Newspaper nail art tutorial and London inspired nail art for NEXT beauty

Recently I was invited to enter a competition by Next. Crazily, I was unaware that Next actually do beauty and got so excited when I heard that they do. I have quite a lot of perfumes from Next but never did I know that they did all of these amazing beauty products. I got their 'Gold Polish Library' which lets just say, includes more than just a 'gold polish', don't let the name deceive you. Inside this library, there are many vibrant colours, they're all the perfect size as well so you could easily pop them in your bag for a train journey etc, they're very practical. Recently, I've been experimenting with newspaper nail art and so many people have asked me how to do it, I figured out that this is my moment to show you all. Next asked me to use their varnishes to create 'London Inspired' nail art, and I think I hit that brief. Today, I am going to talk you through a step by step of newspaper nails, I do believe that this is a London inspired look because us Brits love to read the paper and with London been our capital city, what a better way to celebrate our British news corporations. 

So, as you can see newspaper nail art does look quite cool! And every time I show people they ask me how to do it so i'm going to do a written tutorial to compliment the video tutorial that I did earlier in the week. I will also show you the British flag nail art that I did.

STEP 1: You need to paint the nails white first (or whatever colour you like) *Make sure you don't do the varnish too thick, this will make it take longer to dry and make it prone to smudging!* but for the black to stand out and to ensure that it looks like an authentic newspaper, use Next's white nail varnish. I have used many nail varnishes and this one hasn't chipped after wearing it for a week. The liquid is quite thick as well which is a bonus as it means that you only need 2/3 layers for it to be a really bold colour. The drying time doesn't take too long but to be certain make sure you leave it until it is completely dry, otherwise the newspaper will stick to it and it will ruin your design. I get really impatient when waiting for varnishes to dry but with this, patience really is a virtue! To speed up the drying process run your nails under a hot tap (not too hot!) apparently that's meant to help speed it up but they don't take too long to dry anyway :)

STEP 2: After painting the nails white and once they are completely dry!!! Grab a newspaper or magazine. I chose one with the British flag in as I really wanted to try to transfer this design on my nails. I do find that newspaper works a lot better, the ink tends to be darker and it transfers a lot better. You can cut out pieces that are the shapes of your nails to use, or you can just use the whole newspaper without cutting anything out, but they are more likely to smudge if you do it this way.

STEP 3: You need to dunk your nails into some vodka (you can also use surgical spirit). I find that if you pour a bit of vodka into a little dish it makes it easier to do the dunking! Make sure your whole nail is covered in the vodka and then grab the newspaper shape that you have cut out and place it on top of the wet nail. Make sure you've shaken it off when you take it out of the vodka though. Press down the newspaper for a few seconds and then gently peel it off, when you life up the first side you'll be able to see if it has printed or not, if not, just push it back down again.

STEP 4: The most important step, you have to put clear varnish over this design, or the ink will slide off within minutes! I made this mistake and was left with really grubby nails. I did this design with the British flag for my London nails and it turned out really well,  I wanted it to print in a really authentic and kind of 'worn' way and I have had so many compliments about this particular design. I have added a video below which will give you some more London inspired designs including the authentic flag design, Olympic rings, Tube stations and the British manicure. I can only hope now that Next like what a first time nail artist has achieved using their array of colours! I also hope that my designs give you hope that ANYONE can do nail art! Like I said, this is my first time and okay, they could be much better but practice makes perfect :)

I hope you like these designs! 

Have you ever used Next's beauty products?

Have you ever tried nail art :)?

xxxxxxxxxxx