Studio Black with torn Liquid Gold foil pressed on and buried under a thick top coat.
2 bottles: Studio Black and Liquid Gold. Studio Black against Liquid Gold is a hard contrast, so the motif reads from across a room, and any wobble in the line reads with it. The bottles are not all the same finish (crème and chrome), so the pattern picks up light differently from the ground.
It sits on a coffin, sometimes called ballerina, tapered at the sides and cut off square at the tip. It needs real length and repays it with the largest flat area of any shape.
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Bottles for this nail
Tap a bottle to open it on the shelfWhat you need
How to paint Ink Foil nails
- 1 Buff, dehydrate and base coat, then cure. Studio Black, cured.
- 2 Press Liquid Gold foil onto tacky gel in irregular patches, with torn edges rather than squares.
- 3 Bury it under two thick top coats so nothing catches.
Questions about Ink Foil
Is Ink Foil hard to do at home?
It is the hardest tier on the site. It is doable at home, but the technique is the point rather than the colour. Budget an hour or more for a full set, and two colours keeps it simple: cure the first before the second goes near it and nothing bleeds.
What polish do I need for Ink Foil?
2 bottles: Studio Black (crème) and Liquid Gold (chrome). Plus a base coat and a gloss top coat, which every design here assumes you already have.
Does Ink Foil work on short nails?
Coffin is the one shape here that genuinely needs length. On a short nail there is not enough free edge to cut square, and it will read as a squoval instead.
Do I need a UV lamp for Ink Foil?
Yes. Liquid Gold only works as a gel — the effect depends on rubbing or setting the finish into a cured tacky layer, which air-dry polish never gives you.