Marni used a pale, muted, creamy pink to create the ethereal look while Chloe and Miu Miu took it one step further with a modern, twist to the classic manicure - a short french manicure!The french manicure, first created by ORLY 30 years ago, is still the mani-of-choice when it comes to the duo work or big event appropriate look. The neutral color flatters many skin tones and the fresh, sophisticated allure of a clean white tip is any-age appropriate. The one big drawback, now solved, has been the length that was required to pull off the look - parrafin tips are just way too scary and SO not good for your nails!
Follow the below tips to get an easy salon-perfect short French Manicure of S/S '07:1. Prep nails by pushing back cuticles and moisturizing with an intensive hand & nail formula. Go natural with Almond Oil drops to the cuticles. For a short French Mani, you need all the length & smooth fingertip skin as you can get!
2. Swipe a base coat with a bonding agent that will keep the white tips from chipping easily.
3. Put a light coat of sheer, creamy pink or beige (for asian skin, make sure the beige is a more "cappacino-latte white" than i-can't-believe-it's-not-butter yellow to flatter skin tone). Essie Sugar Daddy www.essie.com is a great base pink for short French Manis and SpaRitual's Airy Sopranos collection colours are all great by itself or with the white tip. www.sparitual.com
4. Dip a thin art brush, preferably with a 25-50 hair count, in an ultra-white nail lacquer formula and swipe across the edge of the nail. The thin brush, available at any art store, is much easier to control and allows you to create a natural looking thin white line at the tip rather than turning your entire top 1/2 of the short nails white. SpaRitual's Ultra-white French Tip already comes with an easy-to-use thin art brush for the short manicure. Moreover, the formula has a bonding agent so that the white tip doesn't come off as easily - genius!
5. Once the white tips have dried, coat the nail with another layer of the base colour OR if the initial pink was too strong, coat with a lighter beige or creme coat to reduce the tone, if it was too creamy for your skin tone, use a slightly more shaded sheer pink formula to amp up the flirty look.
6. Apply a Glossy top coat to seal in the deal and give your short nails a ethereal ingenue touch. Try ORLY Glosser for a glossy sheen that lasts.
Toss on a sheer flock or short beige shorts with a cremy sheer top, accent with a bright coloured piece of jewelry or wedges and you're good to go for spring season!
xox
