How To Do Super Easy Nail Art At Your Desk – instyle.co.uk

by George Driver

Thursday 28 April, 2016

Nail art at your desk? Yup, it’s totally doable. All you need is our 4 awesome Nails Inc InStyle shades (free with our June issue dontcha know) and some stationery…

Let’s be honest, we’re all guilty of doing our nails at our desk (add that to the long list of every other deskside beauty routine we’ve mastered – FYI painting your toe nails is too far people) but it doesn’t always look good. Read – it generally looks a state.

Our solution? A super quick negative space mani you can do in less than five mins at your desk. Ever since they popped up backstage at fashion everywhere from Rebecca Minkoff to Adam Selman, we’ve been a little bit obsessed with negative space nails (aka where you leave part of your nail bare).

Why? Well, mainly because it means less nail varnish. Less nail varnish = less chance of messing it up = a nail art at your desk win.

Yup, stop reading those emails, put the pen down, it’s time to get your nail art on. Here’s how:

1. Make sure you’re starting with bare nails. Not chipped, not half painted, bare. There’s no time for removing old varnish and painting over isn’t the one.

2. Place a piece of tissue down on your desk (a Pret napkin works wonders) so you paint your nails, not your workspace.

3. Take a set of small white round stickers (the kind you use to mark a calendar with those much-needed holiday days if you’re super old school and don’t have a phone…) and place each one over the cuticle of your nail so a half moon shape covers your nailbed.

4. Choose your fave shade from our amazing InStyle Nails Inc polishes free with our June issue and worth a whopping £11 (can we get a, ‘Say what?!’). Go for a summery coral with California Dreams, a bold red with Texas Talking, a scandi-cool dove grey with Ohio Desire or, our personal fave, the electric blue Oregon’s Out. Can’t decide? Collect them all (anyone else feeling Pokemon vibes?) and go for a mix and match mani.

5. Paint your whole nail, going over the sticker as well.

6. Leave to dry and consider reading some emails. Decide you don’t want to do any work and read the rest of this article instead. Good decision.

7. Once fully dry, peel off the stickers one by one to reveal a half moon shape of bare nail, the rest of your nail painted and perfect curve dividing the two. Thanks stickers.

8. Finish with a top coat for glossy, keyboard proof nails and voila! A last minute mani done at your desk, perfect for showing off at post-work drinks.

Get your in-need-of-nail-art hands on our June issue for your free InStyle Nails Inc varnish now!

Collect all four awesome shades and have your summer mani sorted. Well, when they’re worth £11 and come free with InStyle (which we heard was totes a really cool magazine) it just makes financial sense. You can’t fault that logic.