Since I’ve been doing a lot of green nail art lately, I needed some outside colour inspiration. One of my Instagram friends Tanya suggested navy blue, one of her favourite colours. For some quick and easy nail art matte navy blue is really chic, and very work appropriate.
Macro of easy nail art matte navy blue
Polishes and tools
Orly Bonder
OPI Russian Navy
Essie No Place Like Chrome
Bundle Monster Classic Beauty XL-355
Clear Jelly Stamper The Big Bling and Bling Brush
Seche Vite
Rimmel Pro Matte top coat (discontinued)
This is some of the quickest and easiest nail art can do. If you don’t have any stamping equipment I’ll explain how you can achieve this with only things you probably have lying around.
OPI Russian Navy for easy nail art matte navy blue
After my base of Bonder, I used two coats of OPI Russian Navy. It’s quite opaque so you only need two coats. This polish has a lot of purple undertones, which make this navy blue a bit more interesting.
Before I do any stamping, I add a layer of top coat. If you aren’t stamping you can skip this step.
OPI Russian Navy easy nail art matte navy blue
If you want a super quick nail art look, do a feature nail or two. By focusing the design on a couple of nails, it really stands out without being overpowering. I often choose my ring finger and thumb, or sometimes my middle and ring fingers.
I used a silver foil for my stamping which I know works well every time. Most metallic foil polishes stamp well.
Stamped silver easy nail art matte navy blue
Easy alternatives to stamping
For this design, the dots are in quite a random gradient. If you dip the head of a pin, or the tip of a hair pin into silver polish, you can make perfect dots that way too.
Just make sure that you clean your tool in between dipping into the polish, or your dots will get bigger and bigger. You don’t need much polish at all, or your dots will be lumps rather than flat with the base polish.
Mattified Navy Blue stamped in silver
After I stamped I used more quick dry top coat before the matte coat. This is for two reasons:
- It makes the manicure more hard wearing, so it lasts longer
- It makes sure my design doesn’t streak or smear.
If you do the dots using a tool, make sure they are completely dry before adding top coat. Since you’re using more polish than stamping it could take time. Be patient! One of the reasons I prefer Seche Vite as a top coat is that it tends not to smear the art underneath.
Stamped silver dots on matte OPI Russian Navy
My easy nail art matte navy blue
Since I was only doing the design on a few nails, this was nice and quick. But I think my matte top coat is on the way out – it’s looking distinctly shiny on some of my nails.
So what do you think? Would you give a few dots on your nails a go, using a pin you have to hand already?
May 31, 2017
Great tip with the pin. I’m loving the feature nail look right now, whenever I get my nails done I always go for a feature nail. Love this shade of blue and the pattern
May 31, 2017
Thank you for the inspiration! I was really stuck and feeling like I didn’t know what to do.
May 31, 2017
Can’t wait to try this using a pin! I had no idea it could be this easy to do nail art!
June 1, 2017
Definitely! It doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult, just something easy like this can really elevate your nails.
May 31, 2017
Fab, something that seems achievable to me, can’t wait to give it a go. x
June 1, 2017
That’s great Lara! I really want to see what you do!
July 2, 2017
I love these nails! really pretty and I would definitely have these done 🙂
July 2, 2017
Thanks Wanda, I think these are perfect for the office. Really chic – glad you like them!