Summer Confetti Nails! (Tutorial w/pics)

Today I'm going to do a post that shows how to do a cute, easy and summery dotted manicure. I call it "Confetti Nails" (hopefully for obvious reasons):

This is the finished product! (Taken the last time I did this mani, last summer.)

But first:

Rumour has it that you can even use straight acetone from a
hardware store, but I've never been that desperate...

An important message about nail polish remover:

Acetone is your friend. It is the single most important thing to consider in a remover. If you don't have a good, acetone-based remover, doing your nails will be a painful and heartbreaking chore.

This is a picture of the remover I use, which I love sooo much that I bought a big 5-gallon jug of it, and just refill this little bottle when needed. You can only get it at Sally Beauty, and the big jug is about $27.

I have tried many drug store brands and, for me, they were all crap. If you find nail polish difficult to remove, and/or your fingers are stained afterwards, you are probably using Sally Hansen or Quo from Shoppers, and you are causing yourself a world of unnecessary pain. Good remover makes all the difference. Seriously.


Now for the NAILS!

What you will need:

Obviously, you are free to use whatever the hell colours you want!

• Orly Au Champagne: a nice pearl-ized white with a bit of shimmer
• Essie Mod Square (pink)
• Sally Hansen Lightening (yellow)
• Essie Bazooka (orange)
• Seche basecoat
• Essie Good-to-Go topcoat
• Dotting tool set
• Cotton balls and remover to clean dotting tools between uses
• Wax paper: palette for polishes

If you don't have a dotting tool set yet, be sure to check this out:

Super deal tool set, wish I needed this so I could buy it... 

$16, ships free within Canada. This site is my  number one place for polish and supplies, can't recommend them enough...

Sorry to anyone whose aesthetic senses are offended by my lack of fastidiousness.

STEP ONE:

Apply quick dry base, then 2 or 3 coats of the Orly.

Note my lack of cuticle concern. Know what my secret to cleaning them is? I DON'T! Just leave it be for 12-24 hours, and you can pick, peel, or let the edges fall off naturally. 

Less is more: a lesson I continue to struggle with.

STEP TWO:

Add pink dots! You should probably do one or two fewer dots of each colour than I did. I would have preferred the final product to be a little less crowded...but I'm not picky enough to go back and redo it.

The secret is to try to control yourself. I have problems with this often. :S

STEP THREE:

Add orange dots. For each colour, I used 3 sizes of dotting tool. I did the big ones first on all 10 fingers, then went back and did the medium ones, followed by the tiny ones last.

STEP FOUR: 

You guessed it! Add yellow dots!!!

Finish it off with 2 coats of a quick-dry topcoat, and you're DONE!

Yeah, so 4 hours after originally posting this to the blog, I realize
that this is actually the same picture that is beside Step 4 up there. :/

TA - DAAAA!!!

...and don't let those messy cuticles get you down, they'll be gone soon enough.

Now get pickin'!

Do you have a favourite manicure tool? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!! xoxo