Freehand Nail Art Doodles Using Presto Gels
I purchased some Presto art gels a while ago and finally had some time this week to play with them a little. I picked out some colors that I thought would work well together and then sat down at my nail table with no design ideas at all and just started doodling!
The base color is two coats of Madam Glam Lilac, a beautiful color with amazing coverage. I’m currently wear-testing a Madam Glam polish and will be doing a full write up with some swatches in the next week, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll just tell you now that I’m super impressed! You can save 30% on your Madam Glam order with coupon code CHICKETTES30. It looks like they have a winter sale going on right now where you can get up to 40% off!
I picked up the Presto gel pots from Nail Labo. The colors that I used are Fresco (teal), Rigoroso (purple) and Chiarezza (silver). They have a thick formula and don’t spread when you draw on your nails with them. I used a fine-tipped nail art brush that one of my classmates gave me, and a small dotting tool. I’m still fairly new to freehand art, so even this simple design took me a long time to do. The silver polish was the easiest to work with since it didn’t seem quite as thick and brushed on really easily. I plan to practice some more. :)
I absolutely adore this! Great job and so original looking!
ohhh! Never heard of Madam Glam and just looked them up! Wow they have some gorg glitters!!
What a great job you do, Andrea! The nails look fantastic!
She has BOGO today with the code BOGOGEL per her daily email.
Who is “she”? :) Madam Glam or Nail Labo?
Sorry, it was Madam Glam
Gorgeous design.
Does the 40% on MadamGlam layer with the 30% from here?
I think you can only use one coupon code at a time, so no. :)
Great job Andrea! Love the design and colors!
Andrea, you mentioned “thick formula”, do you think these gels would be suitable for nail stamping?
No, gels don’t stamp no matter how thick they are.
Wow, those nails are fantastic!
Is lilac the same as “light lilac” on her site?
Yes, it’s Light Lilac. :)
Right, the ones that say “polish” are polish in a bottle with a brush. I used the “Presto Color Gel”. They are soak-off and I think the nail art gels are soak-off also. If you apply them over a soak-off polish, they will come off regardless.
Just wanted to let you know. The Presto gel you used in the post is not considered an art gel. For now, Presto only carries black and white art gels. When they came out w/ the white and black art gels I was told they might be coming out w/ more colors. If you look at the art gel description on naillabo.us it says “Smudge proof art gel. Smooth texture and spreads well evenly. Allows you to draw extremely thin lines for better designs with gel. These are designed for art purposes only. Art gel contains more pigment than color gels. Use proper amount to prevent uncured areas.” I have the black and white art gels and really like them. Akzentz also has good art gels.
Thanks for clarifying that. I found the Nail Labo site to be a little confusing. They have a section of “art gels” that has 8 colors including black & white that use the same description that you posted, and then they have “color gels” and I wasn’t sure what the difference is since they come in pots too.
I made a mistake, you’re right. There are 6 other gel art colors now. They are the “Presto Art Gel Artist Series Tokyo Swag Collection” gels that recently came out. The naillabo.us site only shows the black and white art gels listed. But now I see when I go to naillabostore.com they have the 6 new Artist Series colors. Someone explained that in Japan the gel pots are more common and the gel bottles are more common in the US. Personally, I find it much harder to use gel pots w/ a gel brush than to use gel bottles. It is getting easier the more I practice, just like w/ anything I guess. I really like the Presto gel brushes. They have great regular gel brushes and gel art brushes.
I found a presto gel color I really like (#101/ordinario) but I’m confused about the application since it seems to be in a pot. Can I use this with gelish foundation/topcoat? Or does it need a special application? I can’t find this info anywhere online so any tips would be appreciated!
You should be able to use it with Gelish foundation & top.
What brush do you prefer to use for the nail art?