPI dotting tool into it. I then touched the dotting tool onto my nail and then dragged slightly to make teeth all along the mouthes.

Tip: Instead of a dotting tool, you could also use a nail art brush. However, if you’re like me and have shaky hands, I suggest using a dotting tool because you’ll have greater control.

The white nail polish I used was OPI Angel with a Leadfoot, which is from the OPI Ford Mustang Collection.

Step 6: Add Luscious Lips to Your Sharks

I used a nail art brush dipped in the same white nail polish to line the mouthes.

Since the white teeth covered up too much of the red mouth on my little finger, I also took this time to go back in and add some red. Hehe, I love how the baby shark looks like a messy eater! 😉

Step 7: Add a Glossy Top Coat

Before adding your top coat, make sure that you wait a long time because you don’t want to smudge the design and ruin all your hard work!

While waiting, watch your favourite TV show, listen to music, or call a friend who you know loves to chit-chat! 😉

I put on the KBShimmer Clearly on Top Quick Dry Top Coat after about 50 minutes, which seems like a long time, but with all the thick layers of nail polish, I didn’t want to risk smudging it at the last moment.

Are you into Shark Week? Would you wear these shark nails? What are some freehand designs you’d like me to try my hand at?