I’ve always loved space. I have fond memories of sitting in the elementary school lunch room and day-dreaming about the Milky Way and beyond until my child-brain started to get a bit too existentialist. “Who am I?” I would ask myself as I chose a carton from the chocolate milk vs. 2% milk vs. suspicious orange juice selection. The more I thought about it, the more jiggly and shaky my legs would get; like I was experiencing some sort of vertigo while standing at the top of the Empire State Building and looking down. I still get that feeling even now when I think about space. Thankfully, I don’t get all jiggly just from making space nails so this won’t be the sloppiest tutorial in all the land (Or will it?! Challenge accepted!).

I used a lot of shit for this tutorial, so I’m not going to list them all by name (if you really want to know, just ask in the comments).

You need the following:

-      A dark color for the base/space background (black, navy, or dark purple is best)
-      At least one duochrome color (I used three – if you don’t know what duochrome is, click here)
-      A chunky glitter for stars
-      A top coat (Seche Vite, what! what!)
-      A makeup sponge (again, taken from Sephora where they have free makeup sponges ripe for the…smearing?)

I used the following extra special bonus gold star superhero products in my tutorial, but they are optional:

-      A thin, milky color to give the illusion of space debris
-      A matte black that, when painted over with a shiny, clear top coat, adds depth
-      A flaky holographic polish like Nubar 2010

Start by painting ALL the nails the background space color that you chose. Mine was black (like my soul).

Next, brush some of your duochrome color onto the tip of the sponge and lightly dab the sponge onto your nail. Make sure to make a round, swirly galaxy shape and also to leave some of the solid, dark background showing through on different patches of the nail. You should never have one uniform coat of color.

Repeat this with your other duochromes/milky color/etc. Be creative!

Add some of your chunky glitter. Place the glitter where you would want stars to be in your little galaxyscape.

This is where I haphazardly decided to use my flaky holo (Nubar 2010, as previously mentioned) and a matte black. You don’t have to use the sponge for any polish that is clear and can just dab it on with the brush.

The final result before I did a bit of cleanup:

What do you think of these space-y nails? Any questions or comments? Let me know, I’ll be checking back!

Written by Taylor Blakin
Follow this nail expert and avocado-enthusiast on Blogspot and Tumblr!