I designed a real snakeskin manicure (made from natural snake sluff) a few months ago, and while it makes a statement, it wasn’t very wearable. It’s perfect for one night out, but it wears off too quickly because of the texture and I’ve been promising y’all a faux snakeskin manicure ever since. I was flipping through my Bundle Monster plates recently and realized that it included a snakeskin image plate so I got to stamping.
To get the snakeskin manicure:
- Start with a clear base coat
followed by two coats of white polish. This layer doesn’t have to be perfect, as we’ll be sponging and stamping over it. I used China Glaze Snow
.
- Paint a small amount of polish on a sponge. I cut a corner out of a kitchen sponge. A medium brown works best so that it is a shade that contrasts against the light white and dark black. I used Essie Case Study
.
- Sponge on a thin layer of the brown polish allowing some of the base color to show through.
- Using a stamping kit
, stamp on the snake pattern. I used Bundle Monster image plate 215
and Konad black polish
. You want to get the design all the way to the edges of your nails, so don’t worry about getting the polish on your fingers. It’s easy to clean up.
- To avoid smearing the design, allow the pattern to dry for a few minutes before applying a clear quick dry top coat
.
- Using a short nail art brush and nail polish remover, clean the polish off your fingers and cuticles.
Here are a few manis that inspired this post, besides my own snakeskin manicure, of course :) – very emily and my good friend xoxo, Trina. Is this a manicure you would try? It’s so fun and I can’t wait to show it off today!
Also, just a quick note to let you all know that Fab Fatale is now on Pinterest. I hope you’ll join me!
Some of the products mentioned in this post were sent to me by the merchant or their PR company. All opinions are 100% my own.
You are so amazing with manicures & Konading! Once my stamping skills get better, I’m going to try this one!
I looks amazing! It’s almost identical to mine Haha. The only difference being we used a different brown :) Love it!
YES, in fact, my how to was actually inspired by your fishscale manicure lol. the inspiration goes round and round!
Gorgeous!! They’re so pretty!!!!
thank u! so happy you like! hope you’ll try it :)
Thanks so much for linking my blog! (: absolutely love your snakeskin manicure!
you’re so welcome! thank u so much for the inspiration :) LOVE ur mani :)
Amazing!! absolutely gorg!
Love this! Whenever I try to stamp it comes out disastrous. Maybe because I don’t have the Konad polish? I try using anything thats really pigmented but so far I just can’t get the polish onto the stamp!
hey ally! so happy you love the mani! thanks so much! yes, konad polishes do work best so i would only invest n them for the basic (often used) colors like red for the holidays, black and white. the only non-konad polishes that seem to work well are metallics. some china glaze metallics, not the shimmery ones, work really well. i hope this helps :)
I absolutely love this! Very clever.
thanks! im so happy you like it :)
Beautiful. I am waiting for my set of plates to arrive in the post.
I Loveee this! I am going to add it to my list of manicures to try!
[...] After my exciting and somewhat scary moment with a copperhead last saturday at the lake the idea of swimming wasn’t very exciting at all or at least for the time being, but what made got me excited was looking for some snake skin inspired designs, which to be honest are pretty amazing! if you look close enough you would love the detail. I’m not the biggest fan this style of clothes but the dress above is delicately wild and I love it’s movement, not to mention interior design, that wall texture looks really cool, actually it looks kind of real and I like the room’s colors with silver, gold, beige and purple tones, stunning! Where I definitively love snakeskin the most is in my accessories like my iPod and iPad cases both in pink. What about nails? I love painting my nails but I honestly never tried snakeskin, it just seems difficult, I’ve found two incredible tutorials you can check out if you want to try the look, they really make it look pretty easy: TheNailsaurus / Fabfatale [...]
[...] two coats with no streaks or bald spots. I use white so much in my nail art {let it snow manicure, snake manicure, 4th of July nails, union jack manicure, and palm tree manicure} so I’m happy to add a fresh [...]