Summer Nail Art: Lemonade Nails

You know those scorching hot summer days when all you want is to lie by the pool with an endless supply of ice-cold mint lemonade? I know them too, all too well! To honor that unparalleled hot lazy feeling, I give you the Mint Lemonade Nails!

They’re surprisingly easy to do and really catchy – I almost get a cooling feeling just by looking at them! That alone is enough to make me want to wear lemonade nails all summer long! Now if I could arrange for a backyard pool… eh, that’s for another set of nails!

Let’s hit the lemonade now: on yellow solid base (OPI I can’t Cope a cabana), get your gradient sponge close and a solid white polish to create a beautiful yellow-white ombre! Top it with a matte topcoat and you’ll discover such a cooling and perfect mani, you might want to keep just the gradient for a few days!

On the two middle fingernails, I started painting the mint leaves using two different green polishes to make for a more real effect. You can always use acrylics to paint those leaves – and don’t be afraid if you don’t get it right the first time – what you see there was painted with my non-dominant hand, so believe me when I say that with a bit of patience, all is doable – even the Minions!

See also: How to paint Fabulous Festival Nails!

When you finished your two leaved nails, you can proceed to painting the lemon slices – I painted my index and my pinky fingernails with half lemon slices to contrast the tiny leaves I did on the two other nails – you need a striping brush, white and yellow polish. The lemon slices are really easy to make and the nails’ natural shape helped me a lot in recreating the oval lemon slice.

See also: How to paint a fabulous neon floral gradient freehand!

Remember when I told you I covered my gradient with a matte topcoat? Well, the picture below is the finished Mint Lemonade Nail art with no other topcoat. Just on its own, over the matte gradient – I like my freehand nail art on the matte side, I find it amps up the artistic factor. Or it’s just in my head…

So if you like your Lemonade with sparkling water, here’s the Sparkling Lemonade Nails with added glitter! (Milani’s Diamond Dazzle is really good at adding a perfect dose of shine and dazzle). I covered the Mint accented nails with glitter entirely but only brushed half the lemonade slices nails with glitter – from the slices onward, leaving the lemon as it is, sans glitter.

See also: Diamond Dazzle on the spectacular 4th of July nails!

It really is a wonderful, simple, cooling manicure to do and to wear during the hot summer days! Even if you don’t have a slice of lemon and a pinch of mint to help you get through the scorching temperatures, the Lemonade nails will definitely soothe things out for you!