Purple magic simple looping effect

So the 'looping effect' mani is one of the very first designs I did when I first started doing something other than just one colour plus a stripe of another colour down the middle of nails. The earliest looping effect mani I have on record courtesy of photo date stamps is sometime in 2010. This was all way way before I was doing anything fancy, and before I'd discovered that an online world of nail art existed. The first time I spoke of the looping effect on this blog was right around when I launched this blog, so February of 2014.

The base polish and the two striper polishes I used to create this look are all products included in my 10k followers on Instagram celebatory giveaway, which you can enter to win if you have an Instagram account, see giveaway rules etc. here.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Why bother using striper polishes, you ask, when you can just use a nail art brush and any nail polish colour or acrylic paint you want? For one, the clean up is annoying. To have to clean a brush everytime you dunk it into a colour, and in this case I used two colours, is a pain in the ass. Secondly, there's something about having a brush that permanently lives in the nail polish bottle that allows it to nicely glide a perfect swipe of polish onto the nail. This is probably because the polish is so soaked up into the brush for all of its life. Anyways, these Quo by Orly Instant Artist striper polishes I used are awesome, have the perfect width and length of brush, rarely get gloopy, and are restored back to regular fluid viscosity when you add a bit of nail polish thinner. I have maybe 7 of them in assorted basic colours. They retail for only $4.00CAD but are an exclusive to Shoppers Drug Mart, which is only in Canada. The base purple jelly is also Quo by Orly, and the little gems are just random not-so-gem-like-gems that you can get in 'wheels' from almost anywhere, such as eBay or Born Pretty Store.

Here's a somewhat behind the scene shot cause I laughed when I saw it. This is how I take my double-hand pics, I hold a foam board between my hands and my body with my mouth :D

1 MIN OR UNDER VIDEO TUTORIAL:

(see also 15sec version on Instagram)

The video should be pretty self-explanatory, but here's the abbreviated steps:

1. Apply base polish. Here I used four coats of the purple jelly.
2. Use black striping polish to draw a loop with two swift paint brush swooshes in the centre of the corner of the nail.
3. Add two more loops on either side of the center loop.
4. Use white striping polish to outline the inside of one of the loop walls, on each of the three loops.
5. Get your gems ready by laying them out on a flat surface, dab a bit of top coat or clear polish on the end of a dotting tool, and pick up the gem.
6. Top coat one nail and promptly place three gems down in the corner of the loops where they gather. Repeat for all nails, ensuring that you are working quickly once you've applied top coat to the nail. Some people use nail glue instead of just top coat to stick the gem to the nail, but I didn't care how long it lasted since I knew I'd be doing my nails soon anyway :D

Polishes used:
- Quo by Orly 'Purple magic' (pink-purple jelly with bluish shimmer and flecks)
- Quo by Orly Instant Artist 'Black' (black striper)
- Quo by Orly Instant Artist 'White' (white striper)