Nail artist Simcha Whitehill aka Miss Pop shows you how to create this super-cute geometric pattern in just three steps.
1. Prep and paint pastel shapes. File your nails into the desired shape, push back your cuticles — DO NOT CUT THEM! — and apply one layer of base coat polish. Then, pick four pastel polishes with thin, flexible brushes: a light pink like Deborah Lippmann in "Shape of My Heart," a darker pastel blue like Essie in "Bikini So Teeny," a light green like Deborah Lippmann in "Flowers in Her Hair," and a light blue like Essie in "Find Me An Oasis." Using the bottle brushes, paint each corner of your nail in a different color. Vary the size of the shapes, making some tall rectangles or squat squares. Don't worry too much about making the edges perfect. In the next step, the gold will cover your tracks, or you can use blue painters tape from the hardware store as a guide.
2. Outline the pastel shapes in gold. Using a striper brush dipped in a metallic polish like Essie in "No Place Like Chrome," draw a thin line in between each box.
3. Add extra gold stripes. Choose a color block on each nail, and draw either horizontal or vertical metallic lines across it. Alternate the direction of your lines on every other nail. Finish with a top coat.
Voilà! Pretty pastel nails that people are going to pin the hell out of. Now, go pin, Instagram, and tweet your DIY design with the hashtag #CosmoManiMonday.
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Carly Cardellino was the beauty director at Cosmopolitan. If you follow her Instagram, then you know she'll try just about any beauty trend or treatment once (the pics of her purple hair are on IG to prove it). But her favorite part about being in beauty is finding the most effective products, and then sharing that intel with others—because who wants to spend money on stuff that doesn't work? No one, that's who. Her most recent discovery: De La Cruz Sulfur Ointment, which will change your blemish-clearing game! Hopefully through the beauty stories she writes—and the experiences she shares—you can see exactly why she's in this business.
