My past 5 consecutive blog posts have all been about nail polish, and this lacquer train isn’t stopping yet!
Whenever nail polish is concerned, I find it incredibly fun and creative. Hope you do, too. Have you done any nail art?
Since we’re entering summer soon and since I wanted to bust out several colors I bought a long time ago, I thought it was a good time to share my Watermelon Nail Art with you.
I almost didn’t post it because it turned out verrrry sloppy. But, y’know what? It’s not about having the perfect manicure. It’s about having fun and realizing that as long as you enjoy wearing it, that’s all that matters. 🙂
Sure, it’s definitely not the neatest. And I had to use a dotting tool instead of a proper striping brush or nail-art pen (hence the shaky white lines and crappy black seeds). But the results still brought a smile to my face and made me want to eat some watermelon.
If you try this, please share your photos of it with me. I love seeing other people getting creative!
Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the tutorial section where I show you step-by-step how I created this look. And let me know if you have some tips and tricks to share. I’m always trying to improve.
Watermelon Nail Art Swatches
- Base Coat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
- Red: Nubar Fire Sparkle
- Green: China Glaze Watermelon Rind
- White: OPI Alpine Snow
- Black: OPI Black Onyx
- Top Coat (not on all swatches): Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
Natural Light
Flash
Natural Light
Natural Light
Flash & No Top Coat
Flash
Flash & No Top Coat
Natural Light
*~* Watermelon Nails Tutorial *~*
What I Used:
- Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
- OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
- OPI Alpine Snow (white creme)
- OPI Black Onyx (black creme)
- Nubar Fire Sparkle (red glitter)
- China Glaze Watermelon Rind (green glitter)
- Orly French Manicure White Tip Guides
- Dotting tool (although it’s way better if you have a striping brush instead for the white polish)
Step 1: Apply base coat & section off your nails.
The nail guides are optional. You can totally freehand it if you want. I didn’t because I dug up these old nail guides that I had never used before and didn’t want to waste.
Yay for stained nails, right? 😛 Future review post coming on the culprit that did this even though I was wearing a base coat!
Step 2: Apply your red-creme or red-glitter polish.
Step 3: Peel off nail guides (if you used ’em) & paint your tips with the green-glitter or green-creme polish.
Step 4: Fill in the dividing section with your white-creme polish.
I used my dotting tool to apply the white polish. But if you have a striping brush or one of those white nail-art pens, use that and your results will be waaaay better.
Step 5: Create black seeds with your dotting tool, striping brush, or nail-art pen.
Step 6: Apply a shiny top coat to seal it all & increase your manicure mileage.
Super Quick Nubar Fire Sparkle Review
It catches the light as you would expect from a coarse glitter polish. Plan to use a thick top coat with this so that the gritty finish doesn’t annoy you. Plus the top coat really brings out the brilliance of the glitter, so you shouldn’t skip this step. And yeah, it’s going to be a pain to remove because the glitter is chunky.
This isn’t dense glitter, so you’ll need at least 2 coats to achieve the depth shown in my swatches.
Super Quick China Glaze Watermelon Rind Review
This pretty green glass-fleck polish isn’t gritty like Nubar Fire Sparkle. It goes on sheer, so expect to use a minimum of 2 coats or layer it over another color.
What do you think about these watermelon nails? Have you tried other fun summer nail art using other fruits as inspiration? Does this look Christmasy to you, too?
These are really cute. I would totally try them if I didn’t just do a 4 color patchwork manicure. Tape manicures are so tiresome!
Poetic Realist recently posted: Tiresome Patchwork Mani
Hey Poetic Realist!
Thank you – glad you liked it.
And I took a look at your patchwork manicure – it’s looks great to me! I don’t think I’d get tired of tape manicures ever. 🙂 The color combination you chose really looks wonderful.
I love the way they look when they’re finished, but it took me almost 2 hours to paint my nails. I think I’ll stick to 3 colors in the future or less.
Poetic Realist recently posted: Tiresome Patchwork Mani
Your hard work paid off! 😀 It’s very inspiring.
Thanks!! I plan on doing some nail art again soon just as soon as I catch up on sleep.
Poetic Realist recently posted: Spellbinding Nails Giveaway
I look forward to seeing it. 🙂
So cute and summery!
Natalie recently posted: Family Party Weekend!
Hey Natalie!
Thanks – been wanting to try watermelon nail art for a long time. I should’ve bought a brush or nail-art pen for the white, though.
Will you be trying out any fruit nail designs this summer?
That’s cute!
I hate eating watermelon, but I have a thing with watermelon themed things. One of my fave pairs of summer earrings are little watermelon slices. They are pink for the melon flesh part, so I guess you could sub in a glittery pink and avoid the whole christmas-ish-ness!
Hey Bailey!
*Gasp* You hate eating watermelon? Because it’s messy sometimes or you don’t like the taste? :O
Aww…watermelon-slice earrings sounds sooooo cute! Do you have any pictures of them?
Oh yeah! I didn’t even think to use a glittery pink. That’s a good call! Hmm…don’t have too many glittery pinks in my collection. What a good excuse to get one! 😛
This is SO cute!!! OMG I totally want to try these now! Thanks for the tutorial, Mary! 😀
Ruthe recently posted: LA Girl Groupie
Hey Ruthe!
Glad that you found the tutorial useful. If you try it out, please show me! 😀
Have you tried strawberry nail art? I always think they look so cute, but I can’t do it until I get a proper brush or nail-art pen…or the lines will be shaky like the watermelon ones.
OMG strawberry nail art?!?? That would look so adorable!! I’ve never actually thought about fruit-themed nails, but it’s definitely an interesting and awesome idea! I would love to see you do strawberry nails! 😀
Or…it would be fun to do ‘fruit salad’ nail art where each nail has a different fruit and background color. You could have green nail polish and then a kiwi image, yellow nail polish and then a banana image, etc. Oh, now I totally want to try this out. But I need to buy some brushes first. 🙂
I think you are now my favorite blogger. I love looking through your past posts. such cute nail art! I agree, if you enjoy your nails then that’s all that matters! I actually painted my ring finger into a watermelon the other day. Here’s how they look:
http://i55.tinypic.com/4jstas.jpg
I couldn’t dot the darn watermelon seeds for the life of me so I picked up some of the glitter chunks from OPI-Crown me already and applied them with a toothpick.
Hey Vivian!
WOW! That is such a HUGE compliment! I’m so flattered – thanks for saying that! 😀 I really appreciate your support. It helps motivate me a lot.
Your watermelon nails are so neatly painted, and I like how you used glitter for the seeds. It adds a special touch to the overall look. Well done! And thanks for showing me. I love seeing other people’s creativity at work. 🙂