Bare Rosé Houndstooth nails

Stiletto · Houndstooth

Salon or steady hand

Bare Rosé with a Milk Bath houndstooth repeat — four strokes per tooth, and they have to interlock.

3 bottles: Bare Rosé, Milk Bath and Rosewood. Bare Rosé and Milk Bath are close in tone, so the design is tonal rather than graphic. It shows up in daylight and softens indoors. The bottles are not all the same finish (sheer and crème), so the pattern picks up light differently from the ground.

It sits on a stiletto, filed to a point from a wide base, which is the most dramatic shape here and the one that compresses a motif hardest toward the tip.

Make it yours

Pick a part of the nail, then a shade
Base: Bare Rosé · Sheer Open the bottle

Bottles for this nail

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What you need

Base colour cured
Striper brush clean lines
Gloss top level the paint

How to paint Bare Rosé Houndstooth nails

  1. 1 Buff, dehydrate and base coat, then cure. Three sheer coats of Bare Rosé — it is translucent, so it builds rather than covers.
  2. 2 Build each Milk Bath tooth from four short strokes and let them interlock with the next.
  3. 3 Gloss top coat, cure, then cuticle oil once it is out of the lamp.

Questions about Bare Rosé Houndstooth

  • Is Bare Rosé Houndstooth 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 three colours means three chances for something to bleed, so cure between each one rather than working wet on wet.

  • What polish do I need for Bare Rosé Houndstooth?

    3 bottles: Bare Rosé (sheer), Milk Bath (sheer) and Rosewood (crème). Plus a base coat and a gloss top coat, which every design here assumes you already have.

  • Does Bare Rosé Houndstooth work on short nails?

    Stiletto needs length, because the point is most of the shape. On a short nail it files down to something closer to almond, and the design still reads, just less sharply.

  • How many coats does Bare Rosé Houndstooth need?

    More than you would expect. Bare Rosé and Milk Bath are translucent, so the colour builds over three thin coats rather than covering in two. Stop wherever you like the depth — that is the point of a sheer.

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