DIY Speckled Nails

I can't find anywhere to buy Illamasqua Speckled polishes so thought I would try the amazing tutorial by Lucy's Stash on how to make your own. I used pastels from the butter London sweetie shop and Zoya Blu. A lesson I learnt is polish choice does matter. I don't have the Models Own pastels that were used in the tutorial and thought butter London were sheer enough but they weren't, Zoya Blu was even worse and far too opaque.

I followed the tutorial right up to adding a thin coat over the first coat of Nubar black polka dots. The thin coat completely covered the dots :(. So then I started dabbing at the wet coat with the polish brush and it removed enough to be able to see the dots. I had to repeat the process in the next step of adding the last polish where you do only place the polish in some areas. In the end I am happy with how they came out but do want to warn that not all polishes are equal and it may take a little more work to get the desired look. It wasn't really possible with Zoya Blu as it was to opaque and started to dig holes in the polish so I swapped to Essie Borrowed and Blue which worked much better than Zoya.

Colours Used

Pink (which worked the best) butter London - Fruit Machine - Index finger

Purple butter London - Molly Coddled - middle finger

Green butter London - Fiver - ring finger

orange butter London - Kerfuffle - pinkie

blue - Zoya Blu and Essie borrowed and Blue - pinkie

Dots - Nubar Black Polka Dots.

It's pretty with an Easter feel to it and it was worth the extra work :) Thanks Lucy's Stash for a great tutorial!

How to dab at polish to remove enough so that's it's slightly transparent.