Nail: Scale/Snakeskin (Magnetic Polish)

Magnetic polishes have been around for a while, but they’re new to me. I picked up one at Sephora last month and was fortunate enough to find that Rexall had another brand  on clearance for $4. I picked up only one colour, but I’ve been dying to go back and get the rest.

You could achieve this look with a plain metallic polish, but I found the magnetic brought the magic.

For this look I used:

• Wet’n’Wild base coat
• Layla Magneffect in “09 - Golden Bronze”
• O.P.I “Glitzerland”
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear “Ivy League”
• Kiss Nail Paint in Black
• Fing’rs Top Coat

Annnd thank you, Chad, for being my lovely model tonight :D If a man truly loves you, he’ll let you paint his nails if you pout long enough. 

After applying your base coat, apply your magnetic or metallic shade. These magnetic polishes dry quickly and you have limited time to achieve your effect, so you’ll need to apply a quick coat and hold the magnet over top for a few seconds immediately after. Take care not to get the magnet in your wet polish.

For the hand that was already finished, I took the pale golden colour, Glitzerland and applied a stripe near the edge of the nail and placed a stripe in the same place in each nail, sort of like a highlight. I did not do this with the green colour, Ivy League, until the “sample nail” for photos because it was quicker. Initially, I had just filled in random scales with Ivy League. To save time for photos I just applied a stripe on the opposite side of the Glitzerland stripe. Does that make sense?

Now you’ll take your black, or your darker colour for drawing on the scales. If you don’t have a polish with a long skinny brush you could try a nail art brush, paint brush, or even a Q-Tip. A Q-Tip will work but you have to work carefully. The pictures illustrate how I drew the scales to be overlapping.

Now you can fill in scales with different sections of colour, shade or detail however you like. You could even use blues and greens to go for an aquatic/mermaid look. Maybe some oranges and golds for an exotic oriental dragon motif. There are about a million colour schemes to choose from. Just have fun <3 

-H. Cat