Adorned Nails: Paint Drip

The black base of Essence Grand-Plié in Black looks pretty cool with the sparse coral glitters but I felt that it was calling for some nail art: paint drip. However, instead of doing it on the usual nail tips, I've done it from the cuticle side of the nails.

I think I saw paint drip nails for the first time last year on Majolica Majorca's website. It was their Fall In Girl Collection and the model, Minami Hinase (I think), had on a black polish with red paint 'dripping' from the nail tips. As I wasn't sure if it was best done with a brush or a dotting tool, I did an online search recently and found this useful video by the talented Sokolum79. I've adapted her method somewhat: 1. My paint drips from the cuticle side. 2. Her method involved more dotting than dragging and mine is more dragging than dotting. You will end up with more or less the same results.

I used:

Base coat (not shown)
Black polish - Essence Grand-Plié in Black
Orange polish - Sephora Mangue L21
Dotting tool (I bought mine from Essence)
A non-absorbent surface to put a blop of polish on
Clear top coat (not shown)

Here's how you can do paint drip nails (in reverse - cuticle side):

1. Apply two coats of the black polish over a base coat. Let that dry.

Note: It is better to complete all the paint drips on one nail before proceeding to the next nail.

2. Carelessly add the orange polish to the cuticle side of the nails. Don't worry if it's messy. You will clean it up at the end.

3. Place a blop of the orange polish on a non-absorbent surface (I've simply used a plastic surface here).

Dip the dotting tool into the blop and then draw/drag an orange line down from the orange 'mess' painted in Step 2. The bigger the dollop of polish on the dotting tool, the easier it would be to draw/drag a line.

If you still have polish left on the dotting tool, then you can end the line with a dot. If not, go to Step 4.

4. Dip the dotting tool again into the blop to extract more polish and then add a dot to the end of the line just drawn.

5. You will need anywhere from two to four drip-lines on each nail. Try to vary the length of the drips so that they look random.

6. Wait for the orange polish to dry (that may take a while as the dots and such have been thickly applied).

7. Clean up the cuticles.
Please refer to my post on the Essence Nail Polish Corrector Pen to see how I clean up after applying nail polish.

8. Apply a clear top coat and you're done!


I have tried this (reverse) paint drip manicure twice. That would explain why the drips in the very first (hand) image above do not correspond to those in the subsequent images.

I'm not big on theatrical stuff but I would imagine that this nail look would be great for a Halloween party.

This is how paint drip nails look from a distance.

I have a couple more images of these paint drip nails over at Witoxichic.