Dotty Tutorial

These dotty nails take patience and a steady hand but are not too difficult to create. I found it hard to keep the dots even in size and neat looking at first but that comes quickly with practice.

You will need white nail polish and a few different coloured nail polishes, I used four for this design which helped to keep it balanced but you could do it with any number of polishes you like. You also need a piece of paper, a bobby pin and something to clean it with. I used a cotton pad. You could also use a separate bobby pin for each colour to avoid any contamination.

1. Paint your entire nail normally with the white polish.

2. Dab a bit of your first colour onto a piece of paper and dip the tip of the bobby pin in it.

3. Use the bobby pin to make a line of dots vertically up the centre of the nail. Be sure to leave a large enough gap between each one for another dot. 

 4. On either side of the first line, with enough space left for another line of dots, make another line with the first colour. Repeat until the nail is full. 

 5. Dab some of your next colour polish onto some paper and dip in the bobby pin. Use this to fill in the gaps between the dots all over the nail. 

6. Do the same with the other two colours in the vertical gaps. 

7. Using a small brush or cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover clean up any nail polish on the finger. 

7. Seal in the design with a top coat and you're done!

You will need to keep re-dipping the bobby pin in the polish after every few dots. You may find that straight after dipping the dots are much larger than after a few dots have been made. I try to press lightly for the first few dots each time so make the sizes more even. You will also need to keep re-applying polish to the paper as it will dry out. As the polish dries it can become tacky and harder to work with. I would advise that instead of struggling with unworkable semi-dry polish, you just add some more to the paper.

It doesn't matter too much if the lines are not perfectly straight as the design just looks random when you're not up close anyway. Mine certainly were not perfect but they did the job.

Happy dotting!! :)