R.E.P.O. nails tutorial

Thirty tutorials already, and I've been doing that thing that the round numbers have a tutorial with a bigger scale or concept, usually in videogames. This time, we're going to be doing one of the playable robots that you can be on R.E.P.O., or die trying... which being that game, it'll probably happen a lot:

 

First, I need to issue a formal apology: I couldn't pay that much attention to this tutorial's photos because I did it live, so for the (bad) camera to see it, I painted quite differently as usual. But that also means you have this:

 

 

That means that I forgot to take some pictures of steps for you, but I can explain everything that has happened, and you can refer to the video or ask me if something doesn't make much sense. Let's review the polishes I used. All of them are drugstore for me, I wanted this to be easy to follow:

 

You will basically need a metallic shade, a similar shade in hue, a darker shade, off white, black and white. Mine are:

• Kiko Milano's Mirror 627
• Wild & Young (previously known as Pinkduck) Wild Life's Nº406
• Wild & Young (previously known as Pinkduck) Into the Party's Nº537
• Wild & Young (previously known as Pinkduck) Sweet PWR's Nº398
• Deliplus' DUO Nº900 (only the black crème)
• Deliplus' BASE Nº860

I mention Wild & Young's previous name because the big majority of my bottles from them were before the rebrand, but as far as I've seen in store, they still sell the same shades and branding aside from their logo. My Nº537 is a new acquisition into my collection, but the other two have been owned for years already!

But the main piece here is the metallic. I've explained this on stream a couple of times, but metallics can be either more shimmery metallic or an effect more akin to chrome. This polish I have owned for more than 10 years is the latter and clearly I don't wear it enough, so I wanted to give it its time to shine (geddit) and go for it. This kind of polishes generally have a high opacity, so one coat was enough for me.

To add the distressed effect, I will give you a really easy way to do so: Remember grabbing an irregular piece of sponge to add nebular effects that I have used recently? I teach it in detail in the Holographic Space tutorial but I also used it for my Seafoam nails. In this case, we're gonna use the technique more sparingly. We barely want spots because we still want the base to be prominent, and the low contrast in hue is intentional, we're creating visual texture between the different finishes, not colours:

 Now, to resemble the different sections on your character, you want to add two thin stripes, to separate head from torso from a short abdomen. Also, a thicker line to signify the mouth. You can go two thinner lines and paint the mouth in the expression you want, too. I'd add that my proportions were a little off due to camera, and my colour was not perfectly picked. I would have used a slightly lighter shade to not make the contrast so apparent, but I just didn't have one on hand. Look at that, always looking gaps in my collection!

The photo also adds a couple of white circles, I'll explain them later:

 Let's go for the eyes now, because it's the only thing missing. The eyes from these constructs are REAL big in comparison, and that's what I wanted. They also have a clear shiny spot, so that's why I went for an off white, to allow myself to have a white dot for the shine. The last step would be adding the small black spots for the pupils and white spots for the shines. I used the same size, as I felt it appropiate:

I wanted to make it look to the side, to add to the goofiness of it all. If you're doing a manicure with different colours, try to make them have different expressions too! That'd be super fun!

I apologize for the subpar tutorial this time, but streaming this tutorial and having those injuries on my fingers distracted me to have better photos and of course the missing ones in the process, and I hope the video makes up for that. I have a couple of ideas for next tutorials, so I hope you like them when they drop! 

Beach Stripes nails tutorial

 Today's nail is a very very simple look to achieve with your striping tape. For lots of beach related items and structures, like parasols, towels or dressing rooms, I always see these wide stripes in white and a saturated colour, so I wanted to give it a try!

You can see a couple of mistakes but I will point at its reasons as we go, so you can do as I say, and not as I do. The first mistake is the polish selection:

The mistake is using a not very opaque in one coat green, actually. It's a great polish, don't get me wrong, specially for the price point, but it needs those two coats. This polishes are:

• Deliplus Base Nº860
• Wild & Young (previously known as Pinkduck) XOX Nº11

Let's start painting our nail with the white, as it will always be the lightest shade, and apply a quick dry top coat. Let dry:

 You can see that on the corner there's a little dent on my nail. That will come to play in a min. The next step involves striping tape. I got many years ago a set that includes 6 different shades of iridescent striping tape in 3 different sizes. The widest one is about 2mm wide, and that's what I used for this nail. You will see in the pictures that is a little bit thick for other uses or for encasing. I used a colour I know I will not want to use on my nails that much, in this case, it was iridescent yellow-orange:

 

These swatch sticks are quite unnaturally curved in the base, so sticking them in place was difficult. That will make this process harder, but don't rush it. Also, be sure to leave a somewhat generous lip outside of the nail to remove it easier, either with tweezers or your fingers. Try to make the gaps between the stripes the same width as the tape itself. A method to achieve it is to place a whole nail of tape stripes and then peel every other one, but my nail, as I said, was too curved.

If you're avid, you can also see that the stripe on the right cannot lie flat. That's an issue of the little dent I was talking about previously. Do the best job you can, and then paint over it with your second colour. I did a thick coat due to opacity issues, which resulted in some bleeding. Peel your tape carefully but quickly, don't wait for it to start drying!

As I said, minor bleeding issues generally and a big mess on that section to the right due to the scrape on the surface. If something like this happens, have your clean up brush ready, with minimal acetone, and carefully make those edges sharp. Let dry generously before applying your top coat! That will level your layers and help seal it properly!

This look is deceptively simple. Making straight lines is not easy, but nail vinyls or striping tape will help achieve this without precision work... after applying them properly. My best advice is to not rush its application. If the tape is not applied where you want it, you can't expect the lines to be how you want them!

I will see you next week with another nail tutorial, which one? Who knows! Suggest! 

Wedding Holographic French nails tutorial

This week I had a wedding to attend and not much time to do an innovative groundbreaking tutorial, so let's review what I did on my nails to go there. I wanted to wear my nails in an appropiate way with a polish of the shade of my shirt (or dress, for you) but with a bit of an extra nail art. The solution is the most classic of nail arts, french nails, but with an extra curvature to make it look more elongated and elegant:

 

I opted for a shiny, festive yet elegant look with a deep french. I achieved this with nail vinyls that are shaped like that instead of the regular ones. Let's review my choices after we see the polishes I used:

I used these three polishes:

• Holo Taco's Mint Money
• Holo Taco's Everything Taco
• Holo Taco's Circuit Breaker

So, I wanted to match my shirt, which was a mint green that looks almost exactly the same as the colour my Mint Money tarnished to. 

 

I've seen debates about Holo Taco's frosted metals tarnishing and that some do more than others. This Mint Money bottle is my second one, and the first one tarnished in the exact same way. The bristles from my bottle lost its colour into the base and they look brown right now. This only affected ever so slightly the base colour of my polish, and my previous bottle for comparison got worse with time, but never off of a mint shade.

 

My bottles of Gift Receipt and Frozen Benanas also did the same. Specially Gift Receipt, the silver frosted metal. If I leave that bottle without shaking for a bit, the top liquid is brown. But shaking it up makes it integrate and the product looks silver. The flakes may feel a bit smaller, too. Frozen Benanas did change its base from a very yellow gold to a more neutral-warm gold, which I personally prefer! With Foiled Again and Blacklisted, my other two frosted metals, I don't have data.

 

But I DO have two bottles of Foiled Again, one opened and one never opened. Maybe I'll get back to you in some months to run experiments on it!

 

Anyways, get your base to opacity, I'd suggest to use the same shade as your shirt or dress:

 

 I added a coat of Everything Taco because I felt like it was festive and Mint Money could have a bit of fun with some holo and iridescence!

 

 

Remember the rules of nail vinyls: Always quick dry top coat, always wait for it to be dry. Depending on the quality of your top coat, this can be from 15 minutes to an hour or more, so I wouldn't skimp on the quick dry part for this step. After that, proceed into putting your nail vinyl in the desired spot to leave your french available to paint:

 

Secure it firmly. I did a second press after that picture because those sides were touching the table below! Then, proceed painting your other polish and remove the vinyl as soon as possible. Don't let it dry. That's why you don't have a pic of that mid process, actually.

 

Because my shirt was light, mistakes with the positioning would be less evident. Also, I'd say that a silver linear holo is a nice way to add a bit of extra to your french tips without it being white. You can't see the holo flash there because of the position of my light and the cast shadow of my camera on the tip of the nail, but I can assure you it is holographic.

Wait, why assuring you when I can just show you? I already told you, I wore this for a wedding! Have pics of the nails! My right hand has a broken and reconstructed nail, but my pics are from my left hand, no issues! And also, my swatch sticks are square, my natural nails are almond. I think.

 

 And now, with a bit of flash!

 

Anyways, those were my nails, I won't show you the rest of the fit or anything, but I had fun at the celebration and I'm so happy my friends are happy marrying each other, I don't have anything extra meaningful to say here aside from congratulations!

 

Next week my post will be in time. I hope! Thanks for reading and I hope you found my secret recipe for elegant appropiate nails and glam up the polish that looks like your dress!

 

What I wore in June 2025?

Welcome to possibly my shortest post here, because I committed heresy and only did two new manicures last month!

Starting on June 6th, I got gifted a neon green polish in a very interesting colour way in my collection. It is totally drugstore, it's actually a nail polish sold in Lidl:

It's Cien Neon Splash in Sea Green, and I've been told that this one is not even close to be the brightest, but it was green. I love it.

I did a cartoon manicure, so you can see where the last tutorial comes from:

 You can see that I added a shadow of a darker teal, but my shakiness made me skip that step for my tutorial. All these polishes are from local drugstores and dollar stores, so it's no use naming them! I also can tell you that this manicure made me realise that my nails grow in very unappealing ways when I let them go oval, like curving differently and such. I had my grandpa's birthday to attend on the 15th, so I changed my nail shape.

If oval is not working due to the sides... what if I don't have those sides? And that's how I ended up with almonds. For nail art, I was thinking of doing something with gradients and, well, you have already seen that tutorial, it's the same exact scaled gradient that I posted last month using Holo Taco's crushed holos:

 

I think this nail shape looks quite nice on me, and it also helps me prevent chipping, somehow. This mani lasted until the end of the month without noticeable chips! But sadly, I will tell you that... one of my nails broke.

It's on dominant hand, and as I take pics of my non-dominant hand, you will probably not notice, but I am currently holding it back with glue and teabags to attend a wedding this weekend. Pray for me, because the break is deep and it exposes my hyponichium, but this is a temporary solution and I feel it's pressuring my nail plate, so I'll probably cut them short after it.

 I'm at that point in which I like them long but these breaks not only get to my nails but also my heart, and I'm afraid of messing up my nail matrix, so I may consider letting them short and tidy, probably in an oval shape, but I don't have that decided and to shape them I'll have to wait for that traitor growing out enough to let the free edge be manageable.

In any case, I have been wearing the same manicure since July first. Spoilers: I'm using polishes from a recent collab of a mainstream brand! 

Cartoon Cellshade nails tutorial

 Welcome to a blast from the past. If you've been orbiting the nail community for some years, you'd probably seen these but they're very simple to make, and ideal for bright colours, which seems to be summer appropiate. I'm not personally a seasonal polish wearer, if I want neon green I will wear it in the winter too, so my assumptions about seasonality are skewed, anyways:

 Get your matte top coat ready, because this look can be as simple or as complex as you'd like but your base products are your colour of preference, I used a neon green, and then black, white and a matte top coat.

Mine were from different drops from my local grocery store:

 They are:

• Deliplus Neon Nº218
• Deliplus Duo Nº900 (I didn't use the white topper, only the black crème)
• Deliplus Base Nº860

This nail art starts painting your nails to your base polish to opacity. Mine took three coats as this neon formula is a bit thin and in two I could see a couple of dark spots:

 The next step is the hardest, pick black polish and outline your nail. Don't worry too much about touching your cuticles, clean up will be there for you. Try to do your nails steady for the best effect, but I understand this requires extra practice:

 As you can see, my lines are not perfect, but close enough. Now, it's time for the white to shine. Literally! You want to apply matte top coat to this later, so that will take out all shine. The white will be there to imply it, that's the effect of the cellshading you are going for. Choose your light source, and do a couple dots or dashes where the light would hit your nail, hypothetically speaking. If you want references, try looking for cellshaded comics to see how they handle it!

 But we can't let the actual shine detract from our fake shine! Let them dry more than usual to avoid smearing the black and then apply a floated coat of quick dry top coat. Believe me, you'll thank me later. After it is dry-touch, apply to the smooth surface your matte top coat. The glossy one will prevent more smearing, as matte top coats tend to smear way more than glossy ones. Wait for it to dry and see the magic appear:

 You can customize it with more effects, like a polka dot pattern implying dithering, or stamping cartoon letters with contrasting colours, but this is the basic version from which you can build on. I will say that a skittle with bright colours in this style looks great if you're into colourful manicures, too!

Thanks for reading and enjoy summer more than me! This week we had a tough heat wave and I am a bit late to avoid messing up my nail polish formulas with opening them and letting hot air sip into the bottles and creating flash evaporations! In any case, next week I have an event so I may drop a tutorial of what I'm going to wear then, but I'm still not sure. Let me know if you'd like it anyways!