Nail art essentials - the brushes.

Hi guys - little update from January 2017. I've now released my own line of nail art brushes! They're the four essential brushes you need to create any kind of hand-painted nail art, and I think you'll love them. Find out more about them at my online store - I ship internationally! 

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  I've previously mentioned how dotting tools are one of nail art's most essential items - but nail art brushes are even more important! I'm going to show you the set I always buy, which I normally get from Born Pretty Store. While you can do nail art with just the brushes in the bottles you'll be very limited. Brushes mean no limits! This post will tell you about all the brushes and give examples of what you can do with them.

Right, so here are the brushes. They come in a pack of 15, which you can buy here for $5.96 US. 

They come in the plastic packet seen above, but I usually throw that out as I have a container I keep my brushes in - you can see it at the bottom of this post here. However if you don't have a designated spot for your brushes I recommend keeping the packet - they can get lost under couches and beds very easily!

 I've separated the brushes out into six different groups. I'll explain what I personally use them all for. Bear in mind this is just what I do, and I'm sure other people use the brushes that I don't, or use them in different ways!

Firstly we have what I call "clean up brushes." These are super important if you want clean cuticles. I used to just use cotton buds, but I now prefer the clean, rounded edge that these brushes give you. The dirty one is the one I use the most! The other two I only really keep as back-ups, for when the first brush gets too frayed and old.

Cuticle clean-up isn't an essential part of nail art, as the polish you get on your skin will come off in the shower/over time. However since I post close up pictures of my nails on the internet I prefer them to be quite tidy. Here's an example of what these brushes can do. Pay close attention to the cuticle area - which, by the way is at the top of your fingernails!

Messy cuticles!

Clean cuticles! Not perfect but good enough :).

 Next we have striping brushes. They come in three different lengths and are (obviously) very useful when making stripes!

I've got a video showing me using them here. It's of these nails:

Next we have some detail brushes. I use these, but not heaps. I tend to cut down my striping brushes instead as they get older and make them really thin, far thinner than these.

However these are good for designs like leopard print!

I have a tutorial for these too! Here!

 Next we have fan brushes. These ones are often seen as a bit useless, but there are things that you can do with them - cool things, too!

If you put just a small amount of polish on the very tip you can sweep it across your nail for an awesome effect.

These ones are the ones I use the least. They're just a bit too thick for the kinds of nail art I like to do, and if I want a thick line or dot I normally just use the brushes that come in the nail polish. However if you tend to use acrylic paint on your nails a lot these may be more useful. I know that one-stroke nail art can be done with these sorts of brushes, but personally I've never had much luck with that!

Here's some gorgeous one-stroke nail art done by Polish Infatuated! I'm not sure what brush she used, but it was probably like one of these ones or an angled one.

And last we have the tiny little dotting tool. This is slightly smaller than the smallest normal dotting tool I have, so I find it very useful. Great for making your nails just a little bit more special!

Here are a couple of examples! All little dots were done by this tool.

And thus concludes my post on nail art brushes! I hope some of you newbies to nail art find it helpful! If you want to grab your first set of nail art brushes (or replace your current set) you can buy these with free shipping here.

Don't forget to use my Born Pretty Store discount code to get 10% off! 

 

*This product was provided to me for honest review from Born Pretty Store*

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