Tuxedo Nails

My husband’s holiday party was last Saturday night, and while I wore black pants and a sparkly black sweater with heels, my nails were dressed formally in tiny tuxedos, accented with a rhinestone in the center of each bowtie. I also did the undersides of my nails red, but didn’t get a good shot of those. The “finished” picture you see here was taken with (drum roll, please)…the new digital camera we bought this weekend! I should be able to get much better nail shots now, as soon as I learn how to use our new toy…

I took some pictures of the steps I went through to get this look, in case anyone is interested. I used Sinful colors this time, because I just can’t afford to buy *all* OPI! Unfortunately, I did have some bubbling, possibly due to the OPI topcoat over the Sinful polishes.

What I used:
1 coat OPI basecoat
1 coat Sinful Snow Me White
1 coat Sinful Tokyo Pearl
Sinful Black on Black for the tips and buttons
StripeRite black for the bowties
2 coats OPI topcoat
First, a coat of the Snow Me White to create a white opaque base. Sinful polish is thick, so it was streaky going on, but with the pearlized finish going over the top, I didn’t worry about it.
Next, a coat of Tokyo Pearl to make the shirt finish more satiny. Yes, I know, I make a huge mess of my fingers when I’m polishing them. My secret is, I do them at night, then in the morning, I let the shower soften up the skin and polish on my cuticles, and pull/push the polish off my skin with a plastic orange stick I keep in the shower just for that purpose. Voila, nice looking manicure.
Next, French chevron tips in Black on Black. I don’t use a guide or anything, I just start at the side of my nail where the tip extends out from my fingertip, and brush it on diagonally out to the tip. I repeat on the other side, and then fill in any missed areas. I did have a little trouble with the thick nature of the polish, which is why I didn’t do dress fronts on some fingers too – too difficult to control curved lines with this polish.
Then I did the bowties with my black StripeRite polish. I should have taken a picture of the brush – it’s very long, and skinny, perfect for drawing lines. And that’s just what I did to make the bowties. I drew a small elongated “x” at the base of each fingernail, then filled it in with lines inside those one at a time. You can see in the finished picture that they aren’t the neatest lines ever, but they aren’t too bad.
After that, time for the buttons. I waited to do the buttons last, so that I could use them to “straighten” the lines between the “jacket” and the bowtie. I just brushed a little Black on Black onto a piece of plastic, then used my dot tool (toothpick works too) to make three dots on each nail. That gives the illusion of a straight line in most places.
After all the main art dried, I brushed a coat of topcoat over each nail, placing a rhinestone in the center of the bowtie as I went along. I let that sit for a few minutes, then put one more thicker coat of topcoat over the whole thing to set it.

So there you have it – tuxedo nails, start to finish. My hubby loved them, and had me showing them to everyone at the party…they were a big hit! I’ll keep them until Friday (Thurs. is my birthday – dinner at my parent’s house). The edges are shrinking a bit, but they should be okay until then. I have my nail stampers, so next time, I’ll do some stamped nail art. I placed a way-too-big order for Zoya polishes from Art of Beauty last week, and they should be here Thursday, so something fun from their line for the base color, I think.