Saturday, June 22, 2024

My Happy Place- Tropical Nail Design

Hello everyone! Hope everyone is having a good start to summer and trying to stay cool. Today on the blog we will be creating a tropical design, this is my favorite time of year summer and I always love to create beautiful topical designs. Even more so lately I have been dream of my happy place some where tropical, just seating by the ocean and of course swimming in the ocean too. If this is also your happy place then you will also love to create this nail design. 

Tropical Nail Design

Here are the polishes and nail art tools used for your happy place, a tropical nail design: 

Base and Top Coat- CND Stickey Base Coat and CND Super Shiney Top Coat. 

Polishes- Zoya-Splash- Maren, Zoya- Splash- Harbor, Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Hard to Get, OPI- La Paz-itively Hot, OPI- Hello Kitty- 5 Apples Tall, Sally Hansen- Triple Shine- Play Koi, Sally Hansen- Triple Shine- Lemon Shark, Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Black Hearts, and Holo Taco- Scattered Holo Taco.

Acrylic Paint- Black and white.

Nail Art Tools- Thin stripper and detail brush, two makeup sponge for gradients.

Tropical Nail Design

Apply a base coat to clean dry nails, and let that dry.

For this design we will first be applying our base colors and then do the gradients.

Polish- 

Thumb and Pinky Finger Nails- Light green polish (Zoya- Harbor)

Index, Middle, Ring Finger Nails- white polish (Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Hard to Get), we will be polishing these nails white to help the colors, mainly yellow to show up better and to pop. 

Let that dry.

Tropical Nail Design

Tropical Nail Design

Ocean Gradient on the Thumb and Ring Finger Nails:

First we will start off with the ocean design which is the most simple part of this design. Take a makeup sponge and first polish the same color as the base color the light green polish (Zoya- Harbor) then right next to that color polish a darker blue (Zoya- Maren). Then dab the sponge on the nails, both the thumb and pinky finger nails, you will need to do this a few time to be opaque. 

For the small wave details, take a stripper brush with white paint on it and make a few wavy lines in random spots on the nail so it looks like waves, then what I did was take a clean detail brush and right away try and smudge the line so it kind of look more like a wave. 

Lastly to give the ocean more of a sparkle look, you can apply a scatter holo top coat. 

Tropical Nail Design

Tropical Island Design, the Sunset Gradient: 

First we will start off with the gradient, just like the ocean gradient we just did we will first make a sunset gradient. Take another makeup sponge, first polish a pink (OPI- La Paz-itively Hot), a red (OPI- Hello Kitty- 5 Apples Tall), a Orange (Sally Hansen-Play Koi,) lastly a yellow (Sally Hansen-Lemon Shark) on to the sponge. 

With the pink staring at the cuticle dab the sponge on the nails, you will need to repeat this step a few time to be opaque. As you can see the gradient I did on my nails the pink showed up a lot more on the ring nail and not so much on the middle and index nail. 

Tropical Nail Design

Ocean Water:

For the ocean water if you have a small part of your sponge that is clean you can use that, or you can cut some of your already used sponge to make a fresh piece of sponge. Take the darker blue that you used for your ocean and polish that on your sponge and then dab that on the tip of the nails, the reason that we dab the blue on with a sponge, is I feel like it give a more wave look to the water.  

Tropical Nail Design

Palm Trees:

For our final detail for our design, we will create some palm trees on the index nail make one palm tree on the left side of the nail, the middle finger nail two palm trees one taller then the other, then on the ring finger nail make one palm tree on the right side of the nail. 

This time I will describe how to create a palm tree, I feel like it has been a while since I fully explained how to paint a palm tree.  

Take a thin stripper brush with black paint on it make long thin line for your tree stump, then make two curved lines at the top of that line, two more short ones from those line, then a short line for those two line. For the leaves we need to make very small thin line that are very close together, I feel like if you make your line some what close together, but not to close it can look like a blob or a cool looking palm leaf. 

Once you your palm trees are done we need to make some land for your palm trees to be on. Take a black polish and swipe it on the tip of the nail kind of like a messy French manicure the line doesn't need to be straight. 

Lastly for the final touches on the water we need to make a few lines for the waves, take your stripper brush with white paint on it make just a few lines in the water. Then for an added sparkle take that same scattered holo polish and polish that on to your water. 

Tropical Nail Design

Once your nails are tropical vacation ready apply a top coat to seal in your design and to help it to last through your vacation. 


Here is the practice version of My Happy Place. 😊🏝️

Hope all of you enjoyed this tropical nail design!

See you next time for more nail fun! 

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